Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu ’75 SM ‘76 slams alma mater in congressional speech as Washington erupts in protest
About a dozen MIT-based protestors attended the D.C. rally alongside tens of thousands across the nation.
WASHINGTON — On Wednesday, July 24, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu ’75 SM ’76 gave a defiant address in the House Chamber during a joint meeting of Congress, urging continued support for the war in Gaza and offering strong criticisms of the anti-war protest movement.
Netanyahu’s delegation flew into the city on Monday earlier that week; the entirety of his stay was marred with protest action, such as noise demonstrations at the Watergate Hotel, where he was staying, and a sit-in on Capitol Hill the day before the address, where 200 demonstrators were arrested.
In one scene from the hour-long speech that began at 2 p.m. that day, Netanyahu condemned administrators at MIT, Harvard, and Penn for an alleged outbreak of antisemitism on their campuses, reiterating earlier talking points by congressional leaders and major Jewish groups that eventually led to the resignations of Harvard University president Claudine Gay and University of Pennsylvania president Elizabeth Magill.
“It’s not only the campus protesters who get it wrong. It’s also the people who run those campuses,” Netanyahu said, about halfway through his speech. “Eighty years after the Holocaust, the presidents of Harvard, Penn, and I’m ashamed to say my alma mater MIT couldn’t bring themselves to condemn the calls for the genocide of Jews.”
Netanyahu called back to a December House committee hearing on antisemitism, in which MIT president Sally Kornbluth, Gay, Magill, and American University professor Pamela Nadell—who later gave a talk on antisemitism at the Institute as the first in that spring’s “Dialogues Across Difference” lecture series, which explored themes of antisemitism and Islamophobia in the context of the ongoing Israel-Palestine conflict—were brought in to testify on the presence of antisemitic actions relating to the various pro-Palestinian movements at their respective campuses.
In the mentioned hearing, the three presidents were not explicitly asked by the attending congressional panel members to condemn calls for genocide on their campuses. Kornbluth, on her part, had said after questioning by Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-N.Y.) during the hearing that she had “heard chants, which can be antisemitic depending on the context when calling for the elimination of the Jewish people,” adding at the time that she had not “heard calling for the genocide for Jews on our campus.”
Kornbluth has since received numerous public calls for her resignation, both from congressional leaders and other public figures with ties to the Institute. Netanyahu's comments in his congressional address echo long-voiced concerns by Jewish campus leaders on what they perceived as an unfettered culture of antisemitism from the campus pro-Palestinian movement.
That same day, tens of thousands of protestors from across the U.S. congregated opposite the Capitol Building in protest. The action, part of the national pro-Palestinian movement's ongoing efforts to "uphold the red line"—a term used by leaders of the movement to refer to President Joe Biden's since-abandoned warnings against Israel's eventual May assault on the Palestinian city of Rafah—was the fourth major national mobilization effort organized in D.C. for the Palestinian cause since the Hamas-led October 7th attacks on Israel.
Protestors who attended this event described it as different from the other nationally-mobilized D.C. demonstrations as it was “the largest rejection of a foreign official coming to the United States,” one MIT-based protestor said.
The 11 a.m. rally, which was chiefly held on the intersection of 3rd St and Pennsylvania Ave but which also saw several minor contingents littered across neighboring areas, was held just weeks after another "red line" protest held on June 8 in front of the White House. The July 24 action followed days of intensified protest that had taken place since Netanyahu's entry into the city that Monday. The rally took place as Netanyahu’s address was also boycotted by over a hundred congressional Democrats.
About a dozen MIT students, alongside a hundred demonstrators from the greater Boston area, bussed in that day to attend the rally.
“We went to represent MIT workers,” said Mohamed Mohamed G, an organizer with the MIT Coalition For Palestine (C4P), in a later interview with The Tech, also adding that the campus pro-Palestinian movement was made up of “workers... who reject MIT’s ties to the Israeli Ministry of Defense.”
Several major worker’s union groups attended the rally, among them the United Electrical, Radio and Machine Workers of America (UE), which represents the Graduate Student Union (GSU) as UE Local 256.
Most MIT-based protestors remained part of the so-called “labor contingent” of the rally, one of many group-based factions—from artists, to left-wing organization Code Pink, to pro-Palestinian Israelis and Haredi Jews—which comprised the rally’s attendance.
Throughout the time of the main rally, several groups of protestors blocked access to and marched along the various streets and intersections surrounding the Capitol Complex. The various blockades were conducted in an attempt to disrupt Netanyahu's motorcade route as he made his way around the city.
“I hate how the US continues to support Israel, even while the IDF continues to enact genocide on the citizens of Gaza,” an attending student from the Class of 2024, who requested anonymity out of fear of public backlash, said of their motivation to come to D.C. “And in the wake of this, seeing members of Congress invite Netanyahu, it's disgusting, and it's something I and tons of my friends felt we had to do something about.”
