{"id":1433684,"date":"2023-10-21T04:00:01","date_gmt":"2023-10-21T08:00:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/?p=1433684"},"modified":"2023-10-21T04:00:01","modified_gmt":"2023-10-21T08:00:01","slug":"why-was-it-so-hard-for-elite-universities-to-condemn-hamas-terrorism","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/why-was-it-so-hard-for-elite-universities-to-condemn-hamas-terrorism\/1433684\/","title":{"rendered":"Why Was It So Hard For Elite Universities To Condemn Hamas Terrorism?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Why Was It So Hard For Elite Universities To Condemn Hamas Terrorism?<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

Authored by Marc Zvi Brettler & Michael B. Poliakoff via RealClear Wire<\/a>,<\/em><\/p>\n

America\u2019s\u00a0leading\u00a0universities have an antisemitism problem\u2014and it starts at the top.<\/strong> This past week, university presidents and deans across the country\u00a0wrote\u00a0to their students and faculties to express concern in the aftermath of the terrorist attacks\u00a0on Israel by Hamas. What they\u00a0said,\u00a0and\u00a0what they\u00a0did not say, provides a window into\u00a0the culture of\u00a0intellectual and moral rot\u00a0and cowardice that reigns at these once-great\u00a0institutions.\u00a0<\/p>\n

<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

Those who attack Jews or Israel are all too often exempt from their excoriation.\u00a0Hamas terrorists massacred\u00a0some 1,300\u00a0Israelis, took approximately 200 hostages, most of them civilians,\u00a0and left an additional\u00a03,200\u00a0injured, but you would not know it from\u00a0some university leaders\u2019 missives this week.<\/strong><\/p>\n

At Harvard University,\u00a0President\u00a0Claudine Gay has\u00a0issued three muddled\u00a0statements,<\/strong> under pressure,\u00a0on the horrific events.\u00a0Her first statement<\/a> was\u00a0a tepid\u00a0confession of\u00a0\u201cheartbreak\u201d that\u00a0implied an equivalence\u00a0between the Hamas attacks and Israel neutralizing the terrorists.\u00a0This embarrassment was signed by\u00a0all\u00a0the university\u2019s\u00a0senior deans. Only after a barrage of online criticism\u2014and threats by donors\u2014did she muster the strength to condemn the child killers.\u00a0Not content to leave it alone,\u00a0she\u00a0has issued another statement<\/a>, but still\u00a0without criticizing\u00a0the 30-odd student groups\u00a0who professed<\/a> to \u201chold the Israeli regime entirely responsible\u201d for the murder, rape, kidnapping, and torture of Jews,\u00a0referring\u00a0instead to the principle of freedom of speech.\u00a0Let us be clear that these students have freedom of speech, but so does Claudine Gay. She has the right to condemn their words.\u00a0In\u00a02022, Harvard denounced<\/a> in no uncertain terms\u00a0\u201cthe capricious and senseless invasion of Ukraine.\u201d\u00a0Harvard knows how to speak clearly about Ukrainian victims but not, apparently, about Jewish victims.<\/p>\n

Columbia University President Minouche\u00a0Shafik offered a masterfully slippery statement<\/a>:<\/strong> \u201cI was devastated by the horrific attack on Israel this weekend and the ensuing violence that is affecting so many people.\u201d\u00a0While all lives matter<\/em>, the mention of \u201censuing violence\u201d is a reference to Israeli targeting of terrorists\u2014putting\u00a0it\u00a0on a par with\u00a0raping and pillaging\u00a0by Hamas.\u00a0She implied moral equivalence.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The moral lassitude and obscurantism of Shafik\u2019s statement trickled down. Columbia College Dean Josef Sorett emitted<\/a> the following: \u201cThe events in Israel and Gaza over the past several days have shocked the world and impacted many of our students.\u201d Dean Sorett\u2019s \u201cevents in Gaza\u201d are, of course, Israeli military operations undertaken in self-defense and in an effort to kill murderers, which he places on par with the door-to-door murder of civilians in Israel.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The dean of Columbia Law School did not\u00a0outclass\u00a0her colleague. <\/strong>Gillian Lester wrote<\/a> to her students and faculty, \u201cThe violence that erupted in Israel and Gaza this past weekend is nothing short of tragic,\u201d\u00a0again\u00a0implying\u00a0a moral equivalence\u00a0between\u00a0the enemies of the Jewish people\u00a0and their victims.<\/p>\n

