Posted on 02/28/24
| News Source: Arutz-7
Jewish students at UC Berkeley were forced to evacuate a theater on-campus as a mob of anti-Israel protestors violently stormed a pro-Israel event Monday night.
The event, 'Israel at War: Combat the Lies,' featured Ran Bar-Yoshafat, an IDF reservist who served in Gaza during the current war.
Several hundred protestors chanted “Intifada! Intifada!” while banging on the doors of the Zellerbach Playhouse. At one point, a glass door was shattered by the protestors.
The Jewish News of Northern California reported that multiple students were injured during the incident, including a young woman who was hurt while attempting to hold a door shut while the protestors attempted to break in.
One student said that she saw a girl being grabbed by the neck and shoved by the angry mob. Another Jewish student said he was called a "dirty Jew" and spat at.
Due to the violent protestors, security guards ordered the event attendees to evacuate via underground tunnels out of the building for their own safety.
The violent protest was held by Bears for Palestine, a local affiliate of the Students for Justice in Palestine movement.
Bar-Yoshafat told The Daily Wire, “I don’t think this about the IDF, Jews or even Israel, this is them lacking Western values like freedom of speech. For them I am guilty until proven innocent.”
“Girls were crying from being attacked and I think the kid that was spat on was just so shocked. I don’t think the students anticipated so many people being violent, they thought they would just chant outside,” he said.
University spokesperson Dan Mogulof told J. that the violent protest was "despicable" and confirmed that a door and multiple windows had been damaged.
Mogulof decried the "willingness and readiness of that mob to engage in violent behavior.”