Auburn CBB HC Bruce Pearl speaks out against anti-Israel protests: “It's just disturbing to me”

Auburn Tigers basketball coach Bruce Pearl has spoken out against anti-Israel protests.

Pearl says he's heartbroken watching college students rally in support of Hamas and against Israel. The terrorist group unleashed a barrage of rockets towards Israel in a surprise attack earlier this month. Since then, a massive war has started between both sides with no end in sight.

With the war still ongoing, protests have been taking place around the world. But, Auburn head coach Bruce Pearl who is Jewish, says he's heartbroken to see the anti-Israel protests by college students.

“It just breaks my heart to see students across our country protesting against Israel after they saw the genocide. I love this country, and I’m grateful for its support,” Pearl said.

According to Bruce Pearl, he says he plans to be vocal on this and won't let any anti-protests stop him from making a difference.

“I contacted my friends at Athletes for Israel, the Church of the Highlands here in this community, along with our Jewish student group, Hillel," the popular basketball coach explained. "We got together and said, ‘Let’s do something positive. Let’s get some humanitarian boxes together of aid and let’s write notes to the soldiers and children and moms.”

Pearl added:

"Just days after the world’s greatest genocide since the Holocaust, we felt like we just wanted to do something. Thirty-three Americans were killed by Hamas terrorists. It’s just disturbing to me to watch people in this country supporting an organization that supports this kind of terror. And so this group here was proud to stand with Israel.”

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Bruce Pearl entering his 10th season at Auburn

Since the 2014-15 season, Bruce Pearl has been the head coach of the Auburn Tigers team.

In his first season at Auburn, Pearl led the Tigers to a 15-20 record. He had a losing record in his first two seasons. But, he has turned around the program as he led Auburn to the Round of 32 in 2017-18, the Final Four in 2018-19, and were 25-6 during the 2020 season before it got canceled due to COVID.

Pearl has gone 187-111 as head coach of the Auburn Tigers.