Activists March a Mile To Protest Former Israeli Prime Minister’s Speech at HBS

More than 100 pro-Palestine protesters rallied in a mile-long march through pouring rain to protest a speaker event at Harvard Business School featuring former Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett on Thursday evening.

Harvard Out of Occupied Palestine — an unrecognized group of pro-Palestine organizations — called for an “emergency rally” via Instagram on Wednesday. The rally saw the largest turnout to a pro-Palestine protest at Harvard since hundreds of people walked out of the school’s Commencement ceremony last May.

It also drew a significant police response, and Harvard erected metal fences to block protesters from entering the Business School campus. Guards and campus staff handed out fliers warning passersby that “any demonstration today would be in violation” of an HBS policy requiring rallies to be registered three business days in advance.

Protesters marched onto the HBS campus despite the barricades and a warning on the fliers that “demonstrators may be subject to disciplinary action.” Spokespeople from HBS and the University declined to comment on the demonstration or whether protesters would face any disciplinary action.

Bennett spoke at an evening event hosted by the Harvard Israel Business Club at Harvard Business School’s Klarman Hall, which seats 1,000. The off-the-record discussion, titled “From the Boardroom to the World Stage,” was moderated by HBS professor Paul A. Gompers ’86.

HOOP organized the rally with Jewish Voice for Peace, the Palestinian Youth Movement, and Boston’s Boycott, Divest, and Sanctions Movement, according to an emailed statement. The demonstration included protesters from MIT, Boston University, Northeastern University, and Emerson College.

The demonstration was announced as a rally in John F. Kennedy Memorial Park, but organizers mobilized the crowd after 15 minutes — leading the crowd for nearly one mile around the HBS campus.

Bennett served as prime minister of Israel from 2021 to 2022 after he led a political coalition to oust Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Throughout the march, Bennett was repeatedly criticized by organizers for his past statements and actions on Palestine.

During a 2013 Israeli Cabinet meeting, Bennett said, “I’ve already killed a lot of Arabs in my life — and there is no problem with that,” according to reports in the Hebrew-language Israeli newspaper Yediot Aharonot. Bennett’s office later said his comments were misinterpreted. While serving as Israeli Defense Minister under Netanyahu in 2020, Bennett pushed for the annexation of large parts of the West Bank.

Earlier in the day, Bennett attended a conversation at Harvard Chabad, a Jewish student organization. Harvard is just one of many stops in Bennett’s tour of elite university campuses across the country. Bennett spoke at Yale on Jan. 21 and at Columbia on Tuesday.

Bennett’s speeches at Yale and Columbia also drew protests, which were accompanied by heavy security and police responses and blockades.

During the march at Harvard, protesters led chants of “Hey, Naftali, what do you say, how many kids did you kill today?”

“He’s a genocidaire. He’s a war criminal. He’s brought about thousands of people’s deaths, Palestinian deaths,” said Kojo Acheampong ’26, a pro-Palestine organizer and co-founder of the African and African American Resistance Organization.

In an emailed statement to The Crimson, Bennett attacked the protesters for criticizing his position regarding the war in Gaza.

“I pity people who protest in support of savage murderers. I certainly will not be silenced by anyone, when I’m fighting for my people,” Bennett wrote.

“Missiles didn’t silence me, so certainly misguided protesters will not,” Bennett added.

At the initial rally in JFK Park, the pro-Palestine demonstrators were met with resistance from a small cohort of counter protesters, including members of Moms Against College Antisemitism — a national Facebook group with more than 61,000 online members.

The protesters carried signs that read “Hamas Go Home” and “You Support Hamas Rape/Murder. Are You Proud of It?”

Though most counter protesters did not directly engage with the demonstration, two approached the organizers as they addressed the crowd, chanting, “Rape, terrorism, that’s what you support.”

In a speech, Acheampong argued that the University violated its own institutional neutrality policy and for reinvesting $150 million in Booking Holdings Inc., a company criticized for its operation in Israeli settlements in the West Bank. Harvard cut its shares in Booking by 46 percent at the end of 2024.

Acheampong said the abrupt cancellation of a Jan. 21 Harvard Medical School panel with patients from Gaza receiving care in Boston was a “contradiction” of the University’s institutional neutrality policy.

“The University has the audacity to bring a man like this to this campus. Meanwhile, they can’t even do an event on Palestinian death at the medical school,” Acheampong said.

“We understand that it’s a front by the University. They’re not neutral in anything,”he added.

University spokesperson Jason A. Newton declined to comment on the organizers’ criticisms of the University.

Securitas block Harvard Out of Occupied Palestine protestors from entering the Harvard Business School. By Elyse C. Goncalves

After his speech, Acheampong and HOOP marshals led the protesters across the Anderson Memorial Bridge into Allston. While the counterprotesters gradually dispersed as the march went further towards HBS, a majority of the pro-Palestine demonstrators stuck through the cold rain until the end of the protest.

Harvard University Police Department and Securitas officers barricaded five separate entrances to the business school campus on North Harvard Street, stationing officers and placing metal fences at each entryway.

“I think that’s a testament to the fact that they were afraid,” HOOP organizer Violet T.M. Barron ’26 said.

Harvard ID holders who were not involved in the protest were allowed to enter HBS campus through the barricades. Securitas guards, HUPD officers, and HBS staff stationed at the barricades distributed written notices of HBS’s demonstration policy as they entered.

But HUPD only barricaded entrances on North Harvard Street. Protesters were able to quickly reroute, winding through a parking lot across from the Science and Engineering Complex and reemerging on Western Avenue.

“In the heat of the struggle, you got to reroute, quite literally, both politically and physically,” Acheampong said.

When marchers arrived in the HBS parking lot in front of Klarman Hall, HUPD was nowhere to be found.

One HBS staff member attempted to collect IDs as protesters entered the parking lot, but was overwhelmed by the large crowd walking past.

While HBS’s demonstration policy only allows Harvard University ID holders and HBS affiliates to participate in protests on its campus, non-Harvard affiliates still joined the entirety of the march. Organizers from MIT delivered speeches once the crowd gathered in front of Klarman Hall.

The policy was updated in June 2024 to introduce bans on face coverings and the use of amplified sound.

HOOP organizers used a microphone and speaker, as well as megaphones, to amplify their speeches and chants during the march and once on the HBS campus. Organizers also distributed disposable face masks to attendees, many of whom wore keffiyehs and balaclavas to cover their faces.

In a shift from past regulations, which required that individuals had Harvard University IDs in order to register protests, the updated demonstration policy requires that all attendees of protests on HBS’s campus are Harvard ID holders and HBS affiliates, except if explicit exemptions are granted.

As the sun set on the rally feet away from where Bennett was speaking, many of the protesters distributed dates to break their fast in observance of Ramadan.

Barron, a Crimson Editorial editor, said that though Bennett still spoke at the event, their efforts were not made in vain.

“Our protest didn’t stop him from coming,” Barron said. “However, there is documentation of the fact that he did not come without dissent.”

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

—Staff writer Laurel M. Shugart can be reached at laurel.shugart@thecrimson.com. Follow them on X @laurelmshugart.

—Staff writer Saketh Sundar can be reached at saketh.sundar@thecrimson.com. Follow him on X @saketh_sundar.