Princeton Opens Investigation After Protesters Disrupt Event With Former Israeli Prime Minister
Naftali Bennett joined attendees in a singalong when a fire alarm stopped the conversation
A chaotic event featuring former Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett on campus Monday is under investigation by Princeton after protesters disrupted the discussion.
The conversation was cut short when a fire alarm was set off, but attendees responded by joining in a pro-Israel singalong. Before leaving McCosh 10, Bennett said, “This was a lecture none of us are ever going to forget.”
President Christopher L. Eisgruber ’83 issued a statement Tuesday afternoon saying he was “appalled at reports of antisemitic language directed by demonstrators at members of our community after” the event. He added that “the University is investigating and will pursue disciplinary measures as appropriate, to the extent any members of the Princeton University community are implicated.
“I am also sorry the event was periodically disrupted by protestors inside McCosh Hall. We know that at least one disruptor inside the event was not a member of our community and we are taking action against him.”
Eisgruber said he contacted Bennett to apologize. Earlier in the day, University spokesperson Michael Hotchkiss announced that Princeton had opened the investigation, adding that the University’s free expression guarantees do not allow individuals “to prevent another from speaking or to prevent an event from continuing.”
The events of Monday and Tuesday come as the Trump administration is increasingly cracking down on institutions of higher learning — including Princeton — for allegedly not doing enough to combat campus antisemitism.
Bennett, who served as prime minister in 2021-22, leads the coalition that is considered the favorite to unseat Benjamin Netanyahu in 2026. He has been on a speaking tour of U.S. college campuses over the past several months, making stops at Columbia and Harvard. Several hours before the Monday event, Bennett was seen at the CVS on Nassau Street taking selfies and buying allergy medication. His appearance at Princeton was hosted by the Center for Jewish Life and co-sponsored by the Scharf Family Chabad House, the School of Public and International Affairs, and the Bobst Center for Peace and Justice.
Princeton’s chapter of Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) issued a statement Tuesday evening condemning Bennett's appearance, saying he “has repeatedly antagonized protestors on college campuses, joking that he would give exploding pagers to disruptors of Bennett’s earlier event at Harvard. Shame on Princeton University for providing a platform for this genocidaire’s political campaign and shame on all the bigots who attended in support of him.”
J Street U Princeton also released a statement Tuesday, writing that they do not “support the endorsement of Bennett's ideals ... nor the appropriation of Jewish liturgy. The statements made by Bennett do not represent the beliefs of all Jewish students, Jewish values, or J Street U's pro-peace mission.”
People protesting Bennett’s appearance prior to the event marched from Nassau Hall to McCosh Courtyard.
Before Bennett and CJL executive director Rabbi Gil Steinlauf ’91 took the stage, protesters, led by SJP, gathered in front of Nassau Hall and marched to McCosh Courtyard. Among other chants, the protesters called Bennett a war criminal.
The crowd grew to about 150 people as the event began, and the protesters’ chanting could be heard inside McCosh 10. Steinlauf, Bennett’s interlocutor for the Q&A, began by reminding attendees of Princeton’s free speech policies, emphasizing that people who disrupted the event could face disciplinary consequences.
About 15 minutes later, after answering a question about his position on a Palestinian state (which he does not support), a group of about 20 people, mostly students, stood up and shouted Bennett down, accusing him of genocide. The protesters left relatively quickly, escorted by several Public Safety officers. No one was placed under arrest inside McCosh.
A few minutes later, pro-Palestinian activist Sayel Kayed, who is not affiliated with the University, stood up and started yelling at Bennett, asking him how he could explain the deaths of thousands of Palestinian children in Gaza.
“You know what I would tell you,” Bennett said. The Palestinians have been “whining for the past 80 years,” he said. “Instead of ... building your own future, you have focused on killing the Jews.”
During the outburst, multiple University employees told Kayed he was in violation of policy. It is unclear how he was able to enter the event, which was only open to Princeton staff, faculty, and students.
About 10 minutes later, the fire alarm went off, causing the speakers’ microphones to turn off. Event organizers scrambled and Bennett stood on stage laughing and playfully interacting with the audience.
In a letter to the CJL community released Tuesday, Steinlauf wrote: “While we cannot say with absolute certainty, security personnel and university officials were confident that the alarm was deliberately pulled to disrupt or end the event.”
Rabbi Eitan Webb, co-director of the Scharf Family Chabad House, stood up and began singing “Gesher Tzar Meod,” a Hebrew song based on a saying from a famous Hasidic rabbi (“The whole entire world is a very narrow bridge …”).
As the fire alarm continued, students rushed the stage (to the dismay of Bennett’s security guards) with an American flag and an Israeli flag, dancing and singing. When that song ended, they struck up “Dayenu,” a song sung at the Passover seder. (Passover begins on Saturday night.)
The alarm finally subsided and the crowd stood and sang “Hatikvah,” Israel’s national anthem.
Pro-Palestinian protesters gather outside McCosh Hall, behind the white fencing put up by Public Safety to separate them from talk attendees.
Outside, the crowd of protesters had grown to closer to 250, with a white fence separating them from event attendees. “If you were really victims, you wouldn’t be singing and dancing!” one demonstrator shouted at a group of students filming the protest.
“Go back to Europe!” another yelled.
