MADISON, WI (WSAU) – Pro-Palestine protesters marched in front of the Memorial Union of the University of Wisconsin-Madison before conservative speaker Ben Shapiro’s sold-out event at Shannon Hall on Monday night.
Shapiro was invited by Young Americans for Freedom to give a speech on campus. The topic of Shapiro’s talk was “Stop Being Apologetic About the Superiority of Western Values.” He made statements about the value of free speech on campuses and against extreme anti-Western ideologies.
Most of the event was devoted to discussing the Israel-Hamas conflict, of which Shapiro is an enthusiastic supporter due to his being Jewish.
“Hamas’s morality is evil. In the view of Hamas, the ultimate goal is the full destruction of all non-believers. To that end, they are willing to kill babies in their cribs,” Shapiro said.
In addition, Shapiro denounced demonstrators from an October 11 event at Madison who he said were yelling “garden variety Jew-hating slogans,” such as “We will liberate the land by any means necessary” and “Glory to the martyrs.”
According to NBC 15, students who support Palestine were present at the event on Monday night, and they even staged a silent protest at one point. Although the group believes that individuals holding views similar to Shapiro’s have no place at UW Madison, the event’s organizers stated that their goal was to ensure that all points of view were heard.
“Sixty-seven percent of conservatives on campus don’t feel safe sharing their own opinions in class,” said Young Americans for Freedom Chairman Harrison Wells. “We wanted to bring a big conservative speaker on campus to show the school and the UW system that conservatives are on campus and they have every right to freedom of speech just as much as anyone else of any other political affiliation.”
The College Fix reported that, unlike the last time Shapiro visited UW-Madison when demonstrators stormed the stage in an attempt to derail Shapiro’s lecture, there were no disruptions within the auditorium on Monday.
