Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Wednesday condemned the anti-Israel protests that have swept U.S. college campuses, calling the demonstrators “anti-Semitic mobs” who must be confronted.
“What’s happening on America’s college campuses is horrific. Anti-Semitic mobs have taken over leading universities. They call for the annihilation of Israel. They attack Jewish students. They attack Jewish faculty,” Netanyahu said in a video statement released Wednesday.
The Israeli leader referred to the ongoing wave of anti-Israel campus protests—most notably at Columbia University and New York University—as “reminiscent of what happened in German universities in the 1930s.”
“[The anti-Semitism] is unconscionable. It has to be stopped. It has to be condemned and condemned unequivocally. But that’s not what happened. The response of several university presidents was shameful,” Netanyahu said, noting the protesters have shouted “death to Israel” and “death to America.”
“What is important now is for all of us who are interested in and cherish our values and our civilization to stand up together and to say ‘enough is enough,’” the Israeli prime minister added. “We have to stop anti-Semitism, because anti-Semitism is the canary in the coal mine. It always precedes larger conflagrations that engulf the entire world.”
Students at Harvard University earlier on Wednesday followed the lead of their peers at Columbia and NYU by organizing a protest encampment in Harvard Yard to demand the university divest from Israel.
The demonstrations at Columbia, which turned violent and featured anti-Semitic slogans, also inspired students at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Tufts University, and Yale University to set up dozens of tents on university grounds, violating campus rules.
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D., N.Y.) at a Monday event with President Joe Biden praised the anti-Israel campus protests. After Ocasio-Cortez spoke, Biden urged the audience to “listen to that lady.”
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