WWU Divest Apartheid Coalition, a student political organization against Israel’s occupation of Palestinian territories, led a protest on Thursday, April 16, in Red Square against “Triggered: The Ceaseless Tour,” an event held by Students Supporting Israel that invited Israeli reserve soldiers to speak on campus.
About a hundred students and community members surrounded Fisher Fountain at 2 p.m. to protest Western Washington University allowing Israeli soldiers to be on campus. Several speakers condemned the university’s initial compliance with the event despite students’ concerns. Yoav Litvin, an Israeli-American artist and neuroscientist based in New York City and board vice president of the Whatcom Peace & Justice Center, was one of the speakers.
“We are not here because we are ‘triggered,’” Litvin said. “We are here because we are human beings and we are appalled.”
Safety concerns were the coalition’s primary reason for protesting the event. They believed the event violated Western’s diversity, equity and inclusion policy by giving a platform to the violence conducted by the Israeli military and endangered students of Arab background, according to Farouk F., a main speaker at the protest.
“This event could set a dangerous precedent going forward that glorifying violence against Black and brown people is an acceptable topic for an event,” said Farouk, who asked to be identified by their first name only due to safety concerns.
SSI is a nationwide student group whose goal is to educate students on the position of Israel in current events by promoting open discussion, according to the Western chapter’s club constitution.
The Bellingham event is part of an SSI initiative that began in spring 2025 in which Israeli military reservists tour college campuses and give talks about their experiences serving in action.
“As a Jewish student, I have felt absolutely alienated as a student, and the school has never backed me,” said Will Simon, the organizer for the campus SSI event and president of SSI’s Western chapter.
The two soldiers who spoke at the event for SSI’s Western chapter flew in from Arizona the same day, and the event had to be pushed from 2 to 3 p.m. to accommodate flight delays and traffic.
Talk moved off campus
SSI did not release the location of the event until the day of, and only to those who registered. After registering, some people got emails from the organizers, asking why they wanted to attend.
It was originally planned to be hosted on campus but was relocated off campus to the Stateside student housing apartments in downtown Bellingham the day of the event due to security concerns.
“We received multiple threats that were highly credible,” Simon said in a text.
One message he received on Instagram read, “I hope the genocidal terrorists you are welcoming get put down like sick cattle and you with them for supporting a nation founded on hate and the murder of innocents.”
Simon was told by university officials that they could not guarantee the safety of the event.
David Solovy, who went to the event, said he was disturbed that a “heckler’s veto” worked to move the event off campus, and he thought Western’s administration “copped out” by not offering SSI more options.
Jordan Genut, another event attendee, said he supports the students’ right to peacefully protest.
“I think that these people have really good intentions, and I believe that they are truly on the side of the good,” he said.
Thirteen people showed up to the SSI event. Because of the threats they received, the organizers decided to limit attendees to approved journalists and people they knew through friends. There were a couple of interruptions during the event: one from an unapproved individual trying to get in, and another from Stateside’s property manager.
Freja Kizis, the property manager for Stateside apartments, said building management was unaware that the event was being held at Stateside until receiving complaints from people who were being turned away at the door.
David Wyant, who works in maintenance for Stateside, joined the property manager on the roof terrace and said the space is not available for reservation and cannot be restricted, as it is open to all residents.
Soldiers speak
During the event at Stateside, Eli Wininger, one of the panelists at the event and an Israel Defense Forces master sergeant, said that the purpose of the SSI tour is not to spread hate but to encourage conversation among people with differing opinions.
“I’m hoping that people leave seeing what the Jewish people really want, what Israel’s really fighting for, what the IDF really represents and stands for,” Wininger said.
The panelists shared stories of their experiences in the military and what motivated them to join.
“My grandfather was a survivor of the Holocaust, and I could not live with myself if I didn’t stand up to prevent what had happened to my grandfather from happening again,” Wininger said.
