Egypt students walk out of ex-US envoy to Israel talk

03 Dec 2019; MEMO: More than 150 students staged a walkout during a talk by former US Ambassador to Israel Daniel Kurtzer’s talk at the American University in Cairo yesterday.

Chanting slogans against the Israeli occupation and holding banners in support of the Palestinian cause, the students withdrew from what they said was a debate supported by the Israeli occupation.

The AUC Students Union published a video on FB of the students’ chanting “AUC, We are against Zionism”, in the presence of former US ambassadors to Cairo Daniel Kurtzer and Frank Wisner. The former officials were discussing “The future of US-Egyptian relationship”.

Kurtzer was US ambassador to Cairo during the Clinton administration, while he served as Washington’s ambassador to Tel Aviv under George W. Bush. He is currently a lecturer of Middle East politics at Princeton University.

Last week, the AUC Students Union announced events in support of Gaza in cooperation with the Coalition of Student Rights.