Former secretary of state Hillary Clinton, on Saturday, sharply criticized pro-Palestiniain protesters at American universities. Speaking at the Munich Security Conference, the erstwhile first lady and U.S. senator — who now teaches international and public affairs at Columbia University — expressed her dismay over the students at countless institutions of higher education, including her own, who began rallying against Israel in the immediate aftermath of Hamas’s October 7 attack.
Describing a panel discussion on “conflict-related sexual violence” at the Columbia School of International and Public Affairs that covered Ukraine, Sudan, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and Israel, Clinton told the audience that anti-Israel protesters came to demonstrate.
“You just have to ask yourself how you could have an event on using rape as a tactic of war against women and girls — which is in conflict across the world — and you include the most recent example of Israel, and that brings out the protesters,” she said.
Clinton then attributed the protests to a form of antisemitism prevalent in academia at the moment.
“So, there is an invidious strain of antisemitism that has never gone away — but we had hopes it had been, certainly, submerged — that has been poking its head up quite some time now,” Clinton continued.
Speaking alongside the U.S. special envoy for monitoring and combating antisemitism, Deborah Lipstadt, Clinton said college students today are uninformed about Israel’s history and the current war with Hamas.
“What is so frustrating is that people have little to no information about all the efforts that were made, literally starting in 1948, but certainly moving most dramatically to the year 2000, to actually create a state for the Palestinian people,” she said. “I say that because even when I’m teaching with very smart students — and the students are from all over the world at the School of International and Public Affairs — they have no idea about any of this.”
Clinton then dove into the specifics of what her students do not know.
“They have no idea about the collapse of the peace process, the rise of an intifada. They have no idea about then–prime minister Ariel Sharon, a man noted for his military experience, withdrawing from Gaza. They have no idea of Hamas’ takeover of Gaza. They have no idea that another Israeli prime minister back when I was secretary of state, namely [Benjamin] Netanyahu, was willing at least to keep talking about some kind of two-state solution process,” she said.