Bennet comments on pro-Palestine protests at colleges

DENVER (KDVR) — Hundreds of students at college campuses across the U.S. have been arrested over the last several days as pro-Palestinian protests intensify.

Students and staff upset about Israel’s aggression in Gaza since the Oct. 7 attacks by Hamas have started camping out in tents on campuses from New York to California. Demonstrators are demanding the institutions cut financial ties to Israel and divest from companies enabling the conflict, pointing to the rising death toll and humanitarian crisis in Gaza.

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On this week’s “Colorado Point of View,” U.S. Sen. Michael Bennet talked about the protests as fighting continues.

While Bennet said he believes it was crucial to send Israel after the Oct. 7 attack, “I believe we have a moral obligation to the civilians, the Palestinian civilians in Gaza and in the West Bank.”

Colorado’s senior U.S. senator said the U.S. needs to insist that Israel works to ensure there is as “little damage to civilians as possible,” adding he doesn’t think Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu cares about that. Bennet also said Hamas does not care about the safety of Palestinian civilians either.

When it comes to the protests at college campuses, which some argue are antisemitic, he added: “If there are people out there who want to say, ‘I support the Palestinian civilians and I’m against Bennet’s vote on Israel, and I’m against what Netanyahu is doing’ — that’s something that we can have a debate about. But it can’t slide into this kind of antisemitic discussion that we’re having. That’s not going to help anybody get anything done, and the Palestinian civilians need our support.”

Watch the full conversation this week on “Colorado Point of View.” It airs at 7:30 p.m. Saturday and again at 7:30 a.m. Sunday on Colorado’s Very Own Channel 2.

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