Rep. Pressley Bolsters Israel-Palestine Peace Movement, Criticizes Trump’s SNAP Cuts at Harvard Square Event

Rep. Ayanna S. Pressley (D-Mass.) took aim at the Trump administration’s cuts to social services and support for Israel’s war in Gaza in a speech to an audience of more than 300 at the First Parish Church on Sunday.

At the event — organized by Boston’s chapter of Standing Together, an anti-war coalition of Jewish and Palestinian citizens of Israel — Pressley said her listeners’ causes were united by a shared fight against white supremacy.

“White supremacy is the enemy,” she said. “It is white supremacy that emboldens, enables, and allows anti-Blackness, antisemitism, and Islamophobia.”

One of the first federal lawmakers to call for a ceasefire, Pressley was the highest-profile politician who visited the pro-Palestine encampment in Harvard Yard in 2024. She said student protesters should not face disciplinary action in an interview with The Crimson at the time.

On Sunday, Pressley, whose district covers parts of East Cambridge, did not mince words for listeners who opposed the president but accepted the war in Gaza. She also slammed the Trump administration for refusing to fund the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program amid an ongoing government shutdown.

“People are aghast that we have an occupant in the Oval Office that would actively starve his own people and use food as a weapon of war,” Pressley said in her Sunday speech, “and yet these same people are not against sanctions, are not against apartheid, and perhaps did not speak out against the genocide.”

More than 6,500 Cambridge households were at risk of losing benefits provided by SNAP on Nov. 1 as payments were put on hold.

A federal judge ordered the Trump administration to continue funding SNAP at the end of October, but the government quickly appealed the ruling. The U.S. Supreme Court temporarily halted the order last week while considering the government’s appeal.

On Sunday, just days after the 34-year-old democratic socialist Zohran Mamdani cemented his extraordinary rise to New York City mayor, Pressley applauded Mamdani for “brilliance,” but urged listeners to extend credit to the movements behind his campaign — including against Israel’s actions in Gaza.

“It is not just about one extraordinary candidate,” Pressley said. “It is about the work of movements like this one that brought people along that challenge their consciousness.”

Pressley also condemned Republican lawmakers as “complete frauds” in an interview following her Sunday remarks, taking aim at attacks on free speech and higher education — and endorsing Harvard’s resistance to the Trump administration.

“History has shown us that appeasement doesn’t work, and the only way to beat a dictator is with defiance,” she said.

“They claim to be the party of freedom, but they attack freedom of speech, the free press, freedom over our bodies, freedom to read the books we like,” she added.

Cambridge City Councilor Patricia M. “Patty” Nolan ’80, who also attended the event, applauded Pressley’s engagement with Cambridge residents.

“I think she has been trying to understand — how is it that you can bridge these divisions which are tearing us all apart,’” she said.

Pressley highlighted the importance of “active resistance” in the interview, attributing her decision to speak at the event to a desire to “be in solidarity” with her constituents.

“I just think it’s important to be in a community,” Pressley said. “It’s important to demonstrate that solidarity.”

Pressley said in her speech that she has “always struggled” when voters express gratitude for her advocacy against violence in Gaza, calling it “the most baseline thing to be pro-humanity.”

“We’re still here because someone else already wrote the blueprint for our survival, and we are being summoned in this moment to do the same — to be a better ancestor than descendant, and to, right now, write the blueprint for future generation’s survival,” Pressley said.

—Staff writer Megan L. Blonigen can be reached at megan.blonigen@thecrimson.com. Follow her on X at @MeganBlonigen.

—Staff writer Frances Y. Yong can be reached at frances.yong@thecrimson.com. Follow her on X at @frances_yong_.