Sen. John Fetterman disavowed himself from his alma mater Harvard on Wednesday to protest what he said is the university’s “inability to stand up for the Jewish community” by removing his crimson hood during a commencement ceremony.
The Pennsylvania senator is one of Israel’s biggest defenders in Democratic circles. At the commencement of Yeshiva University, he received a “Presidential Medallion” for being a “Hero of Israel.”
“I was thinking about the last time I graduated and that was literally a quarter century ago, 25 years ago,” he told a crowd of graduates. “I graduated from Harvard University, but today I am deeply disappointed by Harvard’s failure to stand up for the Jewish community.”
“For me personally, I don’t think it’s right for me to wear this today,” he added, removing his crimson hood. The audience gasped audibly before a standing ovation followed.
Fetterman graduated from Harvard’s Kennedy School in 1999 with a Masters of Public Policy.
Sen. John Fetterman disavowed himself from his alma mater Harvard on Wednesday to protest what he said is the university’s “inability to stand up for the Jewish community” by removing his crimson hood during a commencement ceremony.
Fetterman (D-PA) removes a graduation cap from Harvard Kennedy School in protest of Harvard’s treatment of the Jewish community on campus
The Orthodox Jewish university in Queens, New York City graduated 1,700 students on Wednesday.
While many Democrats have grown louder in their frustrations with Israel as the Palestinian death toll rises in his mission to root out Hamas, Fetterman has not.
On Wednesday, Fetterman was asked on MSNBC’s Morning Joe whether Israel crossed a “red line” by attacking a refugee camp in the southern Gaza city of Rafah, killing dozens of civilians and two senior Hamas commanders.
‘Hamas, those cowards, are hiding behind civilians, and now it is becoming more and more [clear] that there was an ammunition dump there that exploded. That’s where Hamas hides them, and it caused more damage that way,” he said on Wednesday.
Fetterman (D-PA) shows a Nova Music Festival wristband given to him by a family member of someone taken hostage at the festival
Fetterman poses with Yeshiva graduates who gave him a standing ovation for denying himself from Harvard
At least 45 people were killed by the blast and subsequent fires in Kuwait’s Al-Salam Camp 1, which was built in early January, according to the Gaza Health Ministry. More than 240 people were injured.
Israeli Admiral Daniel Hagari said the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) did not expect the bombings to kill civilians – and suggested the fires could have broken out because Hamas had stockpiled weapons in the area.
“Our ammunition alone could not have ignited a fire of this magnitude,” Hagari said.
Fetterman has been critical of President Joe Biden for briefly halting some arms shipments to Israel, and he has joined the International Criminal Court (ICC) for issuing an arrest warrant for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Hamas commanders.
“I have no conditions, I never have, and I can’t imagine I ever will,” he said recently about US aid to Israel.
More than 36,000 Palestinians have been killed in the Israeli offensive, after the October 7 attack left some 1,200 Israelis dead, according to the Hamas-led Health Ministry.
