Arrests at Princeton pop-up encampment as anti-Israel protests sweep universities
Two protesters were arrested at a Princeton University anti-Israel encampment Thursday. (Credit: WTXF)
A Jewish Princeton University freshman recounted the virulent antisemitism he witnessed on the Ivy League campus at an anti-Israel protest encampment this week.
Maximillian Meyer of New York told Fox News Digital that protesters flew Hezbollah flags and chanted in support of Hamas as the wave of anti-Israel activism that continues to wash over some of America's top institutions came to Princeton — placing Jewish students in fear of attending classes and engaging in regular student life.
"The craziest thing to me is the fact that I saw the Hezbollah flag multiple times, and I wasn't even shocked," Meyer said in an interview. "And I thought that that is more emblematic of the moral rot that has taken hold on our college campuses — of our so-called elite college campuses — than anything else. The fact that not only do we have Hezbollah flags, not only are there chants supporting the Houthis, chants supporting Hamas, but that we're not even surprised. It has become ubiquitous. And that is devastating."
The U.S. State Department officially designates Hezbollah a foreign terrorist organization.
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The Hezbollah flag was spotted at the Princeton encampment at approximately 5:16 p.m. Thursday, according to The Daily Princetonian. Organizers then promptly asked it be put away.
The photo of the flag was initially shared by an X account belonging to Myles McKnight, an 2023 alum who also served as president of an undergraduate student organization dedicated to promoting free speech, per the publication. It was re-posted by Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas.
Meyer, who is currently studying politics at Princeton, said he has been standing up against anti-Israel organizations since the war in Gaza broke out after the Oct. 7 attack on Israel. He said the number of counter-protesters who have joined him varies, sometimes reaching a total of about six or seven students, in comparison to the 100 to 150 students and faculty demanding that Princeton divest from Israel and condemn the Jewish state's campaign to eradicate Hamas, a terrorist group.
Maximillian Meyer, a freshman student at Princeton studying politics, has counter-protested the anti-Israel encampment on campus since its establishment on Thursday. Meyer told Fox News Digital he saw Hezbollah flags at the encampment and knows Jewish students who are afraid to cross campus to attend class because of antisemitism on display by their classmates and faculty. (Maximillian Meyer)
However, Meyer said many Jewish students don't want to stay and speak out due to their fear and intimidation by the pro-Hamas groups.
"They are intimidated by the fact that their professors are participating in calls for their own for their own genocide," Meyer told Fox News Digital.
Meyer said that when he does protest, he always holds an American flag alongside the Israeli flag in an effort to signal his support for Israel as a Jewish American.
"So, when I carry my American flag and my Israeli flag, I understand that I'm not just protesting for my own people as a Jew, but I'm protesting for my own people as an American," he explained. "And that is a fundamental point that people need to understand. People need to understand that standing against the pro-Hamas mob is the exact same thing as standing with the United States of America."
An aerial shot of protesters at Princeton University on Thursday in New Jersey. (WTXF)
Meyer stated his fellow Jewish students can no longer attend school normally, with students now distracted during class "because they hear the chants."
"They're calling for their genocide while they're trying to pay attention and obtain their education," he said. "These are not only distracting and hateful, but they are expressly antisemitic. I'd like to see the administration condemn any of these calls."
Meyer called out faculty members who had supported the protest and specifically mentioned professor Max Weiss, who recently made a speech at the tent encampment on Princeton University's campus wherein he read a poem written by a Palestinian writer. The poem says that Jews "evolved backward" from "victims to victimizes," according to a New York Post reporter, who witnessed the speech. Weiss is currently an associate professor of history at Princeton.
Hezbollah members salute and raise the group's yellow flags during the funeral of fallen fighters who were killed in an Israeli strike on their vehicles, in Shehabiya, Lebanon, on April 17. (AFP via Getty Images)
"In that poem [he] said, the Jews have ‘evolved backwards.’ Evolved backwards. And if that's not antisemitic, if that isn't in violation of policies regarding discrimination, I don't know what is," Meyer said.
Princeton University did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Just this past week, university police moved in on the tent encampment on Princeton's campus, ultimately leading to two arrests. Princeton University Public Safety, the Ivy League school’s police force, gave demonstrators several warnings before acting, the university said.
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Meyer said he thought the university made a move in the right direction with the arrests of the protesters, but "that's not enough."
"Espousing overt antisemitism is abhorrent. It is abhorrent, and the university doesn't do anything except for talk about free speech and not allow tents to be built. But tents are not the extent of the problem," Meyer told Fox News Digital. "Tents are not the end all, be all of what must be stopped. They certainly must be stopped. But Hezbollah flags must be stopped."
Fox News Digital's Lawrence Richard contributed to this report.
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