Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Wednesday that protests at U.S. universities against Israel’s war in Gaza were “horrible” and should be stopped, using his first public comments on the subject to castigate student protesters and portray them as anti-Semites .
Mr Netanyahu’s comments could deepen divisions over the protests. They could also give ammunition to Republican leaders who have criticized protesters and accused university administrators and Democrats of failing to protect Jewish students from attacks.
“What is happening on American college campuses is horrible,” Mr. Netanyahu said. “Anti-Semitic crowds have taken over major universities. They call for the annihilation of Israel. They attack Jewish students. They attack Jewish teachers.
It was not immediately possible to solicit a response from the students, who are not organized into a single group.
A relatively small number of students have held demonstrations for months at universities in different parts of the country to protest Israel’s conduct of the war in Gaza, which began after Hamas carried out an attack on Israel on 7 October in which around 1,200 people were killed and counting. more than 200 other people were taken hostage. Since then, according to Gaza authorities, more than 34,000 people have been killed in Israeli airstrikes and fighting, the majority of them women and children.
The protesters’ main political demand is that the US government stop sending military aid to Israel. Some students also called on universities to stop investing in arms manufacturers and sell, or divest, stakes in funds and companies that they believe are profiting from Israel’s invasion of Gaza and occupation of Palestinian land.
Organizers of many university groups leading protests across the country said they were denouncing violence and anti-Semitism. But some protesters used anti-Jewish and anti-Israeli slurs and other threatening language, and some Jewish students said they did not feel safe. Some protesters also expressed sympathy for Hamas, which controlled Gaza before the war and has pledged to destroy Israel.
Protests have grown in recent days at some of the nation’s most prominent academic institutions, including Columbia, Yale, Cornell and the University of Southern California in Los Angeles. Police responded, in some cases making hundreds of arrests.
One consequence has been to force university leaders to consider the extent to which they will allow protests, which are largely protected under free speech, given that some demonstrators have used anti-Semitic language. Some Jewish students and leaders also say they view the protests themselves as anti-Semitic or promoting anti-Semitism.
In describing anti-war protesters as anti-Semites, Mr. Netanyahu aligns himself with some Republican leaders, who have sharply criticized university leaders and the Biden administration for doing too little to quell the protests.
Last month, Mr. Netanyahu spoke to Senate Republicans via video link during a closed-door lunch and criticized the Democratic majority leader, Senator Chuck Schumer of New York. Mr. Schumer, who is Jewish, said in a Senate speech that Mr. Netanyahu was an obstacle to peace in the Middle East and called for new elections to replace him.
On Wednesday, House Speaker Mike Johnson, a conservative Republican, visited Columbia University in New York, site of one of the most important student demonstrations. Mr. Johnson said President Biden should take action, including possibly sending in the National Guard, to quell protests in Columbia, which he said had turned violent and anti-Semitic.
The protests are becoming a political headache for President Biden, as student protesters and other left-wing Democrats who sympathize with them constitute important constituencies in his reelection hopes in November.
By describing the protests in such harsh moral terms, the Israeli leader could strengthen Mr. Biden’s political bond.
Mr Netanyahu appeared to equate protests against his government’s continued war in Gaza with hatred of Jews. He said the protests on American campuses “are reminiscent of what happened at German universities in the 1930s”, an apparent reference to the ideologically militant pro-Nazi student groups that the Holocaust Encyclopediaworked with security forces to implement Hitler’s program.
“This is unacceptable,” he said. “We have to stop this. »
Shortly after coming to power in 1933, the Nazis passed a law that led to the dismissal of many Jewish university professors and encouraged student groups to deploy. violence and intimidation against Jewish professors and students.
