Several hundred students crowd the small quad at the rear entrance of the SF State bookstore on a rare, sunny and clear San Francisco morning, waiting the unveiling of a highly anticipated cultural mural. The crowd, lured by fliers and classroom announcements, has arrived to witness the inaugural ceremony of a piece of art commemorating Palestinian scholar and author Edward Said. The curtain drops and the colorful piece is revealed for the first time and Palestinian students are honored as a two-year battle that sparked campus-wide discourse comes to a close, and the walls of SF State become further decorated with the memory of intellectuals and humanitarians.

The mural was the center of much debate and its approval had been delayed because of criticism from various on-campus organizations. Jewish student groups had been discussing the content of the mural since its original proposal in 2005. While Jewish organizations supported the freedom of expression of Palestinian students and recognized their right to honor an important figure like Said, they found several aspects of the original design offensive. In particular, it was the inclusion of a cartoon-like character named Handala and a gold-colored key in Handala’s hand that Jewish groups were opposed to.

For Palestinian students though, particularly members of the General Union of Palestine Students (GUPS) that had fought for two years to get the mural through the lengthy approval process, criticism from Jewish groups was upsetting and many found it disrespectful. To Jackie Husary, an International Relations major and active member in GUPS, the controversy steered attention away from the reason the mural was created—to honor the life of Said and celebrate Palestinian culture.

“The controversy turned it into something political, and the goal of the mural wasn’t to do that at all,” says Husary. “It is to respect our culture and people.”

The conflict came to the forefront of discussion on campus when San Francisco Hillel, the on-campus Jewish Student Center, the Israel Coalition and SF State fraternity Alpha Epsilon Pi, took out a full-page ad in the school newspaper, the Golden Gate XPress. The ad, which ran in early March of this year, spelled out several aspects of the mural that they found offensive.

“The Handala character so often associated with violence against Israel and the house key associated with Israel’s destruction have no place on the walls of a university student union priding itself on diversity, inclusion and tolerance,” the ad read in the XPress. “This issue has been the reason why peace talks have broken down and is a conflict-oriented subject far from being resolved.”

The mural now stands over the rear entrance to the bookstore, opposite a similar Filipino cultural mural and a portrait of Said covers much of the piece. Other elements include the Golden Gate Bridge and New York City, two places symbolizing the diasporas that displaced about 800,000 Palestinians in 1948 from what is modern day Israel. Refugees fled all over the world, commonly to other Arab nations in the Middle East and to the United States. Said was born in Jerusalem (which was then British Palestine) in 1935 and came to America in 1948.

For Palestinian students, he is considered the most influential Palestinian intellectual figure of the 20th century. His book Orientalism (1978) describes the cultural clash and common misunderstandings between the East and Western world. It is regarded as one of the most important books written on the subject of post-colonialism—the study of areas that were once colonized by another nation and the effect colonization has had on those areas.

“He’s a world-recognized academic and scholar,” says Michel Shehadeh, a long time Palestinian activist who was president of the Los Angeles GUPS chapter in the late 1980s. He was a co-MC at the evening cultural event that was part of the mural’s unveiling and is working on the Arab and Muslim Ethnicities and Diasporas Initiative—a new department within the Ethnic Studies College that studies Middle Eastern culture. “He’s a very important figure in the Arab world.”

Opponents of the original mural design weren’t arguing against Said as the mural’s focus but rather the Handala character. “We were never against the mural itself, just certain parts,” says Alpha Epsilon Pi President Sam Shapiro, who heads the historically Jewish fraternity. “But [the original design] definitely incited anti-Israel feelings.”

The historical conflict between Palestinians and Jews has transpired in Israel, Egypt and Jordan since the breakdown of the Ottoman Empire after World War I and continues in the Middle East to this day. The current argument in Israel centers on a one versus two-state solution to the Israeli State. Palestinians believe the nation should be divided while Jewish people argue that it should remain a united Jewish State. “It’s a major difference of ideals,” says Shapiro, “And there’s really no compromise.”

Israel is the only country in the world where Judaism is the religious majority, and because of it, Jews have deep ties to their historic homeland. Since the end of World War I, present-day Israel’s boundaries have been redrawn six times. Migration to the country increased drastically in the 1930s when Eastern European Jews fled to the area when Nazism was coming to power. With turmoil in the area continuing for decades and escalating to war in the late 1940s, Jews and Palestinians are commonly in political disagreement.

But no such problems arose during the inauguration. Before the mural was uncovered several hours of speeches and art presentations transpired at the site attracting a large crowd during a busy day on campus. “We wanted it to be an all-day event so everyone could come. We wanted a lot of the community there,” says Husary, who helped plan the celebration with other GUPS members.

“It's kind of surreal now that it’s up,” she says. “It’s a proud moment for a lot of reasons.”