Cars Flying American and Israeli Flags Parade Through Campus, Accelerate Toward Students
At approximately 3:30pm on Sunday, November 19, about thirty cars bearing American and Israeli flags drove around Eliot Circle and the East Parking Lot while blaring their horns. Drivers verbally harassed students, and at least two reportedly accelerated toward pedestrians.
Earlier that week, a group named Oregon for Israel had advertised a “Car Rally” on Instagram that planned to “pass through major education [sic] and government [sic] institutions, key landmarks, and main highways all around Portland,” in an attempt to “show our city that fighting for Israel means fighting for humanity.” Oregon for Israel could not be reached for comment.
Screenshot of @oregonforisrael’s Instagram post promoting their rally four days prior to cars adorned with flags arriving on campus.
At 4:01pm, a Jeep Rubicon accelerated onto the curb and then abruptly stopped about ten feet from a cluster of students filming the incident and another member of the caravan, who had exited his vehicle and was engaged in a confrontation with students. The driver of the Rubicon stepped out of the car draped in an Israeli flag and hurled expletives at the students.
A student who asked to be identified by their initials JGS, was present at Eliot Circle when the Rubicon approached the students, he said “From my angle, if these students had not stepped back, they could have been hit by the Jeep.” He also spoke to a man driving a van to “try to ascertain why the vehicles had come to Reed specifically. He repeatedly informed me that they were here to ‘protest for a release of the hostages.’ I also told a few of the drivers to ‘have a good day and never come back.’”
Another student, who asked to be only identified by his first name, Ronan, reported a different car accelerating toward him as he waited for his bus near the East Parking lot. “I … was trying to keep to the sidewalk to avoid getting hit,” Ronan said, “but one of the cars that drove in intentionally moved out of the line and swerved up onto the sidewalk to try and hit me.” He was uninjured but “really shaken.” Ronan then, “called community safety immediately after it happened … but they just told me they were ‘handling it’ and hung up.”
He continued, “Even just seeing the cars all driving onto campus had me worried, but the fact that me and apparently several other students had cars drive up and try to hit us (or at least appear to in order to intimidate us) without any kind of engagement or confrontation from us is really scary.” Ronan also noted, “I myself am Jewish … I think it's important to point out that they were attacking both Jewish students and non-Jewish students indiscriminately.”
JGS was also concerned for student safety, saying “I felt scared-- when I first arrived at Eliot Circle, I was one of three students who were there, and I was worried that our safety could be compromised. I interpreted the presence of these vehicles on campus as an attempt to intimidate student activists into silence.”
Ayah Sibai, another student, was also on campus at the time of the cars’ arrival. She was watching the cars drive down Woodstock Blvd., and said she “thought they were just passing by then soon realized that they were turning into the East parking lot onto Reed Campus [sic].” Sibai then said she “went outside with my daughter and Keffiyeh on and stood in the back road behind the ETC and told them ‘You are not welcome here’ and ‘You need to get off campus’ and ‘Leave.’ They proceeded by rolling down their windows and flipping me off. As I returned their sentiments, one car yelled at me ‘You support terrorists, you are a terrorist.’”
Sibai was holding her eight-month-old baby when the cars “accelerated as they passed us even though I was on the road and they would do this only a foot or two away from us. More cars after the one who yelled at me kept rolling down their windows and yelling and flipping me off.”
“After the last car passed me,” she said, “I was so upset and tearing up from what they had just said and done to me and my daughter, and because I saw that they were going right to Eliot Circle to continue their disruption and harassment.”
Tori Boldt was studying in the library at the time of the incident. “I was like in the zone with my thesis,” she said, “and all of the sudden I realized that there are all these cars passing and then I was like, looking closer – I was like, ‘American flags.’ And that was weird. And I was like, ‘Oh, those are American flags and Nation of Israel flags.’”
Boldt thought those who participated in the convoy were “assholes for coming on campus and making all that noise,” although she initially, “didn’t really get how aggressive they were being and in what way they were being aggressive,” until after hearing first-hand accounts from those at Eliot Circle.
Boldt blamed the Quest’s reporting for the cars’ appearance on campus. “So I do believe that this whole thing is specifically the fault of that article,” referring to the Quest’s November 11 online article, “Reed College Protest Ends in Four Student Arrests, Demonstrators Chant ‘Globalize the Intifada.’” She believed the drivers “saw that Quest article and wanted somebody to be mad at.”
A dispatcher for Community Safety said officers were aware of the incident as it occurred and intended to file a report. Later, at 7:47pm, Director of Community Safety Gary Granger sent an email to students describing the event. In it, he stated that Portland police officers would be informed and that “Community Safety staff will increase patrols of parking lots and entry points to the college.” He also asked students to refrain from engaging with the demonstrators and, in a statement to the Quest, reiterated that doing so would be “extremely dangerous.”
When asked about the CSO’s involvement in the incident, student JGS said, “Only one CSO arrived at Eliot Circle on foot after the cars had already left. If the aforementioned altercations between students and protesters had turned explicitly violent, it is likely that students would have been forced to make the impossible decision between self-defense or succumbing to the aggressions of a group who were clearly emotionally charged and seeking to escalate conflict.”
Reed’s Community Safety Blotter, released later that week, confirmed that only one CSO was present during the ‘car rally’ itself. “A CSO responded to a report of a large group of vehicles driving onto campus,” a Community Safety Officer wrote, “ … The CSO remained on the scene to observe and report the interactions [between students and drivers] in case Portland Police assistance was required. After approximately 15 minutes, the caravan began to leave the campus. … A community member approached the CSO to express their concern regarding one of the vehicle drivers who had approached students in a threatening manner. The CSO began taking photos of the vehicle and driver … After all vehicles had exited campus, the CSO attempted to gather statements from students who had interacted with the non-community members, but they were unable to find anyone willing to provide a statement.”
After the incident, Reed’s Jewish Student Union (JSU) released a statement “to express our explicit condemnation of the ‘car rally’ that took place in Elliot [sic] Circle today.” They continued, “We hope that JSU and the larger Reed community understand that such violence in no way shape or form embodies the values of JSU or Reed’s Jewish Community. Student safety should never be jeopardized and we are appalled and deeply saddened by the action these individuals have taken.”
Reed President Audrey Bilger released a statement on the evening of the 21st, her third such statement this month. On October 30, she wrote to the Reed community to “unequivocally condemn” a swastika drawn in a library bathroom, and on November 13, after a student walkout, she released a statement saying that “the college condemns hate speech.”
On the 21st, Bilger wrote, “As a college, we strongly condemn antisemitism, Islamophobia, and racism. No one in our Reed community should feel afraid to live, work, or study on campus while wearing a symbol of their nationality or faith. Reed College welcomes, supports, and stands with our Arab, Jewish, Muslim, and Palestinian community members. We see you, we hear you, and we care about you. The past few weeks have tested our resolve, and we need to lean on our shared humanity that allows us to offer grace and care to one another. It is clear there is deep pain and heartfelt passion from everyone who is involved in advocating for or against any of the parties involved in this horrific tragedy, yet we have an opportunity to learn from one another and understand where each of us is coming from.”
President Bilger’s statement concluded, “We are hearing from members of our community who are open to conversations across differences and would welcome opportunities to connect. Student Life will hold small group discussions with students in the coming weeks to create space for conversations, where the point is to listen, hear, and inhabit the perspective of others. This is only a part of Reed’s continued efforts to find ways to be in community with one another, and I hope you will take part in this important work.”