Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey called on a group within the Minneapolis teachers union to cancel an event with a Palestinian activist and sharp critic of Israel. Frey said in a Twitter post on Tuesday night said that “students should be learning about love, not hate.”

The featured speaker is Taher Herzallah, a Columbia Heights Parks Commission member and Ph.D. student, who has been flagged by antisemitism watch groups like the Anti-Defamation League for incendiary statements on Israel and Jews.

Frey, who is Jewish, quoted from a widely-shared video in which Herzallah says “Anybody who has any relationship or any support or identifies themselves as a Jewish person or as a Christian Zionist, then we shall not be their friend. I will tell you that they are enemy number one.”

In an email to the Reformer, Herzallah said the clip is taken out of context and shared the video of his entire remarks from last year. He said he was referring to Zionists and later in the clip he praised Jewish youth for protesting the U.S.’s support for Israel.

Harzallah was opaque when asked if he supports a two-state solution and the existence of Israel as a Jewish state, writing, “I have no problem with the idea of a Jewish state. I have a problem with Israel’s existence if it is built on the ruins of my people.” He said his grandfather was forcibly expelled from his home by “Zionist terror groups” in 1948.

He wrote in his email that those who clipped that quote “seek to paint me as some rabid antisemite in order to assassinate my character and prevent me from accessing spaces of influence and power.”

Frey, in an interview, pushed back: “There was no misquote … This would be wrong if it were said about a different ethnicity and it should be wrong if it’s said about Jews.” (Frey emphasized that he supports a ceasefire and a two-state solution.)

The Anti-Defamation League reported that Herzallah said at an event in 2014 that “Israelis have to be bombed, they are a threat to the legit­i­macy of Pales­tine.” Herzallah, who has family in Gaza, said he doesn’t recall ever making a statement to such effect and said the group has spent years making defamatory statements about him.

Minneapolis Federation of Teachers President Marcia Howard said this morning that about five union members raised concerns to her about Herzallah speaking at the event and that they will be meeting with the event organizers today. She noted that the event is organized by MFT Educators for Palestine, which is an affinity group for members, and not the union’s leaders.

Howard, who called the members who raised concerns about the event “brave,” said it was up to members to listen to each other and find a solution together.

“Our union needs to, especially in this time, talk to each other and hear each other,” Howard said. “I could make a unilateral decision but it’s important for them to understand their joint power… I don’t run nothing but my mouth. My members run the union.”

Last year, the Minneapolis Federation of Teachers approved a resolution on the Israel-Hamas war that some members and parents condemned as “antisemitic and hostile.” The resolution said the union “categorically reject violence against all civilians whether Israeli or Palestinian” but also that “Israeli occupation and apartheid … lies at the root of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict.” The resolution called on state legislators to repeal the law barring the state from entering into contracts with organizations that boycott Israel.

The union later passed a revised resolution, saying the original statement “harmed many Jewish members, students and families while causing unnecessary division.”

Education Minnesota, the state teachers union, declined to comment.