The university told Rep. Ritchie Torres (D-NY) it is conducting a ‘serious investigation’
Bill O'Leary/The Washington Post via Getty Images
A sign for Georgetown Law School, in front of the McDonough building in Washington, DC.
A discussion scheduled for Tuesday at Georgetown University Law Center featuring a convicted member of the U.S.-designated terrorist organization Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine is being postponed so that the university can “conduct a serious investigation,” Jewish Insider has learned.
The postponement came after both Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Rep. Ritchie Torres (D-NY) condemned the event, which was organized by Georgetown Law Students for Justice in Palestine. In a Monday evening email to a member of Torres’ team who reached out to the Law Center to express concern, a university official said that the administration conveyed to LSJP on Sunday that their event would “have to be postponed so that the University could conduct a thorough investigation into serious safety and security concerns that had arisen in connection with the event.”
The event was entitled “Palestinian Prisoners, an Evening with Ribhi Karajah, student activist and former political prisoner.” Karajah, a U.S. citizen, served three and a half years in an Israeli prison for his role — along with two other PFLP members — in an August 2019 roadside bombing in the West Bank in which 17-year-old Israeli Rina Shnerb was killed while on a hike with her father and brother, both of whom sustained injuries. Karajah was informed about the planned attack by several of his PFLP associates, with specific details of where it would take place, and did nothing to stop it, which he acknowledged in a plea agreement with an Israeli court.
On Friday, at a roundtable Netanyahu led with 30 Jewish college students and recent graduates in Washington, a Georgetown Law student informed the prime minister about the event.
Netanyahu “had a very visceral reaction to my speech,” Julia Wax Vanderwiel, founder and president of Georgetown Law Zionists, told JI. “He’s appalled [about the upcoming event]. He said he knows exactly who Rina Shnerb is, he’s met the family. He said that we need to stay strong. He genuinely listened, cared and wants something done.”