A University of California, Los Angeles, professor denounced pro-Palestinian protesters at the school amid a battle with police, saying they were “never peaceful.”
Speaking with Fox News, professor Nir Hoftman recalled his hostile encounters with the protesters and accused them of deep antisemitism.
“This was never peaceful,” he said. “Jews were not allowed to go into the campus. Jews were not allowed to go into the library. Jews were not allowed to go to classes. It was never peaceful. They’re vandalizing the entire quad.”
Hoftman added that there had been a “total breakdown of law and order” and denounced local authorities for restraining the police from disbanding the camp until Wednesday. To emphasize his point, he recalled an encounter he had with the protesters days before.
“You might be shocked, but I’m not — because these people attacked me a few days ago,” he said when hosts asked if he was shocked by the violent scenes involved in the police storming of the encampment.
“I was walking, actually giving you guys an interview. And they didn’t want me to cross to the quad, which is where I was trying to get a shot, so they tackled me, assaulted me, and stole my AirPod,” Hoftman continued. “And when I went to the police, they basically told me, ‘You want us to go rescue your AirPod? We could barely rescue one of our security guards that got kidnapped into this area, injured, and we had to negotiate to get them out.'”
The UCLA professor also drew a larger point from the protests, saying that it wasn’t just a matter of antisemitism but rather the entire Western way of life.
“Well, I can tell you, you know, as someone who is Jewish, and as terrible as the antisemitism is, this is a bigger issue,” he said. “This is an issue of law and order. When you have no law and order, when you have chaos, vigilantes, then the people that want law and order lose, and the terrorists win.”
“This applies to all walks of life. You know, it starts on the campus, but now that every policeman is inside the campus, who’s enforcing the rest of the city? We need to have law and order, and that’s what was missing here all along,” Hoftman said. “This isn’t about a war in the Middle East. It’s about our entire system of life.”
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He concluded by saying that he had no plans of leaving UCLA and hoped to “take it back.”
His remarks came as police stormed the UCLA encampment following an hourslong standoff. The protesters had fortified the camp and refused to leave after it was declared unlawful.