Former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi on Wednesday admonished pro-Palestinian protesters who twice interrupted her appearance alongside Gov. Maura Healey in Cambridge.
“I say to them ‘one day, will you please say something about the hostages?’ No. They’re just on a thing about Joe Biden,” said Pelosi, referencing the several dozen people abducted amid a Hamas-led attack that started the ongoing conflict between the Palestinian militant group and the nation of Israel last October. Israeli authorities claim more than 60 people remain captives of Hamas.
The issue reached a fever-pitch on several college campuses within greater Boston earlier this year after a United Nations Special Rapporteur concluded there are “reasonable grounds” to believe Israel is committing genocide against Palestinians in Gaza. Students at Tufts, MIT, Harvard, Emerson and other college campuses set up tent encampments and pushed for their schools to distance from Israel in protest.
U.S. response to the war has remained controversial here as some college administrators fielded criticism from both sides of the conflict over how they reacted to protests early into the fall semester.
Pelosi, a California Democrat seeking her 20th term in Congress this year, questioned the motives of those who briefly disrupted her at First Parish Church.
The first disturbance came as Pelosi gave opening remarks. A pair of protesters unfurled a small banner from the church balcony and shouted in support of an immediate arms embargo on Israel. Later, as Pelosi prepared to take pre-screened questions from the audience, a different person stood in the church pews and yelled, asking the former Speaker what she would do to “stop the killing, stop the bombs.” As the disrupter was escorted out, Pelosi paused her conversation with Healey.
“I know that many of them are sincere. It’s organic, it’s spontaneous. They’re genuine. But not all of it,” she said. “A lot of it has a political purpose against Joe Biden, and now they’re transferring that to [U.S. Vice President and Democratic Presidential Nominee] Kamala Harris.”
Pelosi, who stepped back from her post as the nation’s first woman speaker last year, still wields immense power and is widely credited with opening the path for Vice President Harris to ascend to the top of the Democratic ticket earlier this year. U.S. response to the Israel-Hamas conflict is one of several flash points in the race between Harris and Republican nominee, former President Donald Trump.
It is also, experts say, a dividing issue among moderate and more left-leaning factions of the Democratic Party.
Harris has reportedly been more empathetic toward Palestinians in Gaza, but is not expected to break from America’s longstanding allyship toward Israel.
Pelosi said top Democrats deserve credit for consistently supporting a so-called two-state solution to give separate, sovereign territories to both Israel and Palestine in order to resolve tensions in the region – a goal that’s been further complicated in recent months as conflict has expanded.
“Bless them for their enthusiasm,” she said. “We’ve been out on the streets. We protest. We value that. … But let’s have some truth. Let’s have some truth in what is happening about it, really,” Pelosi said to applause.
A spokesperson for Cambridge Police said no one was arrested in connection with the event.
