Video captures provocation as pro-Israeli counter-protester incites police involvement during Gaza campus protests

Witness accounts and video footage circulating online reveal a pro-Israel individual intentionally yelling antisemitic chants in an attempt to incite and tarnish a Gaza solidarity gathering at Northeastern University in the US on Friday.

A video that has been widely shared online captured a disturbing incident in which a pro-Israel counter-protester was heard shouting “kill the Jews” before directing a threatening comment towards the pro-Palestine demonstrators.

A video recently surfaced on X (formerly known as Twitter) courtesy of Working Mass, a media outlet affiliated with the Democratic Socialists of America in Massachusetts. The footage captures a disturbing incident where two students carrying an Israeli flag were heard shouting an antisemitic chant in response to pro-Palestinian organizers conducting a mic check.

“You just chanted for it,” the pro-Israel counter-protester can be heard saying.

Confusion could be soon heard, before pro-Palestinian protesters started booing and shouting over them, in reaction to the sentence.

Tori Bedford, a reporter for GBH, also confirmed that “kill the Jews” was said by a counter-protester holding the Israeli flag.

The reporter said the man said it was “seemingly as a provocative joke in response to the group’s pro-Palestine chants”.

In a follow-up video also shared by Bedford, the instigator can also be heard accusing the protesters of being “funded by the Qatar government”. 

The incident was used by Northeastern as part of their reason to clear the encampment in Centennial Common before police in riot gear arrested around 100 individuals on the premises.

In a statement on X, the university said that “the action was taken after some protesters resorted to virulent antisemitic slurs, including ‘Kill the Jews'”.

“What began as a student demonstration two days ago, was infiltrated by professional organizers with no affiliation to Northeastern. We cannot tolerate this kind of hate on our campus,” the university added.

The Boston branch of the Jewish Voices for Peace organisation, as well as IfNotNowBoston, condemned the students’ arrest in a statement on Saturday. 

“We denounce Northeastern University’s discipline of student activists and Boston Police Department’s arrest of peaceful protesters. We denounce false claims that protests were infiltrated by professional organizers who used virulent antisemitic slurs.”

The two organisations said that the video “clearly” shows that the “Kill the Jews” sentence was yelled by a pro-Israel counter-protester.

Pro-Palestine demonstrations and encampments held in solidarity with devastated Gaza have intensified in recent days across US university campuses.

On April 18, the New York Police Department arrested over 100 students for trespassing after they formed an encampment at Columbia University, following a complaint from the institution’s president Nemat Minouche Shafik which called for the NYPD to remove the students.

Since then, similar protests against universities’ ties to Israel and against the indiscriminate war on Gaza have spread to other universities, with hundreds more students and protesters arrested.

Israel has killed at least 34,488 Palestinians as of Monday since October 7, as the war is nearing the seventh-month mark.

NGOs and activists have decried the publicization and focus on isolated incidents deemed “antisemitic”, as well as the clampdown on pro-Palestinian expression on US student campuses.