The Daily Princetonian reported that at one point a Public Safety officer entered the crowd and pushed the protesters back.
To Webb, the way the evening unfolded emphasized the complexity of the moment, saying, “The spontaneity of the outbreak into joyous song, which instantly swept up the room, speaks both to the tension of the community, which lies below the surface and which needs addressing, and to the knowledge that we are in fact united at our core.”
In his letter, Steinlauf wrote that he had “never witnessed such a powerful and moving display of the Jewish spirit. Those who tried to silence us could not succeed.”
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5 Responses
Sadler Poe ’67
2 Months AgoLearning Through Listening
Several stories in PAW’s May issue focused on free speech and its first cousin academic freedom, but none focused on its rationale — learning. From the protesters who disrupted Naftali Bennett’s presentation, to Professor Weiss who moved his final class to the site of an anti-Israel encampment, to the current administration, which uses the cudgel of withholding funds to force Princeton to toe the Trumpian line, none was interested in furthering knowledge through reasoned discussion. Instead, they “knew” truth and therefore, sought to impose their views rather than grapple with other voices. All three stories involved antisemitism at Princeton.
That ugliness, no doubt, is on our campus. It certainly was when I was an undergrad, but in those days, it was not accompanied with such vitriol and rectitude. The eight of us in our suite, all WASPs — a term I hadn’t heard until I came to Princeton — added Jewish-sounding suffixes to our names. We thought it humorous, but now it’s a regret that I excuse as youthful ignorance and naivete. But it was Princeton’s spirit of learning that led us toward maturity. One of us became friends with Malcolm Diamond, a professor of religion. We invited him to our rooms for beer and snacks. He and his wife reciprocated by having us for dinner. Much of the discussion at those events was about his family’s punching through prejudice to mainstream America. That was a powerful lesson for this kid who came from a town that closed its synagogue because the congregation lost its minyan.
A mind-changing experience fostered by Princeton. Can today’s students and faculty regain that call to learn through listening?
Norman Ravitch *62
3 Months AgoBennett’s Rhetoric
Naftali Bennett’s rhetoric is no worse than that of most of our congressmen and senators.
Michael Goldstein ’78
3 Months AgoBennett Interruption Has Precedent at Princeton
It is becoming difficult to keep track of antisemitic occurrences at Princeton. This week, four campus groups invited Naftali Bennett, former prime minister of Israel. His speech was repeatedly interrupted, ending with a heckler’s veto when the fire alarm was pulled. Jewish students were told to “go back to Europe” and called “inbred swine” according to Danielle Shapiro ’25’s account in The Free Press.
President Eisgruber, longtime defender of free speech no matter how serious the antisemitic incitement, ultimately apologized to Bennett. Eisgruber claimed he was “appalled at reports of antisemitic language directed by demonstrators at members of our community.” He vowed, “the university will pursue disciplinary measures as appropriate.”
Yet Princeton has normalized blood libel level antisemitism on campus for years, although repeatedly warned about such incitement. A U.S. Congressman asked Princeton to remove defamatory textbooks from the classroom. In 2019, a speaker called a student who had served in the IDF a “concentration camp guard.” The situation worsened after the Hamas assault on Israel on Oct. 7, 2023.
Last week, Princeton held a conference sponsored by two University departments called “The Anti-Zionist Idea.” Imagine a conference on “the anti-Canadian idea.”
Perhaps Eisgruber’s new-found concern is due to the federal government reportedly withholding $210 million “as it probes antisemitism on campus.” Yet in a Bloomberg interview, Eisgruber signals Princeton will not make concessions, calling campus antisemitism “rare.”
Universities have no divine right to tax dollars, especially if they practice discrimination. And disaffected alumni will not make up Princeton’s financial shortfall.
Nipuna Ginige ’26
3 Months AgoBennett’s Rhetoric Motivated Protests
No mention of any of the rhetoric by former Prime Minister Naftali Bennett that motivated the protests? Such as:
“I have killed lots of Arabs in my life, and there’s no problem with that.” (Source: The Jerusalem Post)
“They [Palestinian children who breach the border fence] are not children — they are terrorists. We are fooling ourselves.” (Source: The Times of Israel)
To a Palestinian member of Knesset: “When you were still swinging from trees, we had a Jewish state here.” (Source: BBC)
“I will do everything in my power, forever, to fight against a Palestinian state being founded in the Land of Israel.” (Source: The New Yorker)
It’s important context to understand this story.
Robert Hill ’00
3 Months AgoOn Sourcing Criticism
Nipuna Ginige ’26 presents an excellent, well-sourced catalogue of some of the more intemperate-sounding rhetoric former Israeli Prime Minister Bennett used earlier in his career. This is a refreshing departure from, for example, those quoted in the article blithely calling Bennett a “genocidaire” without providing any such dates or details — admittedly a difficult thing to do because, in fact, Bennett has been retired from politics for the past three years. We could argue about the contexts for those quotes (the most seemingly offensive quote, on “swinging from trees,” is clearly a riff on British Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli’s famous witticism in Parliament, that “when the ancestors of the right honourable gentlemen were brutal savages in an unknown land, mine were priests in the Temple of Solomon,” for instance). But the precision and sourcing of these fact-based criticisms are exactly what is needed to elevate the level of discourse on campus, and in academia generally.