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By Marisa Warman Hirschfield ‘27
On April 22nd, Yechiel M. Leiter, Israel’s Ambassador to the U.S., delivered a lecture entitled “The Demonization of Israel and the Rise of Anti-semitism” to approximately seventy-five attendees in McCosh 10. The event was co-sponsored by Chabad, the Center for Jewish Life, B’Artzeinu, and Princetonians for Free Speech. Around twenty P-safe officers and Free Expression Facilitators populated McCosh courtyard in advance of the talk. Every entrance was monitored by security, and fences were set up outside the lecture hall as boundaries for protestors. I attended in my capacity as a Writing Fellow for PFS.
The talk began with an announcement about free expression rules. An administrator shared that disruptions to the lecture might constitute a violation of university policy, subject to disciplinary action and New Jersey trespass law. After a brief statement by Danielle Shapiro, the president of Princeton’s pro-Israel group B’Artzeinu, Leiter took the stage, fresh off a trip to the State Department. As he spoke, protesters could be heard from outside, chanting “shame” and “free Palestine” for the duration of the event.
Leiter began with a personal story about his eldest son, an Israeli Defense Force soldier who died in the second week of the war in Gaza. As a bereaved father, Leiter was invited to partake in the March of the Living, an annual trek from Auschwitz to Birkenau in commemoration of the Holocaust. There, Leiter was asked to say Kaddish, the Jewish mourning prayer, for his son. Standing on the grounds of a Holocaust crematorium, he froze and asked himself, “Who am I saying Kaddish for?”
Leiter then shifted his attention to Israel’s enemies in the Middle East, describing the ring of proxies who seek to eliminate the nation. “What we saw on October 7 was supposed to take place all across the country. But Hamas jumped the gun, and didn’t wait for the ring of fire to attack all at once.”
He spoke at length about Israel’s efforts to curb noncombatant deaths in Gaza. “Instead of taking you on Yom Hashoah to Yad Vashem, I would take you to the Southern Command. I’d show you the lengths that we take in order to avoid civilian casualty.” He also acknowledged that 50,000 dead in Gaza is “a lot of people.” He said, “It’s horrific. I have pain for everyone who suffers, whether they’re on my side or the other side.”
While he recognized the high death toll, he emphasized his disdain for the label genocide, and expressed how this branding is “where anti-semitism begins.”
“We’re not genocidal. We’re not child killers, and it’s quite possible that if we were child killers, my son would be alive today. We could’ve avoided sending our soldiers in by foot and strap bombed population centers [instead].”
He articulated his desire for peace in the region but did not entertain the possibility of a Palestinian state. “You could have peace with the Palestinians tomorrow, but they’re not going to have a sovereign state smack in the middle of our country. Sorry, it’s just not going to happen. We’ve lived with that kind of terrorism for too long, and every time we withdraw, every time we give up territory in this tiny country that we have, we’ve paid for it in blood. And October 7th was the breaking point.”
The lecture was followed by a Q&A portion and a brief heated exchange. One attendee told the ambassador that he “plays a really good character.” The attendee proceeded to cite reports of the Israeli military using carbon monoxide to gas the Palestinian resistance and Jewish captives. Leiter vehemently denied these claims, calling them blatant lies, and insisted that gassing is not a practice of the Israeli military. He then passionately underscored the violence of the October 7th attacks. Raising his voice, he said, “Our civilians were slaughtered. Women were beheaded as they were raped, and the most offensive thing is, nobody gave a damn.”
A few questions followed that exchange, and when the event concluded, approximately fifty protestors were chanting outside McCosh, holding signs.
Marisa Warman Hirschfeld ’27 studies History and Creative Writing and is a Princetonians for Free Speech Writing Fellow.
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