The protest led to a tense standoff between demonstrators and Jewish students
Photo Credit: Sarah Mester
By Sarah Mester
A pro-Palestinian demonstration marched near campus on the afternoon of March 31 to protest Penn Hillel panelist Noa Tishby, who spoke at an event featuring October 7 survivors, and the University for not divesting from Israel companies. Prior to the start of the protest, flyers featuring the title “Breaking News Land Day 2025” could be seen around Fisher Fine Arts. Land Day commemorates a March 30, 1976 Palestinian general strike against West Bank Israeli security forces, during which six were killed. Starting at 34th and Walnut, the hour-long protest stalled within sight of Hillel for fifteen minutes, during which one of the demonstrators gave a speech discussing October 7 and Gazan resistance. Nearby Jewish students held an Israeli flag in counterprotest.
The protest of around 100-125 people reached 34th and Market at 5:40 pm. At the front of the crowd was a large banner bearing the words “Amerika is the Head of the Snake”. Individual participants held signs that said “Let Gaza Live” and “Fuck Zionists, Free Palestine.” There was a heavy police presence from the start of the event, with around a dozen Philadelphia Police Department officers on bikes following the protest on each side and around fifteen police cars trailing the crowd. However, there was no interaction between the police and the protestors.
As the protest moved from 34th to past S University St—a distance of three blocks—the Penn Post news team took note of the following chants, which are direct quotes:
- Oink oink piggy piggy, we can make your lives shitty
- Zionists out of Philly
- We are the resistance, long live resistance
- If we don’t get it, shut it down, shut it down
- Free, free Palestine
- From Philly to Palestine occupation is a crime
- Palestine to Mexico, all the walls have got to go
- Falasteen arabiye (Palestine is Arab)
- From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free
- From the sea to the river, Palestine will live forever
- Not another nickel, not another dime, no more money for Israel’s crimes
- Israel is a terrorist state
- This is called people’s power
- Disclose, divest, we will not stop we will not rest
- 1, 2, 3, 4 open up those prison doors, 5, 6, 7, 8 Gaza we will liberate
- There is only one solution, student led revolution
- Fuck, Fuck, ICE
- Glory to all our martyrs, all our sons and all our daughters.
- We will free Palestine within our lifetime
- Resistance is glorious, we will be victorious
- Israel bombs, USA pays, how many kids did you kill today?
- Trustees your hands are red, 200,000 people dead
- No more money for genocide
- UPenn, UPenn, you can’t hide, we judge you with genocide
- Fuck Hillel
At one point during this stretch, a nearby spectator asked the protesters to take their face coverings off, to which a protest leader who had been leading chants by megaphone responded with an expletive rebuke, calling the spectator a “fucking scumbag.”
Shortly after, the protest paused in front of the Sigma Alpha Mu fraternity house—a fraternity with Jewish heritage, but with membership open to all—located between S University Street and 38th. A group of ten members were standing on the balcony watching the protest and one of them unfolded an Israeli flag. There was no direct interaction between the fraternity member holding the flag and the protestors, although the member briefly flipped the protestors off as the demonstration started moving towards 39th.
By 6:10 p.m., the protest had reached 39th Street near the pathway to Penn Hillel. The pathway was blocked off with gates and additional police officers. A Hillel event titled “Voices of October 7,” which featured prominent Israeli actress and activist Noa Tishby and testimonials from survivors of 10/7, was actively being held when the protest reached 39th. The protest paused at 39th and a long speech was given by a protester targeting Noa Tishby, Hillel, and the October 7 survivors. A full transcript of the speech, transcribed by Penn Post reporter Sarah Mester from audio recording taken by her during the event, can be found here.
The speaker asserted that Tishby “has everything to gain from the Palestinians plight” and “proudly peddles the same October 7th propaganda” while “telling lies of sexual assault that have been disproven by the United Nations.” Tishby was also accused of demanding that “the Palestinian people lay down and die.”
Throughout the speech, the speaker referred to the Jewish students behind the barricade with an Israeli flag as “genocidal freaks”, “genocidal idiots”, “dumb bitches”, “pieces of shit”, and “genocidal ghouls”. At one point, the speaker said that “these, I don’t want to call them people, promoted” lies about October 7. Various members of the protest directed additional shouting—some of it unintelligible—towards the counter-protestors.
The speaker went on to describe October 7 as a moment of “revolutionary fire” that represented Gazan resistance and that there were people at Hillel “who are claiming to be victims of October 7”. The speaker noted that the State of Israel “will come to an end” and that Zionism cannot be grappled with, discussed, or negotiated with. The speech ended with the following assertions: “Long live the intifada! Long live the Palestinian resistance! And long live Al-Aqsa Flood!” The “Al-Aqsa Flood” is the term given to the October 7 attack by Hamas.
Following this speech, the protest moved down 39th away from campus, before turning on Market and briefly stalling at Market and 40th before dispersing. In addition to chants of “Israel we will liberate” and “we will honor all our martyrs”, a second speech was delivered that the speaker indicated was supposed to be given at Hillel. It focused on what could be described as anti-imperialism or anti-Americanism. A third speaker concluded by talking about how the pro-Palestinian movement could benefit other underrepresented groups and lead the chanting of this mantra: “It is our duty to fight for our freedom. It is our duty to win. We must love and support each other. We must love and protect each other. We have nothing to lose but our chains.”
The speaker ended by noting that due to campus being infested with Zionists, nobody should leave alone and that protestors should cover their faces “if you have not been doing that already” and “not talk to fucking pigs”. The protest then started to quickly disperse around 7:00 pm and traffic at the intersection, which had been blocked for nearly half an hour, reopened.
Sarah Mester is a senior in the College studying Political Science and Classics from San Francisco, CA. She’s the News Editor for The Pennsylvania Post. Her email is smester@sas.upenn.edu.
