At Duke University’s graduating ceremony on Sunday, a large number of students left the event in protest of guest speaker Jerry Seinfield’s backing of Israel during the Gaza War.
As soon as the comedian and TV personality was called to the stage, a group of students can be seen on camera leaving their seats and brandishing a Palestinian flag.
The audience erupted in cheers as Seinfeld continued his address and accepted an honorary degree from Duke, swiftly drawing attention away from the demonstrators.
Although most of the audience seemed to be supporting Seinfeld, there were a few boos and cries of “Free Palestine” that broke through as the applause subsided.
Seinfeld has made no secret of his sympathy for the Jewish State in the wake of the horrific Oct. 7 massacre carried out by Hamas, which claimed over 1,200 lives and kidnapped another 252.
During a December trip to Israel, the comedian also visited a kibbutz that had been devastated by the terror attack and spoke with the relatives of the hostages.
However, during his lecture at Duke, Seinfeld chose to avoid discussing the conflict and instead advised students to embrace hard work and their passions as they proceeded on to the next significant phase of their lives, as reported by WRAL News.
“Find something where you love the good parts and don’t mind the bad parts too much — the torture you’re comfortable with,” the comedian joked.
“This is the golden path to victory in life. Work. Exercise. Relationships,” he added. ”They all have a solid component of pure torture, and they are all 1,000% worth it.”
There was not another incident that occurred during or after Seinfeld’s address; the walkout was the only disruption to the commencement ceremony.
The hostility that Seinfeld encountered at Duke was not the first time that demonstrators had targeted him because of his support for Israel.
After exiting an event in the Upper East Side in February, Seinfeld was heckled by a group of activists who referred to him as a “genocide supporter.”
The Duke walkout was the most recent in a string of protests that have broken out on US college campuses, demanding that they cut their links to Israel in protest of the war in Gaza.
Rutgers University’s commencement ceremony saw about 60 students leave in protest of the war, several of whom replaced their graduation caps with keffiyehs, according to NJ.com.
Midway through the ceremony, students at Rutgers University began to walk out, raising a banner in the colours of the Palestinian flag.
A request for comment from The Post was not immediately answered by university representatives.
At Virginia Commonwealth University, where Republican governor Glenn Younking was speaking at the commencement ceremony on Saturday, students staged a walkout. Meanwhile, at the University of California, Berkeley, protesters disrupted their own ceremony by waving Palestinian flags in the centre of the stadium.
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