Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton She reflected on how students at Columbia University, where she teaches, went from having “respectful” conversations about the war in Israel to “disgusting” protests against the country, which she said were “not led by students.”
“We basically sat down and answered questions for 45, 50 minutes, and the questions were really raw. I mean, we had a student from Palestine, a Palestinian student. We had a student from Israel, we had students from all over the Middle East. We had students from Asia and obviously the rest of the world who were struggling to understand what it all meant. But it was a respectful, informative, open dialogue, and literally at the end of it, the students applauded,” Clinton told CNN’s Fareed Zakaria in an interview that aired Sunday morning, after she took a class on the war that broke out in Israel last year.
Clinton teaches a politics course at Columbia University titled “Inside the Situation Room,” where she joined Columbia University students on the Wednesday following October 7, when Hamas launched attacks on Israel and Syria. fueled the ongoing war. Clinton said that after “open dialogue” on campus, she saw the rhetoric on campus “change into something that was not student-led.”
“Within a matter of days, we were having an event, and we had protests — the dean and I and our guests — and we were getting yelled at, we were getting called all sorts of names. What happened during that time? And from what I can tell, there were already groups like these in place across our country, and particularly on some campuses like Columbia, that had issues to talk about, had plans for protests and disruptions, and I saw that it became something that was not student-led, even though students participated, but that had outside funding and outside direction,” she said.
Former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton speaks during a panel at the Vital Voices Global Festival on May 5, 2023 in Washington, DC (Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images)
Clinton said that “to this day” she has not been able to determine how outside funding and outside influence motivated college students to join anti-Israel protests.
During 2023-24 College school yearsIn protest of the war in Israel, agitators and student protesters demonstrated on college campuses across the country, with anti-Semitic incidents increasing and Jewish students publicly stating that they did not feel safe on some campuses.
Pro-Palestinian protesters will demonstrate on April 29, 2024, with a protest camp on the campus of Columbia University in New York City. (Spencer Platt/Getty Images)
On the protesters For example, Columbia’s campus, occupied the school’s Hamilton Hall building, while schools like UCLA, Harvard and Yale worked to clear growing student camps where protesters demanded that their elite schools divest from Israel altogether.
The former foreign minister further said that when he asked college students about their anti-Israel views, they were not aware of the historical context of Israel and Middle East politics.
Hillary Clinton says asking Harris about her policies is a ‘double standard’
Hillary Rodham Clinton speaks onstage at an event to mark the release of her book “Something Lost, Something Gained” at the Dolby Theatre in Los Angeles on September 20, 2024. (Amy Sussman/Getty Images)
“Many videos on social media not only present a one-sided view of the conflict, but also show that this is an issue that scares people. But completely anti-Israelpro-Hamas, not just pro-Palestinian. And for me, that was hurtful, because, look, I’ve formed my opinions over many years. I’m willing to sit down and have a conversation with anybody, but it’s hard to have a conversation with people who have strong opinions without any factual and historical basis,” he said.
“And so in trying to talk to students, not only at Columbia, but in other places, I would hear slogans. I would get attacked, and, you know, very inflammatory language used. And when I would ask, ‘Well, do you know what happened at Camp David in 2000?’ ‘No.’ ‘Do you know what happened in 1947?’ ‘No.’ ‘Do you know how difficult the relationship has been?’ ‘No.’ ‘Do you know that there are Arab Israelis, and some are serving in the IDF?’ Nothing like that. And this whole slogan, you know, ‘From the river to the sea.’ What does that mean? Which river, which sea? That’s what bothered me,” Clinton said.
Hillary Clinton explains initial reaction to Biden dropping out of race: ‘This is exciting!’
Clinton said it has “been pretty calm” so far this year and “a very educational environment.”
Hillary Clinton and Fareed Zakaria speak during the 10th anniversary Women in the World Summit at the David H. Koch Theater at Lincoln Center on April 12, 2019 in New York City. (Mike Coppola/Getty Images)
He denounced harassment against Jewish students on college campuses and said the atmosphere quickly changed from “legitimate” dialogue among students who disagreed with the country’s foreign policies to open anti-Semitism.
Pro-Palestinian protesters protest the Israel-Hamas war at the University of Wisconsin Library Molan on April 29, 2024 in Madison, Wisconsin. (Getty Images)
Click here to get the Fox News app
“It was Yelling at Jewish studentsIt was blocking their access to classes or to club activities. It was bad. And so there was something else going on here that was very troubling. And now, you know, we’ve seen evidence of, you know, obviously foreign money, foreign influence, algorithms on TikTok that were anti-Israel from the start. And so I think a university in particular has an obligation to, of course, protect free speech, but also protect students from harassment and behavior that disrupts their learning,” she said.
