Former NATO leader says pro-Palestinian campus protesters should not ‘be applauded’

Former NATO commander James Stavridis criticized the pro-Palestinian protestors Sunday, claiming they should not be the ones who are applauded.

“The young men and women who built that pier are the young Americans who should be applauded,” Stavridis told host John Catsimatidis in an interview Sunday on “The Cats Roundtable, adding “Not these protesters on campuses.”

During the annual State of the Union address in March, President Biden announced the U.S. would build a floating pier in Gaza to help deliver more humanitarian aid to the civilians affected by the ongoing Israel-Hamas war.

The temporary pier was completed in the region earlier this month. The U.S. military said the first aid shipment was driven across the pier Friday and more would be coming.

Stavridis called it a “maritime miracle,” and highlighted the United States’ efforts to deliver humanitarian aid to civilians but also said it’s “the bare minimum.”

In the weeks since Biden’s address, students on college campuses across the country have protested the U.S.’s continued involvement in the war and asked their universities to divest from companies with ties to Israel.

There have been more than 400 protests nationwide from Ivy League schools to small colleges and more than 2,000 people arrested for demonstrating.

Stavridis argued that if the students want to do something for the Palestinians, “they should do it in ways that directly support humanitarian aid, raise money for the Palestinians, support those Americans on the frontlines of that good thing that America is doing for the crisis.”