A person walking by attempts to disrupt the demonstration, yelling “Israel is committing genocide,” and “Propaganda that centers Israel,” while pulling up and damaging the signs that were spread across the lawn outside of the UO Lillis Business Complex on April 8, 2024. (Alex Hernandez/Emerald)
The UO student organization “Ducks 4 Israel” set up an event on April 8 in front of Lillis Hall, aiming to commemorate the hostages taken by Hamas amidst the Israel-Hamas war. Members of the event set up 136 pickets with images of the hostages.
Reyna Davis, a UO student and the event’s coordinator, said that the purpose of the event was to raise awareness for “the hostages still in captivity.” Hamas captured roughly 250 hostages in an Oct. 7 attack on Israel; roughly 130, not all of them living, remain captive in Gaza, according to Reuters.
The event drew spectators and eventually University of Oregon Police Department presence, with some interrupting in protest on several occasions. Megan Butler, a graduate student, was one such spectator.
Making remarks in support of Palestine, Butler pulled some pickets with images of the hostages out from the ground. Members of Ducks 4 Israel approached Butler, at which point the interaction escalated, with one of the members of Ducks 4 Israel — Aidan Levine, a junior at UO — insulting her weight.
Butler and Levine got into a physical altercation as they struggled for possession of the pickets with images. Levine and Butler struggled over the pickets as Butler attempted to grab Levine’s phone from his hand, which Levine had been using to record.
According to a statement from UOPD, an officer was onsite at the event at “the request of the Interim Vice President of Student Life, Kris Winter, after disruptions at the event were reported to her.” According to UOPD, Ducks 4 Israel obtained a permit to hold the event.
“A lot of the emotions are coming from being called names by them when I did not say anything to them,” Butler said. “I simply said Israel has killed over 30,000 people.”
Over 33,000 Palestinians have been killed in the war since Oct. 7, according to the Gaza Health Ministry.
Butler believes Ducks 4 Israel’s message is meant to “distract from the genocide that is going on in Palestine.”
“At the very end I made fun of her weight,” Levine said. “I stooped down to a level. I regret saying it.”
Butler was not the only student who interacted with the coordinators and members of the event. Grace O’Brien, a graduate student, was also seen speaking with Ducks 4 Israel at the event.
“I think it’s unfair in many ways,” O’Brien said. “One being that we have to think about this as a broader cultural situation especially on college campuses and the amount of silencing that is happening to those who are more in line with the Palestinian understanding of what’s going on.”
Davis didn’t know why “it’s [the event] contentious today.”
“I think the topic of Israel is really hard for some people. I think it’s become a political stance and for us we just want everyone to be safe,” Davis said. “Any life loss is truly tragic.”
Editor’s Note: The Daily Emerald has updated this article based on new information from video footage of the altercation received after the article’s publication.