In the hour leading up to Netanyahu's 2 p.m. address to Congress, the primary rally ended and many protestors began to disperse from the area. A large contingent remained by the Capitol Grounds, moving to a larger march in protest of Netanyahu's upcoming address—at the time, his motorcade was en route to the Capitol—and attempting to push through police barricades to impede the Israeli head of government's convoy. The march, which had a force of over a hundred, evaded police forces who were in close pursuit as the groups rounded the perimeter of the Capitol Complex; in some instances, altercations between the protestors and the police became violent as officers resorted to pepper-spraying and detaining.
“I think that tension, much like the BLM [Black Lives Matter] riots in 2020, is the inevitable result of a continued injustice,” said a rising sophomore from the Class of 2027, who attended the protest under the labor contingent alongside the other members of C4P. “We can be critical of it from any direction, but understanding why it happened is important in my mind.” The sophomore requested anonymity out of the perception that their name’s inclusion would compromise their full autonomy over their words.
As Netanyahu eventually made his way to the House Chamber at 2 p.m., the protestors shifted away from the area to continue to evade police forces and soon descended upon Union Station forty minutes after the beginning of the Israeli prime minister's address. Around a hundred protestors held the Columbus Circle plaza in front of Union Station for several more hours as continued clashes with law enforcement led to physical altercations and several arrests.
“They should be ashamed of themselves,” Netanyahu said of the pro-Palestinian protests that had erupted across the city during his visit.
Netanyahu also suggested during his speech that Iran may have played a role in the “anti-Israel protests that are going on right now outside this building,” he said, adding that “I have a message for these protestors: when the tyrants of Tehran—who hang gays from cranes and murder women for not covering their hair—are praising, promoting and funding you, you have officially become Iran’s useful idiots.”
Mohamed described Netanyahu’s speech as “horrific” and as dehumanizing to Palestinians and workers across the US, noting that, “What you had is a foreign official come and call your constituents ‘terrorists’... and even unsubstantiated [slander] against us that we were foreignly funded.”
That day, hundreds of police officers—including forces sworn in from D.C. Police (DCPD), U.S. Capitol Police (USPC), U.S. Park Police (USPP), the Department of Transportation (DOT), Homeland Security, and the New York City Police Department (NYPD)—patrolled the city and the Capitol Complex as protestors swarmed the area.
At Union Station, the marching protestors who arrived from Massachusetts Ave were met with a police blockade—with many police officers dressed in light riot gear—at the station's Columbus Circle-side entrance, which shut off access to the building from nearby entryways. Not long after the protestors' arrival, violent confrontations with law enforcement ensued as some demonstrators attempted to bring down American flags hung from three flagpoles facing the station. As the groups clashed and more protestors were detained, the three flagpoles' standards were eventually brought down and replaced with Palestinian flags.
Police officers present at the scene made several efforts at crowd control as the protestors occupied the lawn, with the protest eventually turning into riot as violent encounters and numerous acts of vandalism rocked the area. 23 protestors were ultimately arrested throughout the day's events, according to initial reporting by the Washington Post; this tally was later corrected to 25 in later coverage as additional arrests were identified.
At Union Station, escalating actions at the protest included the burning of an effigy of Netanyahu and the Israeli and American flags; pro-Palestinian graffiti—with statements such as “Hamas is Coming” and “All Zionists are Bastards”—drawn on the Columbus Fountain and the adjacent Freedom Bell; and the “kettling” of police officers who attempted to detain protestors.
As the effigy of Netanyahu burned, a protestor spray-painted a slogan which read, "Free Gaza," on the grounds of the Columbus Circle. A man who did not appear to be affiliated with the protest was also observed dragging away the burning American flag just minutes after it was set on fire, elicting vocal disapproval from the protestors, some of whom appeared to chase down the individual. In another scene, two protestors climbed atop a graffitied Freedom Bell and set off smoke canisters in the colors of the Palestinian flag, which appeared to evoke a zealous and energized response from other protestors who circled around the demonstration.
The riot eventually drew in several larger forces of law enforcement who made further arrests, including police officers armed with riot shields and other crowd-control munitions that were used to push back protestors. At least four USPP officers and one MPD officer were observed carrying weaponry that appeared to be riot control guns. The Tech was unable to verify whether these guns were fired during the course of the protest. Pepper spray was used at times to push back numerous individuals nearest to the front line of the riot, which also hit non-participating journalists and photographers, including one Tech reporter on-scene.
“The police there gave nowhere near that big a response to right-wing protestors storming the capitol on Jan. 6,” the Class of 2024 protestor said, referencing the Capitol attack in 2021. “They don't care about actual threats—they just hate people that support Palestine. The violence the police enacted on us was completely disproportionate.”
“Though people did get pepper sprayed and detained, it was nothing compared to what the people of Palestine have been dealing with not just since October, but for the past 76 years under Israel's violent apartheid rule,” the student added.
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August 3, 2024 (6:07 PM): Additional context and information on police activity at the Union Station riot were added. Further context was also added regarding the December congressional hearing to reflect a wider variety of campus perspectives.