Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu Condemns Antisemitism at U.S. Colleges Amid Encampment at Harvard

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu denounced “antisemitism on campuses in the United States” in a video statement released just hours after pro-Palestine Harvard students began staging an encampment in Harvard Yard on Wednesday.

Netanyahu slammed university administrators for not doing more to stop the campus protests and called for widespread condemnation of the demonstrations.

“What’s happening on American college campuses is horrific. Antisemitic mobs have taken over leading universities,” Netanyahu said. “It’s unconscionable. It has to be stopped. It has to be condemned and condemned unequivocally.”

In the past week, students at Columbia University, Yale University, and MIT have engaged in similar encampments and protests on their campuses. Elsewhere in the Boston area, students at Tufts University and Emerson College have set up encampments as well.

Netanyahu himself received both an undergraduate and graduate degree at MIT, and cross-registered for courses at Harvard during his time at MIT.

Following arrests of student protesters at Columbia, Yale, and New York University, interim Harvard President Alan M. Garber ’76 said on Monday that a protest at Harvard would need to escalate dramatically for police to make arrests — though he did not rule out that possibility.

Still, at the Wednesday encampment, which organizers are calling the “Harvard Liberated Zone,” some students are prepared to be arrested, while others expect to face disciplinary action from the Harvard College Administrative Board.

The protest — which involves erecting unauthorized tents and which was promoted by the Palestine Solidarity Committee, a student group suspended by the University on Monday — almost certainly violates Harvard policy.

In his video, Netanyahu said “the response of several university presidents was shameful” and called for viewers to “stop antisemitism now.”

Yoav Gallant, the Israeli Minister of Defense, wrote in a separate post on X that “protests taking place on U.S. college campuses are not only antisemitic, but also inciting terrorism.”

Members of Congress, including Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.), called for the resignation of Columbia President Nemat “Minouche” Shafik after her response to protests on Columbia’s campus.

Last week, Shafik called the New York Police Department to clear Columbia’s main lawn of a pro-Palestine encampment. The encampment sprung up again afterwards, and has stayed there since.

Johnson made a public visit to Columbia’s campus on Wednesday as encampments and demonstrations entered their second week.

“What we’re seeing on these college campuses across the country is disgusting and unacceptable,” Johnson wrote in a Wednesday post on X. “University officials need to get the situation under control.”

Rep. Josh Gottheimer (D-N.J.) called on Shafik and other university presidents to take action to “make students feel safe,” in a Tuesday interview with CNN.

Pro-Palestinian demonstrations, originally centered at Columbia and Yale, have continued at campuses across the country. Demonstrators were arrested on Tuesday at Ohio State University. Similarly, students were arrested at the University of Texas at Austin on Wednesday for their protest efforts.

There has been no violence or physical confrontations at Wednesday’s protest in Harvard Yard. Walter Johnson, a History professor at Harvard serving as a police liaison for the protestors on campus, said that there has been “no tense communication” between police and protestors since protests began.

—Staff writer Elyse C. Goncalves can be reached at elyse.goncalves@thecrimson.com. Follow her on X @e1ysegoncalves or on Threads @elyse.goncalves.

—Staff writer Matan H. Josephy can be reached matan.josephy@thecrimson.com. Follow him on X @matanjosephy.