<\/a>At Middlebury College, the\u00a0senior leadership\u00a0wrote<\/a> to \u201cacknowledge the untold pain, suffering, and loss of life unfolding from the violence happening now in Israel and Palestine.\u201d <\/strong>President Laurie\u00a0Patton seems\u00a0unclear\u00a0about who is making the violence \u201chappen.\u201d\u00a0She goes\u00a0on to warn against \u201chate, racism, ethnic discrimination, antisemitism, or Islamophobia.\u201d The equivalence is complete, and we can move on to meet the real threat: Islamophobia. Compare this muddle to the perfect clarity of Middlebury\u2019s official response<\/a> to the\u00a0Russian invasion of Ukraine: It \u201cwreaked untold havoc in the lives of innocent civilians. Russia\u2019s aggression against its democratic neighbor is a violation of international law, made only more egregious by its escalation in the face of international condemnation. I join that condemnation in solidarity with our Middlebury community.\u201d\u00a0How easy it would have been to revise that statement ever so slightly to say that Hamas \u201cwreaked untold havoc in the lives of innocent civilians. Hamas\u2019s aggression against its democratic neighbor is a violation of international law, made only more egregious by its escalation in the face of international condemnation. I join that condemnation in solidarity with our Middlebury community.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

The University of California\u2013Berkeley, which spends<\/a> $36 million annually on its Division of Equity & Inclusion, may be the most openly antisemitic campus in the country. <\/strong>Its law school is\u00a0under federal investigation\u00a0for discriminating against Jews. Student organizations\u00a0there\u00a0expressed\u00a0their \u201cunwavering support\u201d\u00a0for the\u00a0Hamas pogrom.\u00a0The\u00a0president\u00a0refused to condemn this statement.\u00a0Instead, he expressed<\/a>\u00a0his heartbreak at \u201cthe violence and suffering in Israel and Gaza,\u201d pointedly comparing Israel\u2019s\u00a0self-defense\u00a0to the terrorist attacks themselves, gesturing, like too many others, to the \u201ccomplex history\u201d of the situation.\u00a0<\/p>\n

In reality though, no complexity is so great as to obscure the\u00a0distinction between the\u00a0intentional slaughter of innocents and targeted strikes against terrorists. Some schools\u00a0eventually\u00a0issued careful statements\u2014but their initial\u00a0reaction\u2014or\u00a0lack<\/em>\u00a0of reaction\u2014is\u00a0most\u00a0telling, especially when contrasted with\u00a0quick and decisive\u00a0past\u00a0declarations of outrage.<\/p>\n

At Stanford University, the administration has covered itself in special disgrace by adding dishonesty to cowardice, despite finally acknowledging the horror.<\/strong>\u00a0Criticized for its silence about the weekend\u2019s slaughter, Stanford claimed<\/a> in an unsigned statement that it \u201cdoes not take positions on geopolitical issues and news events.\u201d\u00a0But when Russia invaded Ukraine, Stanford\u2019s president released<\/a> this statement: \u201cThe unprovoked, full-scale invasion of Ukraine by Russia, and the attack it represents on democracy, is beyond shocking.\u201d\u00a0He continued, \u201cIt has been remarkable to witness the courage and resilience of the Ukrainian people.\u201d\u00a0Stanford also commented<\/a> when a child\u2019s skipping rope was found in a tree in 2021, where it had been tangled for some years, officially denouncing it as a \u201ca potent symbol of anti-Black racism and violence that is completely unacceptable under any circumstances.\u201d Stanford discovered the principle of institutional neutrality, it seems, just in time for the Sabbath assault on Israeli civilians.<\/p>\n

