From the Liveblog of
Sunday, June 2, 2024
Visiting Israel, actor Michael Douglas suggests anti-Israel campus protesters are ‘brainwashed’
Amy Spiro is a reporter and writer with The Times of Israel
Veteran Hollywood actor Michael Douglas meets with President Isaac Herzog in Jerusalem after visiting the sites of Kibbutz Be’eri and the Supernova massacre, where Hamas carried out atrocities on October 7.
Herzog presents Douglas with a yellow hostage pin and a dog-tag necklace reading “Our heart is held captive in Gaza.”
“We have met with families of the hostages… we spent the day today down in the south in the area close to Be’eri, and at the Nova exhibition,” Douglas tells Herzog, according to the President’s Office. “It’s a very difficult time. You sense the deep shock of this whole experience. We’re just happy to be here in support of Israel, and to share with you the fact that America is definitely your ally as our president has shared with you. I just hope that the latest negotiations will [be] reached, and the hostages will be back soon.”
Speaking to President Herzog in Jerusalem, Michael Douglas references the pro-Palestinian protest movement on college campuses, suggesting they were subject to "brainwashing" and they have "no education, no knowledge." pic.twitter.com/FIWsyPKqkC
— Amy Spiro (@AmySpiro) June 2, 2024
The Oscar-winning actor, whose father, the late actor Kirk Douglas, was Jewish, said it was “tough in Be’eri, seeing what happened” there, during his visit to the Gaza border kibbutz which was one of the hardest hit in the October 7 assault.
In his meeting with Herzog, Douglas also refers to feeling a sense of “big shock” at the wave of pro-Palestinian, anti-Israel protests on US college campuses, suggesting that the students involved went through “brainwashing… because when you try to talk to many of them, there is no education, there’s no knowledge.”
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