ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. – A demonstration at the University of New Mexico on Wednesday escalated when protesters stomped on Israeli flags that had been placed on campus to honor those killed in the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas attack on Israel, according to a UNM student.
Turning Point USA, a conservative student organization at UNM, had placed the Israeli flags as part of a display commemorating the victims of the attack, which killed about 1,200 people and resulted in 251 others being taken hostage.
A student from UNM who was a witness to the event said, “There were a couple of people from Israel who saw the memorial and thanked us for putting it up. One said that she knew people who died in the October 7th attacks. She was especially thankful for the memorial. A bit later, some students were looking on laughing and they stayed close watching us closely. When I was engaged in a conversation with one student about the October 7th attacks, a group of students came over to the memorial and flipped the sign upside down which prompted the others to kick and stomp on the flags that represented the lives lost. They proceeded to knock all of the flags down, tore them up and spit on them. They also ripped the memorial poster in half. They claimed that the flag represented genocide, yelling ‘From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free.” They were extremely rude and disrespectful and didn’t even try to engage in conversation. I saw absolute disrespect to the Jews, Arabs, and other ethnic groups who died on October 7th three years ago. I was disturbed to witness such disdain for life.”
The incident occurred as demonstrations were taking place across UNM campus Wednesday. About 60 protesters participated in a separate demonstration focused on sexual violence, accountability and what organizers described as concerns about war profiteering according to the Albuquerque Journal.
It was not immediately clear whether all of the people who stomped on the flags were affiliated with the larger protests.
UNM has previously said it supports freedom of speech and expression on campus while emphasizing that demonstrations must comply with university policies governing the time, place and manner of protests. The university has also said that threats, violence, destruction of property and conduct targeting people based on religious, ethnic or national identity are unacceptable according to the previous UNM president in 2024.
Posts on the anonymous social media platform,Yik Yak, have also included hostile and threatening comments directed at TPUSA UNM and any of their supporters. The posts could not independently be attributed to specific students, however, multiple students of conservative groups have raised concerns over Yik Yak and how UNM is handling the threats frequently posted on the app. In one post on Yik Yak showing students of TPUSA UNM near the flags, someone said, “exterminate them” and “zionist scum get off my campus.”
The incident adds another flashpoint to the ongoing debate over Israel, Gaza, and free expression at UNM.
