Media Publications Scramble to Reject Decolonization Following SJP Statement

These are three stories out of hundreds that have come out of Gaza, not Boulder, Colorado, in the past two years and seven months, since the Al-Aqsa Flood. Similar stories throughout the history of Palestine’s colonization are common. It has become an everyday occurrence for Palestinians in Gaza to witness and be victims of these acts of terrorism.

Boulder Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) released a statement on June 1, expressing support for Mohamed Sabry Soliman, the Egyptian migrant who firebombed a group of European settlers living on stolen Cheyenne, Arapaho and Ute land. Following this statement, European-run media outlets rushed to frame the group as anti-Semitic and endorsers of terrorism.

“That’s not only disgusting, it’s morally reprehensible,” said Jeremy Shaver in an interview with 9NEWS Denver. Shaver is the Senior Associate Regional Director for the Anti-Defamation League and has also received the FBI Director’s Community Leadership Award. 

The Boulder Daily Camera’s Abigail Ankeney calls the firebombing an “antisemitic terror attack” in the lead of her article about SJP’s statement. Ankeney is a European journalist who specializes in crime reporting.

Neither Ankeney nor the 9NEWS broadcasters cover parts of Soliman’s story, other than basic information needed to understand SJP’s statement. In their coverage, they report various European Jewish voices and elected government officials who all agree on the matter.

The article rendition of their broadcast, written by European Ashkenazi settler Spencer Soicher, points to the statement and how it does not mention Karen Diamond, Soicher’s fellow settler, who was killed. Soicher does not mention Soliman’s family, who was detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) following the firebombing.

He also does not mention the over 70,000 Palestinians estimated to have been killed since the Al-Aqsa Flood, which led Soliman to “hurl Molotov cocktails at participants in a Run for Their Lives walk,” as said by Soicher.

Soicher seemingly questions the validity of SJP’s members’ position as students. He calls SJP “a group claiming to be made up of Boulder college students….”

Similarly, Ankeney doesn’t mention Palestinian deaths, but does mention the “immigration turmoil Soliman’s family faced for months after the firebombing attack,” in a brief paragraph.

These patterns are repeated in almost all articles and posts about SJP’s statement. They underreport on Soliman and his family, the genocidal conditions in Gaza and Islamophobia-driven terrorist claims. They overreport on European/Jewish voices and CU Boulder’s official statement.

Another aspect only mentioned in one article by the British Mandate-created Jerusalem Post is the mention of stolen land included in SJP’s statement.

SJP states that the Run for Their Lives event normalizes “…the sight of war criminals treated as heroes on streets that sit upon stolen land.” Despite the mention of Indigenous genocide, the only article mentioning Indigenous genocide is from a zionist publication.