Hate' messages hit site for NJ grads
Comments were anti-Palestinian
By: Hannan Adely
NorthJersey.com
USA Today Network - New Jersey
..... Hassan Elsamna of Wayne graduated from Rutgers University in May [2025] with a 3.9 GPA and a bachelor's degree in cell biology and neuroscience. while in school, he rowed on the crew team and worked as a teaching assistant in physics.
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After four years of hard work, Elsamna will start medical school in July. [2025]
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Proud of his accomplishments, his family submitted his photo and graduation details to share on a Facebook page run by the Palestinian American Community Center in Clifton. It's a popular annual feature, in which community members give short-outs to graduates and celebrate their success.
..... What followed, he said, was hatred.
..... Under his picture, showing him smiling in a red graduation robe and with a Palestinian scarf around his shoulders, people that he is a "terrorist," an inhuman place of human excrement" and "disgusting."
..... "I saw that it was being absolutely dominated by hate, pure hatred being spewed at me for no reason," said Elsamna, 21. "I didn't do anything. All I did was graduate."
..... Other Palestinian Americans who shared photos and details of their graduation faced similar treatment. Strangers bombarded the posts with anti-Palestinian comments - thousands of them that staff members said they have spent many hours, with help from volunteers to delete.
..... "We have been doing this for seven or eight years now," said Rania Mustafa, executive director of the center. "We've never received this amount of hate. We're not saying anything political. We are just showing our existence as Palestinians, and that's triggering them."
..... The backlash comes amid a surge in hate.
..... There is anti-Palestinian sentiment, anti-Arab racism and Islamophobia, particularly since October 7, 2023, after the Hamas attack on Israel and Israel's subsequent military assault in Gaza. Advocates facing hate speech, vandalism and violence, including the shooting of three Palestinian students in Vermont and the stabbing of a protester in Austin, Texas.
..... Reports of antisemitism have also risen sharply during the same period, involving vandalism, harassment and violence, most recently the firebombing at a protest in Boulder Colorado, that injured a dozen people and the fatal shooting of two Israeli embassy staff members in Washington, D.C.
.... In this troubled climate, the Clifton center's staff contacted the city Police Department, alarmed about the onslaught of comments. Lieutenant Robert Anderson, a city police spokesperson, said no official complaint was filed, but that investigators have been in contact with the center and have offered their assistance.
..... On the Facebook page, the center's staff shared photos of graduates with a line or two about their school, degree and major and their Palestinian city or town of origin.
..... Community members responded with likes and hearts and wrote notes of praise, as they have done in previous years.
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But this spring, [2025] comments have also included personal insults, smears against Palestinians and Islam, and scathing politician messages. under photos of women who had earned bachelor;s and master's degrees and doctorates, strangers wrote about how women are "repressed."
..... It is not clear whether any organized group was behind the messages, Mustafa said, but the posts were widely shared by individuals from outside the community.
..... Many comments came from people outside the United States who indicated in their Online profiles that they were in Israel, Europe or Australia.
..... the attacks were worrisome enough that some graduates have opted not share their information, worried that it would invite further harassment.
..... "Some told me, 'why would I post it? So I can have people write hateful comments? so I can get detoxed?'" Mustafa said.
..... The center is working to keep it a positive experience for families.
..... Two staff members who work on social media have been deleting negative comments but could not keep up with the volume.
..... They brought in board members and volunteers to help in the effort, and they continue to do so as more people submit graduation photos.
..... "This is one of our most popular things we do every year," Mustafa said. "We deleted comments to keep it a celebratory moment and honor the purpose of what we are doing and not let hate overtake it."
..... The page, with its accolades for grates from across New Jersey, was a source of inspiration for Elsamna while eh was growing up in North Jersey.
..... "I remember looking through the page as an undergraduate student thinking I would like to be a person on that page being congratulated and getting some spotlight for going to Medical school," he said.
..... Despite the Online harassment, Elsamna is glad that his photo and accomplishments have been shared for others to see.
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"I think it's a big accomplishment for myself and for the community as well," he said.