By
PHILIP MARCELO
Published 2:09 PM PDT, October 31, 2023
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CLAIM: Pro-Palestine rallies at UCLA, Penn and elsewhere are calling for âJewish genocide.â
APâS ASSESSMENT: False. The chant uttered during recent demonstrations is being misrepresented. Protestors arenât saying âWe want Jewish genocide,â but âIsrael, we charge you with genocide.â Experts and advocates say itâs a typical refrain heard at pro-Palestinian rallies.
THE FACTS: Social media users are sharing videos they claim show college students calling for the extermination of Jewish people as they protest the
Israel-Hamas war on
campuses across the country.
One video shows a group of people chanting protest slogans as they marched through the University of California, Los Angeles, campus last week.
âIn UCLA hundreds of students chanting: âIsrael Israel you canât hide, we want Jewish genocideâ,â wrote one Instagram user in a post sharing the video last week. âThis is not 1930s Germany, this is in Los Angeles October 26th 2023!â
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But the anti-Israel chants heard during the pro-Palestine rallies are being misquoted, Jewish and Palestinian groups say.
The protestors are actually chanting, âIsrael, Israel, you canât hide: We charge you with genocide,â the Anti-Defamation League, which frequently speaks out against anti-Semitism and extremism, confirmed in an email Tuesday.
Indeed news outlets in
Houston,
Chicago and other cities reported the same chant at pro-Palestinian rallies this month.
Penn Students Against the Occupation, which organized the Penn rally, dismissed the claims as âblatant disinformationâ in a statement
posted on Instagram.
âPAO would like to explicitly state that this claim is false and did not happen whatsoever,â the group wrote, noting that it was just one of many chats during the demonstration. âPAO unequivocally stands with Palestine in the face of ongoing genocide committed by the Israeli government, which has been assisted by other Western allies like the United States.â
The chants last week at UCLA were similarly misquoted, the university said on a
webpage correcting misinformation related to campus events.
Dan Gold, who heads Hillel UCLA, a major Jewish organization on campus, noted his organization
has called out the rally for its harmful rhetoric in its public statements.
But he personally observed the protest and confirmed there was no direct call to exterminate Jews.
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This is part of APâs effort to address widely shared misinformation, including work with outside companies and organizations to add factual context to misleading content that is circulating online.
Learn more about fact-checking at AP.
PHILIP MARCELO
Marcelo is a general assignment reporter in the NYC bureau. He previously wrote for AP Fact Check and before that was based in Boston, where he focused on race and immigration.
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