Under the principle of institutional neutrality, colleges and universities should indeed refrain from speaking corporately on contemporary social or political issues, unless they transcend the institution\u2019s values as a whole (such as the wanton taking of innocent life by terrorists).\u00a0Higher education\u2019s mission is to encourage diversity of thought. But condemning brutality and savagery, whether the murder of George Floyd under the knee of a policeman, or the civilian carnage Hamas wrought, is not a political statement. No one has asked presidents to endorse Zionism or the two-state solution or anything vaguely geopolitical.\u00a0They needed only to affirm human decency without which the university is a place of moral chaos.<\/p>\n

However serpentine\u00a0the ongoing contortions of\u00a0these\u00a0administrators, what is revealed in these official reactions by colleges is a\u00a0cancerous moral rot and intellectual confusion.\u00a0Bothsidesism<\/em>\u00a0is a\u00a0symptom; the root cause is worse.\u00a0<\/strong>They were perfectly able to rush to condemn the\u00a0murder of George Floyd, the seedy depravities uncovered by the #MeToo movement, and the brutal invasion of Ukraine\u2014as they should. They pronounce vocally and volubly on the events of January 6, 2021, and on horrible killings at houses of worship.\u00a0They take flamboyant public positions on everything from affirmative action to climate policy to marriage equality. So why is it so hard to condemn the slaughter of Jewish babies?\u00a0Why is it so hard to offer proper support and empathy to their grieving Jewish students?<\/strong><\/p>\n

The University of Pennsylvania\u2019s president had no word of censure for Penn\u2019s Palestine Writes festival, which ran between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur and featured Pink Floyd\u2019s Roger Waters, notorious for exhibitionist antisemitism. Then came the anemic initial response of Penn\u2019s president to the Hamas atrocities. Jon Huntsman, a Penn graduate and donor and a former governor of Utah, pinpointed<\/a> the cause of\u00a0his alma mater\u2019s failure: \u201cMoral relativism has fueled the university\u2019s race to the bottom.\u201d\u00a0If only Penn\u2019s administration possessed such moral (and pedagogical) clarity.<\/p>\n

To be fair, some universities have offered proper statements that unambiguously condemn the pogrom of Hamas.\u00a0But these are few and far between.\u00a0The United States used to lead in higher education, but now we need to look for leadership abroad, for example in the exemplary statement of the German Rectors\u2019 Conference<\/a> that noted quickly, clearly, and unambiguously:\u00a0<\/p>\n

We are deeply shocked and appalled by the terrorist attack of Hamas on Israel, the terrible massacres, and the kidnappings.\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

On behalf of all German universities, I would like to express our sincerest condolences and heartfelt sympathy. We are deeply saddened by the senseless loss of life. Our thoughts are with those killed and injured, those still in danger, and their families and friends.\u00a0<\/p>\n

As the German Rectors\u2019 Conference, the voice of German universities, we stand in solidarity with the Israeli universities and academic colleges and all their members. We would be grateful if you could share this message of sympathy and solidarity with your member institutions.<\/p>\n

Educational institutions have a responsibility to educate and lead\u2014not only in subject matters but in basic issues of morality.\u00a0Those who fail to condemn the slaughter of children and fail to show empathy to their students who identify with this slaughter, are failing their mission at the most basic level.\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Tyler Durden<\/a><\/span>
\nSat, 10\/21\/2023 – 00:00<\/span><\/p>\n

\u200bhttps:\/\/www.zerohedge.com\/political\/why-was-it-so-hard-elite-universities-condemn-hamas-terrorism<\/a>\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Why Was It So Hard For Elite Universities To Condemn Hamas Terrorism? Authored by Marc Zvi Brettler & Michael B. Poliakoff via RealClear Wire, America\u2019s\u00a0leading\u00a0universities…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1433684","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","wpcat-1-id"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pbimBl-60XW","jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1433684","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1433684"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1433684\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1433684"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1433684"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1433684"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}