• Former Israeli Prime Minister Neftali Bennet has joked about handing explosive devices to disruptive voices at Harvard university during event.
• After an event with pre-vetted questions with controversial questions purposefully avoided, Neftali Bennet is able to walk free of any real criticism.
At Harvard University, the most prestigious university in the world, former Prime Minister Neftali Bennet joked about handing out explosives to students who disrupt the event which he was speaking at.
HBS professor Paul A. Gompers, the moderator, began the event by explaining Harvard’s guidelines on disruption, noting that dissenting audience members who interrupt the speaker would be removed. Bennett then interrupted to add: “I think we’ll just give them a pager.”
The former prime minister was referring to Israel’s attacks on September 18-19 in Lebanon and Syria last year where Israel blew up thousands of handheld pagers and walkie talkies which according to them was intended for members of the Lebanese militia group Hezbollah.
The attacks killed dozens of people while injuring thousands of others even going off in grocery stores.
The former director of the CIA called the attack “terrorism”.
He said: “I don’t think there’s any question that it’s a form of terrorism.
“This has gone right into the supply chain. Right into the supply chain. And when you have terror going into the supply chain, it makes people ask the question: What the hell is next?”
Bennet’s comments at Harvard university didn’t get too much international media coverage let alone coverage at the nation it occurred and was even laughed off by some members of the audience.
HBS Israel Business Club representatives wrote in an emailed statement that Bennett made it clear that his remark about pagers “was intended as a joke.”
According to one Harvard student the questions asked in the event were “softball”.
HKS student Nitsan Machlis said the questions seemed to avoid “controversial” topics.
He said: “I, personally, as an Israeli student, have serious disagreements with many of Bennett’s policies so I was expecting to be able to ask these kind of tough questions.
“Too many of the questions that were asked were a little bit of softball questions.
“They were more complimenting Bennett than challenging Bennett.”
