About 15 pro-Palestine demonstrators protested outside an apartment building on Hemenway Street Oct. 30 in opposition to an event hosted by Northeastern Mishelanu, which invited two Israel Defense Forces, or IDF, soldiers to campus.
Demonstrators, who declined to identify themselves as members of an organized group to The News, assembled outside of Tatte Bakery & Cafe before moving to the street in front of 175 Hemenway St., which serves as off-campus housing.
Northeastern Mishelanu, a self-identified “Israeli culture and Zionist club,” invited two Israeli soldiers who have “been on the ground since October 7” to campus to talk about their experiences in person, according to an Instagram post from the group.
One attendee of Mishelanu’s event, who was granted anonymity due to safety concerns, said the protesters followed the group from their meeting spot at Tatte to the Hemenway Street apartment building where the meeting was being held.
“Because it was clear they were going to be disruptive at Tatte and this was an informal event, we decided to go to [an] apartment thinking we wouldn’t be disrupted,” the student wrote in an email statement. “As we left though, they started following us.”
Once the event moved to the apartment, pro-Palestine students used a megaphone to shout up to a window from which an Israeli flag hung, chanting slogans like “Down, down with occupation, up, up with liberation” and “Palestine will live forever.”
“There is an appalling level of depravity in giving a platform to people who commit genocide,” Northeastern University School of Law Students for Justine in Palestine wrote in a statement in response to Mishelanu’s event in a post on its Instagram page. “On Wednesday, October 30th, Northeastern students are hosting an event with ‘Israeli’ soldiers who have been slaughtering Palestinians in Gaza for the past year.”
The statement, also co-signed by Jewish Law Students Advocating for Justice, goes on to say that there are “still people on this earth and on this campus who fundamentally do not see Palestinians as humans” and that the soldiers “do not represent Jewish safety or Jewish values.”
“There is no valid justification for inviting [Israeli Occupying Forces] IOF soldiers who brag about their war crimes in Gaza to speak to students,” the statement reads.
Mishelanu said in a statement to The News that despite disruptions, the event was a “success” and gave students the opportunity to “gain insight into Israeli culture.”
“The event remained private due to security threats, and some students faced harassment, including being followed and subjected to anti-simitic comments,” the statement reads.
Protesters gathered at about 4 p.m. — when Mishelanu’s event started at Tatte — and disbanded at approximately 6 p.m.
“We had maybe two minutes of calm, just sitting down in the living room before the group got out their megaphones and started screaming up at us,” the anonymous event attendee said. “I’m all for the right to protest, but following a private group of people to an apartment and then continuing to shout profane and vile things outside the apartment for two hours was beyond not okay.”
Two to five counter-protesters assembled at about 5 p.m., shouting back at the group of demonstrators who were wrapped in Palestinian flags. A person in the room where the Israeli flag was hanging opened their window at one point, shouting down unintelligibly before closing the window.
“There are other Jewish people in the building who had to walk through the crowd of people screaming things like ‘There is only one solution: Intifada revolution’ just to get to their house,” the student said in their email statement.
Two Northeastern University Police Department police officers watched the protest from across the street in front of Stetson East.
Cars passing honked at protesters in response to one demonstrator holding a sign saying “Honk if you hate genocide.” Other students took photos and videos as they passed by.
Several pro-Palestine demonstrators and counter-protesters declined to speak to The News, but one counter-protester who declined to identify themselves said they felt unsafe.
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