Hundreds of pro-Palestinian activists gathered at Columbia University on Wednesday to protest former Israeli prime minister Naftali Bennett, who was speaking at the university as part of a campaign against the BDS movement, which advocates for a boycott of Israel.
The protesters, who chanted “Free Palestine” and called for Bennett to be barred from speaking, accused him of being a “war criminal.”
In flyers for the demonstration, the anti-Israel group Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP) claimed Bennett had previously boasted about killing many Arabs and said he had “no problem with that.” Another flyer quoted Bennett as saying he would do everything in his power to ensure that “Palestinians will never have their own state,” and referred to Palestinian children as “terrorists.”
I’m not sure that they do fully know those risks on a truly visceral level. Certainly at the 18-24 stage it was more passion than so-called “real life” experience for me. I’m not denigrating acting on that passion - it’s absolutely driven cultural conversations through generations - but I think consequences are more abstract in that era of age which allows more unfettered expression than we find in older adults. This is mostly a pedantic clarification.
Fair.