Minneapolis, MN – On June 6, hundreds of protesters unwelcomed former Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett, who came to downtown Minneapolis to speak for the Center for the American Experiment, a conservative think tank based in the suburb of Golden Valley.
The Center has supported a number of Republican-led political initiatives and regularly features right-wing speakers at its events. Ticket prices for the event ranged from $300 for individual seats to $30,000 “diamond sponsor” tickets that included special VIP access to Bennett.
Bennet is known as a war criminal who in 2013 said, “I’ve killed a lot of Arabs in my life and there’s no problem with that.” Bennett was the prime minister during 2021-22 and represented the New Right political party, which opposes the establishment of a Palestinian state and demands Israeli sovereignty over all of Palestine. He describes himself as more right-wing than even Netanyahu. After Israel’s assault on Gaza began in October, Bennett mocked concerns for Palestinian lives, saying in an interview, “Are you seriously asking me about Palestinian civilians?” and “I am not going to feed electricity or water to my enemies.”
The police stood alongside Zionist ticket holders, who heckled the crowd with racist and Islamophobic slurs, flipping off community members, including young children, while cops took no action.
Over the course of three hours, hundreds of Minneapolis police officers, including SWAT and riot teams, joined the racists in antagonizing the demonstrators.
One protester was violently arrested by riot police armed with rifles as he was peacefully walking away. Four others, including three Muslim Twin Cities residents – two of them minors – were arrested later, violently picked off the street by a large, black SWAT BearCat vehicle.
Wyatt Miller from the Anti-War Committee said, “The supposedly progressive city of Minneapolis helped facilitate the visit of an Israeli leader who helped lay groundwork for the current genocide, invited by a right-wing think tank to speak at a major downtown venue. We call on elected officials to denounce this hateful event and the fact that MPD was allowed to set up an apartheid-like militarized area on its behalf.”
The juveniles were released later that night, but the other arrestees were held until the evening of June 7.
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