Pro-Palestinians Disrupt Barkat Speech at San Francisco State University

Dozens of pro-Palestinian protesters disrupted a public appearance by Yerushalayim Mayor Nir Barkat at San Francisco State University on Wednesday.

The protesters, carried Palestinin flags, and wearing ‘keffiyeh’ scarves, attempted to shout down Barkat with cries of “apartheid” and “Israeli occupation,” and demanded that he be removed from the campus.

Police and security guards were called to the scene, but Barkat insisted on going ahead with his talk, even as load verbal attacks persisted in the lecture hall.

“Anyone who thinks that calls for violence and incitement will be able to silence us or divert us from our position is mistaken,” Barkat said in response to the incident. “We will continue to build, develop and strengthen the state of Israel and within it a united Yerushalayim and we will continue to voice our opinions and our legitimacy when we are invited to do so, even in places where they try to stop us.”

Barkat later said that he complained of the “shameful conduct” of the protesters to the university’s president and the mayor of San Francisco, and urged them not to permit “such dangerous incitement in a democratic country in general and on a campus in particular.”

The next stop on Barkat’s lecture in the United States was Thursday at Columbia University in New York.