Agencies-Gaza post
Palestine supporters interrupt Israeli Ambassador at Harvard Kennedy School
Chanting “end the occupation” and “apartheid has got to go,” Harvard Out of Occupied Palestine supporters interrupted an affair with Israel’s ambassador to the United States, Michael Herzog, at the Harvard Kennedy School on Thursday.
The Kennedy School’s Israel Caucus, a student gathering, arranged the occurrence with Herzog. The meeting was mediated by Eric B. Rosenbach, co-director of the Kennedy School’s Belfer Center. Shortly after Herzog started speaking, protestors disrupted the ambassador with chants and walked out of the event.
Morgan K. Benson, an HKS student who experienced the walkout, said he protested the Kennedy School’s determination to host “perpetrators of apartheid.”
“I’m disappointed that I go to a school where we can’t speak plainly about justice for Palestinians and the conditions that they’re living under, and that we are willing to platform war criminals who have directly contributed to those injustices,” Benson said. “It’s just necessary for students to counteract that normalization of the occupation that’s happening at the school.”
Joseph G. Leone, a student at the Kennedy School who also partook in the walkout, said he identifies the school will request a range of government officials, but those responsible “for Israeli apartheid and settler colonialism shouldn’t be welcomed at HKS.”
“HKS is going to host officials of various countries — that’s true — and we host plenty of odious figures from the United States as well,” Leone said. “But I think there’s a line, and I think that HKS has lines as well.”
Elad Strohmayer, a spokesperson for the Israeli Embassy in Washington, said in a report that the Ambassador came with the intention of entertaining in an open and honest dialogue.”
“While the Ambassador welcomes criticism, it was a shame that a small group of students only cared to create a provocation,” Strohmayer reported. “Change can be achieved by listening to one another and the Ambassador came with this purpose: to listen to and to have a productive conversation with the students.”
HKS spokesperson James F. Smith said in a report that the Kennedy School is “committed to open debate.”
Source: HERE
