Students at Sciences Po Rennes, a public university in northwestern France, staged a mass walk-out from a lecture by the Israeli ambassador on Thursday.
The video above shows the students chanting “Liberté pour la Palestine” – freedom for Palestine – as the ambassador, Aliza Bin Noun, sits at the podium.
Then, speaking in turns, students deliver an uninterrupted five-minute statement indicting Israel’s violations of Palestinian rights, condemning efforts to censor the Palestine solidarity movement in France and calling for full support of boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS).
“We, students at Sciences Po Rennes, declare that we are firmly opposed to holding this lecture,” the statement begins. “Aliza Bin Noun was invited to our institution to represent the state of Israel, a colonial state governed by the extreme right.”
Calling it an apartheid regime, the students list Israel’s decades of violations, including settlement building in occupied territory, home demolitions, the 10-year blockade and repeated assaults on Gaza that have left thousands of civilians dead and injured and Israel’s violent repression of Palestinians who resist.
