UC Berkeley commencement draws anti-Israel protests from graduating students
Hundreds of graduating students at UC Berkeley protested against Israel at their commencement ceremony, video shows. (Source: @JerseyNoahx via Storyful)
A chapter of a far-left organization at the University of California, Berkeley's law school capped off a Palestinian Political Prisoners Day earlier this week with a message from a failed suicide car bomber jailed in Israel for eight years.
UC Berkeley Law Students for Justice Palestine shared a video on its Instagram account from convicted attempted car bomber Israa Jaabis, who thanked her western counterparts for supporting her cause.
"Firstly, I would like to thank [the students] for their attentiveness, for listening with their hearts," Jaabis said, according to English translated subtitles attached to the video.
"For many reasons, even their attendance is enough to make us feel — as liberated Palestinian prisoners — that there is someone who cares about us."
Israa Jaabis, a Palestinian woman who spent eight years in Israeli prisons with severe burns, spoke about her captivity and freedom at the third International Al-Aqsa Women's Conference in Istanbul, Turkey, Nov. 7, 2025. (Muhammed Enes Yildirim/Anadolu via Getty Images)
Jaabis was jailed in Israel from 2015 to 2023 after attempting to set off a car bomb during a traffic stop. The incident occurred near an area where Israeli soldiers would often gather and attempt to hitchhike. Both Jaabis and an Israeli officer, Moshe Chen, were severely burned during the terror attack.
While in prison, Jaabis made headlines for demanding cosmetic surgery on her badly scarred face. She was released in November 2023 in a prisoner exchange as the Israeli government attempted to free hostages taken by Hamas militants in the Oct. 7, 2023, terror attack.
Palestinian prisoner Israa Jaabis arrives at her home in Israeli-annexed east Jerusalem Nov. 26, 2023, after being released from Israeli jails in a prisoner exchange with Hamas. (Oren Ziv/AFP)
"There are those who are in solidarity with us, those who support us and do not abandon us," Jaabis said in the video.
"Your attendance — in particular as law students — makes us hopeful that there remains some humanity, that there is someone to support us in the future, delivering our message to the international community and amplifying our call to liberate Palestinian prisoners, as well as to liberate societies from servitude and from bigotry which produces populations complicit in perpetrating inhumane laws."
Critics on X blasted both the event organizers and UC Berkeley.
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"Berkeley being a leftist cesspool is not something that should surprise you," said one X user.
"Muslims must be laughing at the insane stupidity of the 'enlightened' useful idiots here in the West," said another.
"This stuff keeps me up at night. I don't understand how the world just rewrites morality to fit it's political agenda," said another.
A spokesperson for UC Berkeley Law said the school's hands were tied.
Pro-Palestinian protesters set up a tent encampment during a demonstration in front of Sproul Hall on the UC Berkeley campus in Berkeley, Calif., on April 22, 2024. (Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)
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"As a public university, UC Berkeley has a non-discretionary obligation to abide by and support the First Amendment in a completely content neutral manner," Alex Shapiro, assistant dean of communications, said. "We do not have the legal ability to sanction or censor constitutionally protected expression.
"However, as UC Berkeley has repeatedly informed the student body, if any campus community member feels threatened, they are encouraged to contact the Office for the Prevention of Harassment and Discrimination. OPHD provides support to those harmed, investigates all allegations, and the campus takes appropriate steps following any findings."
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