He explained that Operation Protective Edge, also known as the 2014 Gaza War, is what had initially motivated him as a student to get more involved in organizing. “I felt I wasn’t doing enough.”
Wininger was not a part of the Israeli military in 2014, but joined in 2016. He said that, relative to now, the period in which he served from 2016 to 2019 was peaceful.
He recalled the morning of Oct. 7, 2023, when he saw on the news that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu declared war on Gaza. “I knew this was our modern-day Holocaust,” Wininger said.
Wininger was not the only person influenced by the 2014 Gaza War. Margaret Henry, a Western graduate and protest attendee, said hearing about the war made her more aware of Israel’s actions in Gaza.
“I was 16 at the time, and I remember mass bombardment campaigns and deaths in the West Bank,” Henry said.
She added that her Lebanese heritage motivates her continued involvement in advocacy related to Israel’s actions in the Palestinian territories. She fears for her family, still living in Southern Lebanon, which is currently enduring a ground invasion by Israeli soldiers. She said that this has given her further motivation to join protesters in opposing the SSI event.
According to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees, the 2014 50-day conflict in Gaza left 2,251 Palestinians dead, including 551 children and 299 women. A total of 66 Israeli soldiers and five Israeli civilians, including one child, were also killed.
Estimates by the UNRWA state that 11,231 Palestinians were injured during the conflict, including 3,540 women and 3,436 children.
Up to 1,600 Israelis were injured, including 270 children, according to the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs.
“Israel is, without a shred of doubt, doing the right thing. Most moral military in the world, and on the right side of history,” Wininger said.
During the panel, Wininger shared a story from his time in the Gaza Strip. While operating in an evacuated neighborhood in northern Gaza, he said his unit received intelligence that combatants might be nearby and were told to watch for a cellphone. Despite the warning and identifying a potential threat nearby, he said they were not permitted to strike a neighboring building due to insufficient evidence.
The following day, Wininger said, his squad entered the building to clear it and instead encountered a family that had not left after civilians were urged to flee. They moved the family and later returned to retrieve life-saving medication for one of the family members.
After telling his story, he said, “No Palestinian baby is born evil, but they are bred to hate Israel,” in reference to finding a UNRWA-run elementary school with copies of Adolf Hitler’s “Mein Kampf” inside classrooms.
An attendee, John Shapiro, said the stories the soldiers told reflected “a culture of life, instead of the enemy, who has a culture of death.”
As of April, according to the Ministry of Health, as reported by the United Nations 72,315 Palestinians have been killed in the Gaza Strip and another 172,137 injured since October 2023. Over 1,200 Israelis have been killed, with 5,400 injured.
This number is limited to those killed within the Gaza Strip and excludes the 1,079 Palestinians, at least 235 of them children, being killed in the occupied West Bank, per the United Nations. According to the UNRWA, 33 of the 1,079 have been killed since the beginning of 2026. About 42 Israelis have been killed in the West Bank, and 335 injured.
“I almost died, and my teammates almost died in order to save Palestinian lives … We have saved more lives than they have,” Wininger said, referencing the protesters in Red Square.
Brodey O’Brien (he/him) is a junior at Western, majoring in news/editorial journalism and political science. He is one of The Front reporters responsible for writing about city news. When not writing for The Front, Brodey can be found running around Bellingham, hiking Mount Baker and saving up for gas. You can reach him at brodeyjob.thefront@gmail.com.
Noelle Reger (she/her) is a second-year journalism student and campus news editor for The Front this quarter. When she's not reading or writing, she can usually be found gambling at the claw machines in Sharetea.
You can reach her at noellereger.thefront@gmail.com.
Atlanta Moss (she/her) is a city news reporter for The Front this spring. She transferred to Western this year and is excited to jump in as a third-year news/editorial journalism major. She can usually be found at the movies, the bowling alley or the Viking Union cafe. You can reach her at atlantamoss.thefront@gmail.com.
