Harvard Permits Activists to Protest Event Featuring Anti-Hamas Speaker for up to 10 Minutes
Students at Harvard University hosting Mosab Hassan Yousef, an anti-Hamas speaker, for a lecture were required by the university to read a statement allowing protesters to disrupt the event for up to 10 minutes.
“Speech is privileged in the University community,” the student who hosted the event read to the audience. “There are obligations of civility and respect for others that underlie rational discourse. If any disruption occurs that prohibits speech the disrupters will be allowed for up to 10 minutes.”
The statement outlined that after five minutes, protesters would be given a warning, and if they continued for another five minutes, they would be removed if their behavior “prevents the audience from adequately hearing or seeing the speakers,” according to a report by The Daily Wire.
Yousef, known as the “Green Prince,” is a former Palestinian militant who moved to Israel in 1997 and later collaborated with the Israeli intelligence agency Shin Bet to prevent terrorist attacks. His father, Sheikh Hassan Yousef, is a co-founder of Hamas. During his speech, he highlighted the anti-Israel radicalism that has flooded college campuses.
The university-issued statement comes as Harvard continues to navigate how to handle anti-Israel protests on campus. The school has seen multiple disruptions at campus events, including encampments and the harassment of Jewish students. While Yousef’s event was ultimately not disrupted by protesters, an anti-Israel vigil was held simultaneously to honor victims of what organizers referred to as “one year of genocide,” according to the Daily Wire.
“After a year of genocide, we must honor the over 42,000 martyrs lost in this genocide,” read a post on Instagram from an anti-Israel student group at Harvard.
Shabbos Kestenbaum, a Harvard graduate who is currently suing the school for enabling anti-Semitism, criticized the university’s protest policy, arguing that it permits students to throw “temper tantrums.”
“Rather than live up to its unfounded reputation of academic excellence, Harvard University instead sanctions temper tantrums, allowing students and professors to impede others’ free speech and educational opportunities,” Kestenbaum said in a statement to The Daily Wire. “This is yet another example of Harvard acquiescing to the demands of the mob.”
