I Was Called an ‘Inbred Swine’ at Princeton Last Night By Danielle Shapiro
https://www.thefp.com/p/anti-israel-princeton-protest?utm_medium=email
Anti-Israel protesters shut down a campus event by pulling a fire alarm and hurling vile slurs. Will our college president finally act?
Last night at Princeton, Jewish students were called “inbred swine,” told to “go back to Europe,” and taunted with gestures of the Hamas triangle by masked protesters. Sadly, slurs like these have become commonplace at anti-Israel protests at my college in the months since Hamas invaded Israel on October 7, 2023, but university president Christopher Eisgruber insists he is “proud of the campus climate at Princeton.”
What would it take for him to question that belief?
The latest outrage was sparked by a visit from former Israeli prime minister Naftali Bennett. More than 200 students had turned up to hear Bennett talk about his time as prime minister from 2021 to 2022 and the current government under Benjamin Netanyahu post–October 7.
Days before Bennett arrived, the Princeton chapter of Students for Justice in Palestine had plastered posters all over campus, calling him a “war criminal,” and flooded listservs and social media with messages saying the college was “complicit in normalizing his murderous policies.” SJP students publicly declared that “Bennett should be in prison, not at Princeton.” Never mind that he was the first Israeli PM to form a coalition with the Arab party in the Knesset. Or that Princeton’s Hillel and four other organizations had invited him to the talk in good faith. All students who registered for the event were encouraged to submit questions in advance; only those with a Princeton ID were able to register.
Around 7 p.m. on Monday, anti-Israel protesters gathered at the campus’s flagship building, Nassau Hall, and then marched, while banging drums and shouting into microphones, toward McCosh Hall, where Bennett started giving his remarks at 7:30 p.m. I settled into a seat to hear him talk. About 20 minutes into his speech, around 25 students stood up in unison and shouted at Bennett, “War criminal!” “We charge you with genocide!” and other exclamations before walking out en masse.
Five minutes later, the social media activist Sayel Kayed, who does not hold a Princeton ID, stood up and yelled at Bennett: “Now you’re committing a holocaust!” and “You killed 60,000 Palestinians!” He kept shouting until free-speech facilitators asked him to leave and then removed him from the event. (In 2015, Princeton adopted the University of Chicago’s free speech guidelines, which state that no single person’s right to speak overrides the right of others to learn from the main speaker at a lecture or event.)
Ten minutes later, a fire alarm went off. Clearly, there was no fire. We sat in confusion until two Princeton rabbis started singing Jewish songs as many of us joined in. But, by then, the event was pretty much over. Later that night, SJP claimed responsibility for pulling the alarm, stating on social media: “Genocide alarm activated.”
As we filed out of the building, the protest had swelled to around 100, with most people wearing masks and many yelling at us: “You’re committing a holocaust!” and “You’re killing babies!” Multiple students, myself included, were told to “go back to Europe.” We also heard many shouts of “They’re all fucking inbred!” and “inbred swine!” At least two or three protesters used their hands to create the shape of the Hamas triangle.
Refusing to be intimidated, many of us stayed and filmed the scene. Ever since October 7, we have endured so many antisemitic protests on campus, it’s almost become the background noise to our studies. And it shows no signs of stopping, even though the Trump administration has paused $210 million in funding to Princeton for failing to clamp down on Jew hate.
But this was a new low. At a place where we’re taught to respect and uphold the values of free speech, SJP went so far as to pull a fire alarm, literally silencing speech, and even bragged about it.
This all drove me to co-sign a letter with a fellow student and send it to President Eisgruber, demanding that Princeton enforce New Jersey state law and its own regulations to make sure the individuals who disrupted Monday’s event are held accountable. We asked the president to publicly apologize to Bennett, ban face masks during protests, punish trespassers, terminate Princeton’s chapter of SJP for violating the college’s free speech regulations, and condemn the egregious instances of antisemitism that took place on our campus last night.
Tonight, our president released a statement, making good on a couple of those demands, and pledging to investigate the matter. Eisgruber said he is “appalled at reports of antisemitic language directed by demonstrators at members of our community” in a public apology to Bennett. He continued, “Such behavior is reprehensible and intolerable. The University is investigating and will pursue disciplinary measures as appropriate, to the extent any members of the Princeton University community are implicated.”
It’s definitely a start.
But actions speak louder than words. Time will tell if anything truly changes at Princeton University.
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