Tense welcome for Israeli guest speaker

A coalition of pro-Palestinian rights groups gathered outside the Multicultural Center in Smith Memorial Student Union on Wednesday to demonstrate their opposition to the presence of Deputy Consul General of Israel to the Pacific Northwest Gideon Lustig.

Lustig, 34, was inside the Multicultural Center speaking to an audience of 30 or so about the people and culture of Israel. But the atmosphere was tense with the presence of protestors organized by Portland State’s Students United for Palestinian Equal Rights.

According to their Facebook page, the organizers of the protest had hoped to create “a silent corridor of shame” by lining up outside the center to demonstrate their opposition to the treatment of Palestinians by Israeli armed forces.

The talk was arranged by Brittany McCay and Amy Albertson of the Portland State student group With Israel, a group that the two recently founded with the intention of spreading a broader view of the people and culture of Israel.

Albertson, who introduced Lustig, said that she was eager to bring Lustig to campus to highlight the “things that people don’t usually get to see about Israel.”

Lustig emphasized the vitality of Israel, saying that its cultural diversity and openness is what has created a country with numerous technological innovations and a thriving democracy. Many of his comments were met with scoffs from the protestors.

Tensions rose when Lustig invited the audience to ask questions. A Palestinian man who said he had been expelled from the State of Palestine in 1972 questioned Lustig about the U.S.’s role in Israel and the U.S.’s contributions to the Israeli military.

Lustig responded to the audience member in Arabic before the man walked out, along with a few other members of the protesting groups, who said as they went: “Can I go back to my homeland?”