They represent opposite corners at the University of Michigan, two sides of student activism that are caught up and almost never communicate.
Salma Hamamy is one of the most prominent figures in the pro-Palestinian movement on campus.
“One, two, three, four, open the prison doors!” he shouts, bull’s head in hand, as he leads anti-Israel demonstrations in front of crowds of fellow students. “Five, six, seven, eight, Israel is a terrorist state!” Ms Hamamy helped lead more than 20 protests following Hamas’ deadly attacks on Israel on October 7 and the subsequent bombing of Gaza.
As she makes calls to end the war or argues against a university administration she believes has been tone-deaf to the Palestinians, she knows she can look out into the audience and find a familiar, if annoying, face: Josh Brown, a fellow student and the Ms. Hamamy is the opposite in almost every way.
Mr. Brown is perhaps the most vocal anti-protester in Michigan. A staunch supporter of Israel and Zionism, he shows up to nearly every pro-Palestinian rally at his school, sometimes alone, always with a cell phone ready so he can record what he believes is rampant anti-Semitism.
“These are extremists,” Mr. Brown says, referring to the groups Ms. Hamamy is part of and helps lead. “What they ask is the destruction of my people.”
Mention it to pro-Zionist, pro-Israel students and you might find yourself beaming. When his name comes up among supporters of the Palestinian cause, looks of outrage follow.
But during this painful season, with campus bitterness mirroring sentiment across the state of Michigan, a key battleground in the upcoming presidential election, one thing briefly united them. It happened after a strong protest, on the sidelines, with no one else around: a conversation, tense, hard and awkward at times, but also civil.
The Campus Clash
In the 1920s, when most Ivy League schools, steeped in anti-Semitism, limited annual admissions of Jewish students, Michigan opened its arms and became an alternative.
This legacy is clearly visible today. Data from Hillel International shows that the number of Jewish undergraduates at Michigan is now close to 5,000, among the largest such campus populations in the country.
The Ann Arbor campus has also become a haven for students with Muslim roots. A recent campus survey estimated that there were nearly 2,500 Muslim undergraduates at Michigan.
Over the years, the large number of Jews and Muslims led to many outreach efforts and intense anxiety. But the temperature on campus has never felt like this.
A network of volunteers has been set up to ensure that Muslim women do not have to walk alone. There are Jewish students who are afraid to speak up in class, who live with roommates they have long considered friends. And students of both faiths worry about wearing anything that identifies their faith.
Much of the heat came from the very different interpretations of the chants, symbols displayed and slogans used by the protesters. Are calls for respect for martyrs and the Intifada anti-Semitic or legitimate signifiers of opposition? What about comparing Israeli leaders to Hitler?
Ms. Hamamy and other activists helped lead a student occupation of the Michigan administration building, which was met by a significant show of force by the police.
Citing campus-wide security fears, the administration canceled a student vote on the war that would have called on the school to acknowledge that the people of Gaza were “being subjected to genocide.”
In January, the faculty’s Senate Assembly passed a measure calling for divestment from Israel, promoting the campus’s breakup.
Ms. Hamamy celebrated the faculty vote. “Our voices are being heard,” he said.
For Mr. Brown, it was a punch in the gut.
“In the eyes of these faculty members, what is this person doing who supports Israel?” asked. “They can have their opinions,” he added, “but at what cost to people like me?”
“A Badge of Honor”
Ms. Hamamy was born in 2001 and grew up in Ann Arbor at a time when the racist backlash to the 9/11 terrorist attacks stoked fear in the Arab and Muslim communities. Her mother advised her to keep much of her Palestinian identity under wraps.
He did as he said. Then, he entered college.
Her freshman year coincided with the tumultuous attempts at a racial census in America in 2020. She began learning about the civil rights struggles of the 1960s and became active in the Black Lives Matter movement.
Social media played a powerful role in driving her transformation. On TikTok, X and Instagram, she took into account the personal narrative of the Palestinians in Gaza and their demands for change.
