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Israeli Ambassador to Senegal Yuval Waks was forced to cut short visit to Cheikh Anta Diop University (UCAD) in Dakar on Tuesday after anti-Israel protesters disrupted and ultimately shut down his scheduled speaking appearance there.
Waks had been invited to address a conference on international relations at UCAD — Senegal’s largest and most prestigious university. But upon arrival, he was aggressively confronted by dozens of demonstrators chanting hate slogans, including “Free Palestine,” “Free Gaza,” and “Israel is a war criminal,” while waving Palestinian flags and booing him.
Videos circulating on social media show protesters blocking the venue’s entrance and shouting down the ambassador, making it impossible for him to deliver his remarks. Waks was escorted off campus by security, with demonstrators following and jeering him.
Des étudiants et des citoyens sénégalais en colère ont chassé l’ambassadeur d’Israël, Yuval Waks, de l’UCAD, l’université de Dakar.
Une personne tenait visiblement un couteau, pour une raison inconnue. pic.twitter.com/q6AUQYVUDY
— InfoSudLiban (@InfoSudLiban) May 27, 2025
This incident was yet another alarming example of how Israeli officials are being actively harassed by increasingly radicalized activists, particularly within academic institutions.
Violence Doesn’t Begin With Weapons — It Starts With Words
What happened in Dakar is not an isolated episode. It is part of a global pattern: the effort to demonize and delegitimize the State of Israel and the Jewish people.
Just last week in Washington, D.C., an assailant shouting “Free, free Palestine” murdered two people outside a Jewish event hosted by AJC at the Capitol Jewish Museum.
Slogans such as “Free Palestine” are not calls for justice. They are used as rallying cries to incite hatred, intimidate Jews, and legitimize violence. When paired with accusations of genocide, calls for “intifada,: and the glorification of terrorism, they create a climate in which antisemitic violence becomes not only imaginable — but inevitable.
A Global Campaign of Silencing and Intimidation
This is no anomaly. It is one front in a broader, coordinated campaign to intimidate, isolate, and silence Jews and Israelis wherever they speak. From North America to Europe, Africa to Australia, universities and institutions are enabling environments in which Jewish voices are shouted down, Israeli speakers are deplatformed, and anti-Israel hatred is excused — or even encouraged.
CAM strongly condemns the harassment of Ambassador Yuval Waks and the wider effort to erase Israeli representation from academic and public spaces. This is not protest — it is a calculated assault on dialogue, truth, and the fundamental dignity of an entire people.
Universities, governments, and civil society leaders around the world must take a stand: for truth over intimidation, for pluralism over persecution, and for the right of Jews and Israelis to speak, teach, and participate in public life without fear.
Because when antisemitism is tolerated in classrooms, on campuses, and in public discourse, it soon also erupts on the streets.
