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U.S. UNIVERSITIES FAIL FIGHT AGAINST HATE

By Jessie Seigel/October 15, 2023




On October 12, MSNBC finally—very briefly—presented this photo of Israeli babies murdered by Hamas five days before. It is one of the few, if not the only, photo or video that the mainstream media has permitted the American public to see. Apparently, there is a fear that showing even more brutal photos or video of the mayhem would be too gruesomely horrific or inflammatory for the public to handle.


Earlier in the week, Rachel Maddow had explained that the media is walking a fine line, trying to inform the public while not giving Hamas the publicity it seeks by airing photos and videos the terrorist organization itself made of its handiwork. In addition, there is a desire to avoid further traumatizing the families of the dead.


This reasoning is understandable. But there is also truth to the expression that a picture is worth a thousand words.


Despite President Biden’s very genuine, eloquent, and vehemently expressed shock and abhorrence of Hamas’s wanton slaughter, there are those who are obdurate in their refusal to be moved by any descriptions. Some have even cheered Hamas’s actions. One must wonder whether seeing actual footage of the deeds would break through to their sense of humanity. On the other hand, perhaps not.


Many Israelis—some whose loved ones were viciously killed or kidnapped—have made a special point of distinguishing between the barbarisms of Hamas and Palestinians as a whole.


At the same time, student organizations at prestigious universities across the United States have been lauding Hamas’s atrocities as “Palestinian resistance,” and blaming the victims.


Among the most prominent examples:


On October 10, three days after the massacres, Ryna Workman, president of the Student Bar Association at New York University School of Law, wrote in a newsletter message:

“This week, I want to express, first and foremost, my unwavering and absolute solidarity with Palestinians in their resistance against oppression toward liberation and self-determination.” Significantly, she added, “Israel bears full responsibility for this tremendous loss of life.”


On Facebook, The Harvard College Palestine Solidarity Committee, comprised of

a large group of Harvard student organizations, posted a joint statement that the “Israeli regime” is “entirely responsible for all the unfolding violence.”


Several California chapters of the pro-Palestinian group, Stanford Students for Justice in Palestine, signed onto a statement saying Hamas’s attack “now stands as a revolutionary moment in contemporary Palestinian resistance.”


Students for Justice in Palestine at Rutgers University issued a statement standing with the “Palestinian resistance” and calling the attack on Israel a “justified retaliation.”


In his article, “The Left Abandoned Me,” Gal Beckerman, senior editor at The Atlantic, wrote of such people:


The people on “my side” are supposed to care about human suffering..., whether it’s in the detention camps of Xinjiang or in Darfur. They are supposed to recognize the common humanity of people in need, that a child in distress is first a child in distress regardless of country or background. But… many of those on the left…could see what had happened only through established categories of colonized and colonizer, evil Israeli and righteous Palestinian—templates made of concrete.


…They were so set in their categories that they couldn’t make a distinction between the Palestinian people and a genocidal cult that claimed to speak in that people’s name. And they couldn’t acknowledge hundreds and hundreds of senseless deaths because the people who were killed were Israelis and therefore the enemy.


I fully agree with Mr. Beckerman’s assessment.


These student organizations have a right to free speech, regardless of how callously doctrinaire or simplistic their view of the Middle East troubles may be. But the leaders of the prestigious institutions they attend also have a right to free speech. It would be nice if they used it. Instead, they have issued mealy-mouthed statements mostly trying to avoid even using the words “Hamas” or “Israel.”


According to POLITICO, in answer to Ryna Workman blaming Israel for the massacre of its citizens, John Beckman, a New York University (NYU) spokesman merely issued the response: “The statement issued by the Student Bar Association does not in any way reflect the point of view of NYU.” This boilerplate language is akin to the disclaimers TV networks use to protect themselves from being sued for their programming.


Furthermore, if the NYU Student Bar Association does not reflect NYU’s point of view, the university has a moral duty to state what its point of view is. NYU President Linda Mills copped out on that with the general truism: “Acts of terrorism are immoral.” Board chair Evan Chesler joined her cop-out, simply reciting the coldly stated fact that Hamas’s invasion was a “multi-pronged and deadly terrorist attack on Israel.”


Larry H. Summers, former Harvard president and former U.S. Treasury Secretary, said on X that he was “sickened” by the “silence” from Harvard. The slow response, he said, “has allowed Harvard to appear at best neutral towards acts of terror against the Jewish state of Israel.”


After some attempts at waffling , Harvard President Claudine Gay eventually issued a statement condemning Hamas's actions as “terrorist atrocities.” She added that “while our students have the right to speak for themselves, no student group — not even 30 student groups — speaks for Harvard University or its leadership.”


Stanford University merely issued a statement speaking in the most general terms possible--that did not even mention Hamas but rather referenced tragedies around the world, like the earthquakes in Afghanistan.


At Rutgers, it was only after a specific request from Jewish students that its President, Jonathan Holloway, bothered to issue a statement. But it, too, was tritely anemic: “our hearts go out to the millions of people who are directly affected by the violence…”


As former representative David Jolley recently said on MSNBC, “too much neutrality is a sign of cowardice.”


Hamas’s action wasn’t simple violence. It wasn’t soldier against soldier. Or even guerrilla warfare with civilian casualties. This was plain butchery by an organization dedicated not only to the extinguishment of Israel’s existence but to that of all Jews. It deserved to be addressed directly.


By their silence and evasion, these institutions of higher learning are enabling a dehumanizing bigotry to spread unchallenged. That, in my view, amounts not only to cowardice but to quiet complicity.

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4件のコメント


ゲスト
2023年10月16日

Nicely done, Jessie.

Russ

いいね!
ゲスト
2023年10月16日
返信先

Thank you, Russ. Jessie

編集済み
いいね!

ゲスト
2023年10月15日

The fanaticism of religion is what prevents the situation in the Middle East from being able to be resolved. So long as logic is trumped by emotion, no lasting peace can be found.

いいね!
allegras7
2023年10月15日
返信先

That certainly is one big part of the problem, yes. jas

いいね!
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