Former prime minister Naftali Bennett’s lecture at Princeton University was interrupted by a fire alarm and activists calling out war crimes allegations, according to social media posts by Bennett and anti-Israel groups.

An alarm sounded in McCosh Hall, where Bennett was speaking as a guest of the Princeton School of Public and International Affairs, according to a Princeton Palestine Liberation Coalition Instagram post. Princeton Tigers for Israel (PTI) and B’Artzeinu Princeton accused a protester of pulling the alarm to bring the Monday event to an abrupt end.

Students and faculty held papers covered with red handprints as they filed out of the speech, according to American Muslims for Palestine New Jersey.

Activist Sayel Kayed heckled the former prime minister, blaming him for the death of Palestinian children during the Israel-Hamas War and decrying the placement of a blockade on Gaza following Israel’s 2005 Disengagement and the 2006 Hamas rise to power.

Bennett responded that “instead of whining for the last 80 years and building your own future, you have focused on killing Jews. It’s time that the Palestinians stopped whining and started building their own future.”

People walk around the Princeton University campus in New Jersey, November 16, 2013. (credit: REUTERS/EDUARDO MUNOZ)
People walk around the Princeton University campus in New Jersey, November 16, 2013. (credit: REUTERS/EDUARDO MUNOZ)

'Bennett more extreme than Netanyahu'

Kayed said Israel was committing a "Holocaust" in Gaza.

“This is our land,” said Kayed. “You came from Europe, running away from the Holocaust, and we welcomed you into our land.”

Bennett retorted that the Palestinians had collaborated with the Nazis during World War II.
J Street U Princeton said on Tuesday that Bennett had joked about giving protesters exploding pagers, a reference to the 2024 pager operation against Hezbollah in Lebanon. The group said it was disgusted by the joke, his "opposition to Palestinian statehood" and his "support of annexation of the West Bank."

Around 300 people rallied outside McCosh Hall to protest Bennett’s visit, with AMP NJ stating, “Bennett should be in prison, not in Princeton. Shame on this institution for its complicity in genocide.”

Activists allegedly yelled that Jewish students proceeding to the event were “all f***ing inbred” and “inbred swine” and chanted for them to “go back to go Europe,” according to a Tuesday letter from PTI and B’Artzeinu to Princeton President Christopher Eisgruber. One activist allegedly raised an inverted triangle hand gesture at students, referencing the symbol used in Hamas propaganda to denote enemy targets.
Anti-Israel activist groups said ahead of the event that Bennett was more extreme than Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, highlighting a 2013 statement regarding the execution of terrorists, dismissing detractors by allegedly retorting, “I have killed lots of Arabs in my life – and there is no problem with that.” Bennett’s office clarified that he was referring to killing terrorists in operations.
Campus pro-Israel groups decried the groups behind the “embarrassing spectacle” that occurred during the lecture, castigating Students for Justice in Palestine as pro-Hamas and anti-American. PTI and B’Artzeinu called on Eisgruber to apologize to Bennett, ban the SJP chapter, ban masked protests, and take punitive actions against Monday’s disruptors.
According to The Daily Princetonian, the university is investigating the incidents, and Eisgruber has personally apologized to Bennett.