“Palestinians have been trying to resist for so long and every form of resistance they have ever engaged in has always been shut down,” he said, summarizing the views he formed. But, he added, “you cannot expect your oppressors to voluntarily give you your freedom.”
By early 2023, Ms. Hamamy had become powerful in Michigan’s campus-based movement opposing Israel. He eventually became president of Michigan’s Students for Justice in Palestine chapter and helped form a coalition supported by 77 student organizations, including the anti-Zionist group Jewish Voice for Peace.
Talking and talking was the only way to soothe her grief.
The reaction came quickly. In the past four months, there have been calls for her to be expelled as a student. Her photo and personal details were posted online. He received death threats.
She took comfort in the fact that others faced similar bullying. “We’ve had several students tell them to hurry up or they don’t belong here,” he said. “That they are infiltrating this campus, that we have to go back to our countries. That we are a big threat.”
Asked what it was like to be the target of such hatred, she smiled and paused.
“I take it as a badge of honor,” he said.
He was drawn to the outbreak
Mr. Brown grew up in suburban New York in a Jewish family, surrounded by a close-knit Jewish community. But he paid little attention to Israel and its place in the world.
Until he went to college.
Long before this school year, protests were known at the university he chose to attend with the vibrancy of his Jewish culture in mind. It was shocking, he said, to walk into the classroom, to see groups of fellow students protesting, to hear speeches that, to him, showed hatred of Jews.
“It wasn’t just ‘we don’t like settlements’ or even something as big as Israel’s treatment of the Palestinians,” he said. “They were clear calls for the erasure of Israel.”
“It was demonization.”
Mr. Brown began diving into Israel’s history. He devoured history books, Israeli newspapers, podcasts and YouTube presentations. He took a course on the conflict in the Middle East and joined a student group, Wolverine for Israel.
He came to believe that the overall discord between Israel and its neighbors was much more understandable than he thought. Yes, Israel had its faults, he said. But “what I learned was that in every attempt at peace, the Palestinian leadership refused and would not do what was good for its people.”
“Their leaders refused peace,” he added.
Like many others on campus, he felt that in the days and weeks after October 7, the plight of Israeli citizens, not only murder but also mutilation and rape, seemed to be either ignored, minimized, or disputed by those who they opposed Israel. .
Since then, Mr Brown has narrowly missed appearing to address a pro-Palestinian protest. He tries to stay on the outskirts or in sight of the police, keeping quiet, taking video and hoping not to attract attention. But almost everyone there knows who he is.
Sometimes he finds himself in the fray, drawn into verbal skirmishes, surrounded by angry protesters who don’t like being recorded and see him as an interloper intruding on their space.
Sometimes, it endures bad tropes.
“Why are you here?” a protester screamed at him one day. You already have “Own America!” he said. “You own everything!”
Looking for a middle ground
Mrs. Hamamy is already waiting for Mr. Brown. “It appears sometimes in front of me,” he said. “I have to give it to him. It’s over him.”
Her view of Mr. Brown is different from many of her counterparts. When she sees him, she smiles and says hello.
“I will say this much,” admitted Mr. Brown with a grim bitterness, “she is much more hearty than many other people.”
At a demonstration last fall, Ms. Hamamy noticed some of her fellow protesters and Mr. Brown engaged in an argument. He called out to him and asked, “What do you want?”
As dusk approached, they walked alone to a nearby campus building and sat together on a bench. Perhaps this would be an opportunity to recognize each other’s humanity.
He needed to know why the anti-Israel protesters had not violently condemned the deaths of Israeli civilians.
She needed him to get her point across. It is a documented fact, he said: Israel is guilty of apartheid and genocide.
Looking for a middle ground, they talked about Islamophobia and anti-Semitism on campus. The unrest was so high that it felt like violence might break out on campus.
Ms. Hamamy and Mr. Brown exchanged phone numbers. She remembered leaving the conversation wary, convinced she didn’t understand. He recalled feeling “relatively optimistic.” Perhaps, he thought, this could be the beginning of a dialogue between the opposing sides.
That was months ago. Last week, after another protest, they spoke for a few seconds. Otherwise, they are no longer in touch.
