Just as Dayan was about to begin his address on Israeli settlements in occupied Palestine, students who had filled the auditorium stood up, lifted placards reading “Settlements are a war crime” and walked out in silence.
Dayan was heard muttering “I remember doing this in kindergarten” while the auditorium emptied. He was then left to deliver his speech to a mostly empty venue.
A video of the walkout went viral on the internet, and words of encouragement came pouring in for taking a stand and leaving Dayan shocked.
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“To have 100 people standing up all at once and [leave] silently, did leave an impact,” Samer Hjouj, one of the organizers of the protest, told the Middle East Eye (MEE) news portal.
“As soon as we found out about the event, we planned and it took a lot of time but we had a team at every school in Harvard, finding people to help us make it happen.”
Amaya Arregi, a student at the Fletcher School who also took part in the walkout, argued that even if academic freedom was paramount, she wondered how the Law School could justify “inviting an Israeli politician to talk about how they go about violating international law”.
Hamzah Raza, a graduate student at the Harvard Divinity School who participated in the walk-out, said the successful action on Wednesday signaled to Dayan that more and more young people in the US were growing supportive of Palestinian human rights.
“The fact that virtually the entire room walked out on him says something. People who continue to take such positions will find themselves speaking to more, and more, empty rooms,” he said.
This is not the first time that the invitation of Israeli officials, or pro-Israeli figures, to events at universities has been condemned by students and activists.
In May last year, a number of protesters interrupted the former pro-Israel US Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley’s speech at the University of Houston, accusing her of having Palestinian blood on her hands and of signing off on genocide in her support for the Zionist regime.
MNA