BUZZ
His tossing a molotov cocktail into a crowd was a ‘strike against the colonist procession’ that ‘celebrates genocide,’ it claims
This past week, the University of Colorado Boulder chapter of Students for Justice in Palestine demanded the release of convicted killer Mohamed Soliman … and justified his firebombing of a pro-Israel event a year ago.
Soliman was sentenced last month to “life plus 2,178 years” for attacking a “Run for Their Lives” (an event which supports the release of Israeli hostages by Hamas) last year with a “makeshift flamethrower” at which one victim was killed and over a dozen others burned.
In Jeremiah Wright-style, the CU Boulder SJP described Soliman’s actions as a “case of chickens coming home to roost.”
Soliman took direct action against one manifestation of the Zionist death cult that we have allowed to fester in our city and our state,” the group wrote. “He hurled a molotov cocktail into the heart of the Run for Their Lives march in Boulder, striking against the colonist procession that gathers weekly to celebrate the pretext for ongoing genocide. …
The state would have us believe that Mohamed took the action he did because he is insane—a fanatic, a terrorist, guilty of a hate crime—but we know the truth and we reject the state’s inversion of it. Mohamed chose the only sane response available to a rational human being confronted with the normalization of genocide. He refused the comfortable position of the grateful immigrant and the role of obedient subject, choosing confrontation with a violent system over passive proximity to the comfort of empire. He refused the comfortable position of the grateful immigrant and the role of obedient subject, choosing confrontation with a violent system over passive proximity to the comfort of empire.
We reject the distinction between speech and material force. The Run for Their Lives procession functions as a mechanism for normalizing the celebration of mass killers, rendering ordinary the sight of war criminals treated as heroes on streets that sit upon stolen land. Mohamed refused their normalization with direct action. He chose to treat the manifestation of Zionist violence as the lethal threat it actually constitutes.
At the end of its statement, the SJP also demanded the abolition of ICE, and that supporters “continue the struggle.”
According to the Daily Camera, the CU Boulder Students for Justice in Palestine was “placed in bad standing” in 2024 due to “policy violations.” It remains “formally unrecognized.”
University spokesperson Nicole Cousins “denounced the glorification of violence” and noted the SJP’s statement had been “reported to the ‘appropriate campus offices.’”
At his sentencing, Soliman said “hatred of Jews” wasn’t the reason for his attack but that “emotions over the treatment of Palestinians got the best of him.” He equated Israel’s treatment of the Palestinians to the Holocaust.
“This enemy is Zionism. End Zionism before it ends you,” he said.
MORE: Pro-Palestinan students protest U. Maryland ‘dialogue across political differences’ panel
