The George Washington University administration is investigating reports of individuals placing vials containing an “unknown substance” around last week’s Israel Fest celebration, “in an apparent attempt to disrupt the festival.”
At least one student in attendance was injured by the April 27 incident, which is currently under investigation to determine whether students were targeted due to their Jewish faith, the administration wrote in a May 5 statement. The statement did not specify the extent of the individual’s injury.
Some students told ABC7 that a couple of hours into the event, they smelled a strong scent of rotten eggs and witnessed a capsule dropped on the ground.
“They described it as a sort of a stink bomb,” ABC7 reported.
“The university condemns this reprehensible and criminal action,” the statement read. “The university, in cooperation with law enforcement as appropriate, will utilize all available avenues to investigate these concerning reports thoroughly and hold any perpetrators who are identified accountable to the fullest extent under university policies and applicable law.”
The GW Police Department is handling the incident, a spokesperson for the Metropolitan Police Department told JNS. The GW administration said that while the university typically does not share details on ongoing investigations, it released another statement May 8 to “reassure members of our community that the vials that were dropped were commonly available ‘stink bombs’ and did not pose a serious health risk to those nearby.”
The annual event was organized by the student organization GW for Israel and co-sponsored by Hillel at The George Washington University and various other Jewish student and external organizations.
“Israel Fest was an incredible four-hour celebration with hundreds of GW students showing up to express their support for Israel,” a statement by GW Hillel read. “We are grateful to GW officials and security personnel for their swift response. Incidents like this will not deter our community. GW Hillel will continue to support our students so they can proudly be Jewish.”
Jonathan Turley, a GW professor of public interest law, wrote that given the university’s history of “anti-Semitic protests on campus,” this incident is particularly “chilling” for many in the GW community.
It isn’t unusual for Israel Fest to draw protesters, according to Turley, who said he has spoken with Jewish students who feared attending the event. Others reported that students had bad-mouthed the scheduled event and described attendees as “supporting genocide.”
Turley expressed disappointment over the GW administration’s response, which came one week after Israel Fest.
“We still need to learn more about this incident, including why news of the alleged attack was so delayed,” he wrote. “The university released a statement on May 5, the week after the event.”
The professor added that he is confused about the timing — when GW officials first learned of the incident and whether they filed a police report that day.
“The university clearly has enough information to characterize the incident as ‘criminal’ in nature,” Turley wrote. “If so, it is not clear why it was not immediately known to the campus, which has an alert system in place. It is also unclear why The Hatchet, our campus newspaper, did not report on this incident. I may have missed something this week, but I only learned of the incident in the last 24 hours.”
He brought up “lingering concerns” about previous delays and coverage of damage inflicted by protesters on campus, such as the toppling of a bust of George Washington in June 2020. The Hatchet published an article on May 6 detailing the disruption at Israel Fest.
“There may be a reasonable explanation for the delay, but the university would be wise to make it public without further delay,” Turley wrote. “Parents are likely to wonder why they receive an immediate alert for a fire truck on campus but have to wait until the following week to hear of a possible hate crime against a Jewish student.”
