Hundreds of demonstrators in New Haven, Conn., gathered late on Wednesday to denounce a visit by Israel’s far-right national security minister, who had been invited to speak at an event near Yale University’s campus.
Some demonstrators hurled water bottles at the official, Itamar Ben-Gvir, as he left the event at Shabtai, a private Jewish intellectual discussion society based at Yale that is not affiliated with the university. More than 300 protesters had assembled outside the Shabtai house over several hours, waving Israeli and Palestinian flags, according to the student newspaper, the Yale Daily News.
Earlier, a large group of students briefly erected a tent encampment on the Yale campus plaza in protest of Mr. Ben-Gvir’s appearance.
Mr. Ben-Gvir has long stood on the fringes of Israeli politics and has been widely criticized for his extreme views. He was barred as a teenager from serving in the Israeli Army because he was seen as too extremist. For some time, he had a portrait in his home of a man who shot dead 29 Palestinians in a West Bank mosque in 1994.
The protests were reminiscent of the demonstrations against the war in Gaza that rocked Yale and other campuses across the nation last spring. At Columbia University, where students in recent weeks have protested the federal detention of pro-Palestinian campus organizers, the school’s public safety office said on Wednesday that it had also been “made aware of possible plans to establish encampments.”
Near Yale’s campus, some students were also struck by water bottles during the demonstration, the student newspaper reported. The New Haven police said that one man, who was not a student, had kicked cars as they drove by and had been arrested and charged with disorderly conduct and interfering with an officer.
The confrontation came on Mr. Ben-Gvir’s first official trip to the United States since he rejoined the government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in March.
The decision to invite the national security minister to the event sparked immediate backlash, including from some current and former Jewish students at Yale, who pointed to his criminal convictions for incitement to racism and support for a terrorist group.
More than 40 Jewish alumni wrote in a letter this week that Mr. Ben-Gvir’s “celebration of hatred and revenge” was inconsistent with their Jewish values. Twenty Jewish clergy members who graduated from Yale called him “a danger to all Israelis and Palestinians.”
Mr. Ben-Gvir’s office said in a statement to CNN that water bottles had been thrown at him but that he was not injured and was in “good health.”
“Minister Ben-Gvir refused to leave the scene and made a V sign at them, as a sign of victory,” his office said.
A spokesman for Yale did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Nor did Rabbi Shmully Hecht, Shabtai’s co-founder and rabbinical director.
But Rabbi Hecht told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency, an international news and wire service, that he admired Mr. Ben-Gvir, who he said “promotes what he believes is best for his people that democratically elected him.”
This is a developing story and will be updated.
