Princeton University protesters shut down former Israeli prime minister's event
Former Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett's event on Monday at Princeton University in New Jersey was disrupted by protesters who interrupted his speech and staged a walkout, with the event eventually ending due to an emergency alarm that sounded.
Bennet is a key opposition figure to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and a contender to form the next government. He has also long been vocal about preventing the formation of a Palestinian state and has boasted he "killed many Arabs, and there is no problem with that" during his time in the Israeli forces.
The Princeton Alumni Weekly reported on Tuesday that an email sent out by the Center for Jewish Life - the group that hosted Bennett - said that while they "cannot say with absolute certainty", university officials are "confident that the alarm was deliberately pulled to disrupt or end the event”.
The university is now looking into how to discipline the disruptors, the alumni paper said.
Video footage provided to Middle East Eye showed that Bennett remained on stage and kept speaking with the audience as the fire alarm sounded. Other videos posted online by students confirmed that he was not escorted out as a security measure despite the alarm ringing.
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While the event did not continue as planned, supporters joined Bennett on stage to hold up the Israeli flag and sing the Israeli national anthem.
A statement provided to MEE by Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) Princeton said that "dozens of audience members conducted a peaceful walkout, chanting 'Naftali Bennett, you can’t hide, we charge you with genocide' along with statements calling him a war criminal".
Multiple videos posted to social media and several others shared with MEE largely reflect that account.
"Later, another audience member challenged Bennett, reminding him of the over 60,000 murdered Palestinians in Gaza, including 15,000 children... Bennett repeatedly denied this statement as 'a blatant lie'," the statement said.
Over 50,700 Palestinians have been killed in Israeli attacks on Gaza since the war began in October 2023.
In a letter to the university leadership posted to X, the student presidents of campus groups B'Artzeinu Princeton and Tigers for Israel called SJP Princeton's actions a "pro-Hamas, anti-American protest", which was "riddled with antisemitic chants and actions" - a common accusation levelled at pro-Palestinian protests, typically without evidence for these claims.
It was unclear whether that description referenced the protesters inside the event hall or the 250 people protesting outside.
MEE had requested access to Bennett's speech beforehand but was told the event is "not open to the public, and is only for Princeton University students, staff, faculty, and stakeholders".
The Princeton Alumni Weekly noted that the protester who interrupted Bennett with the number of children killed in Gaza was a "pro-Palestinian activist... who is not affiliated with the university".
Princeton University is a member of the Ivy League and has come under fire from the Trump administration as part of its crackdown on universities that experienced protests against Israel's war on Gaza.
On 1 April, the Trump administration suspended several dozen research grants totaling $210m to Princeton University as part of an ongoing investigation into antisemitism on campus, according to the White House and the Department of Energy.
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