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‘The SJP Hamasniks instead showed up to protest simply because I am Jewish and a supporter of Israel. That is it,’ pro-Israel speaker says

A pro-Israel attorney had his speech ended early at Loyola University Chicago after a disruption by pro-Palestinian students.

Article III Project Senior Counsel Josh Hammer said “30 keffiyeh-clad ‘Students for Justice in Palestine’ protesters showed up holding all sorts of signs about how I am a fascist/supporter of ‘genocide’/etc. at the event,” on Wednesday, Oct. 30. He told The College Fix via email today that the event was “prematurely terminated.”

Hammer, according to a post on X, was not even there to debate about Israel, but rather, presidential immunity. He is also an editor for Newsweek.

“The SJP Hamasniks instead showed up to protest simply because I am Jewish and a supporter of Israel,” he (pictured) wrote on X. “That is it.”

He wrote:

After I started, the protesters immediately stood up and turned their backs to me. All of this, in my experience, is roughly par for the course—similar to what has happened to me in the past. But after five minutes or so, the students started to slowly file out of the room to interrupt my comments. It was deliberately lethargic, and it felt in the moment like a de facto heckler’s veto. This was a tightly timed event, after all, and I only had 15 minutes of allotted time to offer remarks before the professor’s rebuttal.

Hammer walked back several comments he made about the protesters being “trash” and saying that he hoped their “beepers don’t go off,” in reference to Hezbollah terrorists being killed when Israel set off their rigged pagers. Audio posted by the LUC Law Student Solidarity Coalition shows Hammer saying, “I appreciate you guys silencing your beepers.” The Solidarity Coalition wants the Federalist Society chapter punished.

Those comments were used as an “excuse,” according to Hammer, for his faculty member opponent to cancel the debate.

Hammer also alleged he was hit by a pro-Palestinian student.

“The police officers and I briskly walked down two flights of stairs to an elevator that was waiting for us,” Hammer wrote. “Then a campus police squad car dropped me off a few blocks away, away from the madness.”

He said he had previously spoken without incident at the University of Chicago and University of Illinois earlier that week. The Federalist Society also canceled his appearance without explaination at Chicago Kent law school following the Loyola controversy.

The campus Student Bar Association supported the cancelation of Hammer’s speech. It wants him “barred” from campus and thanked Professor John Dehn for ending the event.

Article III Project Founder Mike Davis criticized the law school.

“The spoiled children at the Loyola Student Bar Association should continue their studies because they do not know the meaning of the words they use,” he said. “Mockery is not dangerous. Only the intellectually shallow, lazy, and dishonest equate this to a ‘threat.’”

He called the students “cupcakes” and “an embarrassment to the legal profession.”

Editor’s note: The article has been updated to clarify about the event that was canceled following the Loyola event and to quote Hammer. The headline clarifies the event was ended early.

MORE: Check out the Campus Cancel Culture Database

IMAGE: National Conservatism/YouTube

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