Tensions rise on San Diego State University’s campus this week as a 67-year war from the Middle East is brought to an American campus. On April 20, 2016, an ad was placed in The Daily Aztec that sparked and incited a once dormant feud. The ad was titled “Stop Campus Jew Hatred” and outlined many so-called “lies” that were spreading around campus. The Jewish ad explained their thoughts on controversial issues such as how Palestinians are trying to occupy Israeli land, and how Palestinians are victims of Israel.

These claims are ages old, and are a topic of heated debates and conflict all around the world. The question is: is it OK to release ideas and thoughts that make another group of people feel unsafe on their own campus?

Fayaz Nawabi, a senior and member of the Muslim Student Association at SDSU said that “students feel very unsafe on campus right now because they're being targeted and they're being called terrorists and sympathizers of terrorist organizations.”

The fliers caused a group of over 100 protesters to gather in the streets to converge on the school's president, who was riding through campus in a San Diego police car.

The president eventually exited the car to address the protesters. The entire student group went silent as the president apologized to the Islamophobia protesters.

It seemed as though that was all they wanted, because after hearing the apology, the protesters thanked the president and then slowly dispersed.

The San Diego Police Department said that there were no recorded acts of violence during the protest. The protesters simply said that they felt defamed and threatened by the Jewish ad posted in the Aztec Newspaper, and that slandering a group of students as terrorists would not be tolerated by the Muslims on campus.

This is not the first time that Muslims have felt oppressed on San Diego State’s campus. In December, a Muslim women was grabbed from behind, choked with her own hijab (veil that covers the head) and told to “get out of this country.”

All of this has caused the Muslim Student Association to demand that the school adopt a zero tolerance policy for all Islamophobia. This makes sense in the situation of the Jewish ad that identified Muslim students as terrorists. This is taking people and accusing them of something for which they have no evidence, in order to incite fear.

The school should remove the ad and the posters around campus, but in the future begin to maintain the balance between free speech and defamation that can lead to Islamophobia.