By Jacob Gurvis
LOS ANGELES — As a member of the Israeli military who frequently speaks on Israel’s behalf, Ran Bar-Yoshafat is used to being heckled by anti-Israel protesters, especially on college campuses.
The new Workers Party Member of Parliament for Rochdale,
In Los Angeles, Pro-Palestinian and pro-Israeli protesters face off outside a planned speech by Ran Bar-Yoshafat, an Israeli reservist whose speech at the University of California, Berkeley, was derailed, Feb. 29, 2024. (Jacob Gurvis)
But he says what happened to him at the University of California, Berkeley last week — where a planned appearance was canceled because of a protest that turned violent — was on a different level.
“They’re giving [a] prize to the violent side, and basically shutting down the person who wants to speak,” Bar-Yoshafat said. “I didn’t get a chance to even say, ‘Hello, my name is Ran.’”
Reportedly, some protesters objected to students who came to the event as “Jews.”
Bar-Yoshafat’s scheduled appearance on Feb. 29 at Los Angeles’ Holocaust museum, three days after the Berkeley incident, took place without interruption — although several dozen protesters amassed outside and later clashed with pro-Israel demonstrators who arrived.
“We are not protesting the Holocaust museum,” one of the leaders of the protest announced over a loudspeaker as the group began its demonstration. “We are protesting an IDF soldier.”
She made sure the group knew Bar-Yoshafat’s name, then led chants that included, “Yoshafat, you can’t hide, you committed genocide.”
Israeli soldiers and former soldiers have faced protests around the world since the outbreak of the Israel-Hamas war, which began when Hamas attacked Israel on Oct. 7.
In England, a university rabbi who left to join the reserves faced death threats upon his return.
In Canada, a champion athlete had an International Women’s Day speech canceled over her long-ago IDF service.
Events featuring IDF soldiers organized by pro-Israel campus organizations have drawn protests at colleges and universities across the US, including at Georgetown University and SUNY New Paltz last week.
Bar-Yoshafat was scheduled to speak in Jackson and Cheyenne, Wyoming this week.
In addition to being a reservist who recently spent 100 days fighting in Gaza, Bar-Yoshafat is an attorney and longtime advocate for Israel who has spoken on its behalf in the US for decades.
He is also deputy director of the Kohelet Policy Forum, a conservative Jerusalem think tank.
So he has had experience facing protests before. He recalled an incident that occurred at the University of California, Davis about 12 years ago, when protesters interrupted a speech he gave. He said the university handled it smoothly and allowed the event to proceed.
“People don’t have to like me,” he said. “They can come and have a walkout, which is, I think, immature, but they’re allowed to do so.”
At Berkeley, his talk was derailed after hundreds of pro-Palestinian protesters blocked the venue, smashed windows and, according to some accounts, physically attacked students who had come for the event.
The setting for Bar-Yoshafat’s speech had been moved, but the university police decided to evacuate the space at the last minute, saying that they could not guarantee students’ safety.
UC Berkeley Police are now investigating the incident.
Bar-Yoshafat said he was “surprised by the magnitude of their violence” and had expected Berkeley to be better prepared with security.
“They physically attacked students, spat on them, verbally attacking and physically assaulting them,” he said. “And the university was punishing me. I didn’t say a word.”
Berkeley, where student activists in 1964 formed a Free Speech Movement to advocate for unconstrained political speech on campus has seen multiple instances of unrest in recent years over right-wing speakers coming to the school.
Protests of Milo Yiannopoulos in 2017 caused a reported $100,000 in damage, while six people were arrested while protesting a 2019 speech by the commentator Ann Coulter.
Ultimately, Bar-Yoshafat held a small talk at a different location in Berkeley.
On Feb. 29, he addressed about 70 people at the LA Holocaust museum. Jen Stock, the LA regional director for Club Z, the Zionist youth organization that put on the event, said that the lecture’s schedule had been altered to prevent museum-goers from encountering the anticipated protests.
The museum had its usual security staff on hand, and a group of LAPD officers arrived moments before a pro-Palestinian protest began in the park outside the museum.
Attendees had to be checked in by security in order to enter the building.
The protesters bore Palestinian flags, signs and megaphones. Many wore keffiyehs and other face coverings, while one carried a baby doll painted with fake blood.
The group of roughly two to three dozen protesters began chanting variations of “Free Palestine” and anti-Israel phrases, some of which specifically named Bar-Yoshafat and US President Joe Biden.
A smaller group of pro-Israel counter-protestors waved Israeli and American flags. The two sides began yelling at each other, calling each other Nazis, terrorists and obscenities.
A few times throughout the roughly two-hour protest, members of the pro-Palestinian and pro-Israeli camps grew heated, though there was no violence beyond the occasional shove.
LAPD officers watched from outside the museum, shining flashlights on people when they got physical.
Bar-Yoshafat said the string of Israeli soldiers having events canceled, moved online or disrupted was an issue of free speech — one that he would carry with him as he returns home.
“I thought I was going to come here and share my experience in Gaza,” he said. “I feel like when I go back to Israel, I’m going to share my experience from here in America.”