Harvard and Hamas

Murdering civilians. Raping women. Mutilating corpses. Taking children as captives. Executing hostages and posting the videos on YouTube. If the perpetrators were anyone other than Hamas, and the victims anyone other than Israelis, the elite establishment in America would instantly label these war crimes and call for a special tribunal at the United Nations. We’d be warned against permitting another Rwanda and reminded of civilized nations’ “duty to protect” against racial and religious genocide.

But because it is Israel at issue, the normal laws of war and geopolitics are evidently suspended, and any outrage is justified in the name of the Palestinian people. Thus we have a statement from over two dozen Harvard student groups proclaiming: “We, the undersigned student organizations, hold the Israeli regime entirely responsible for all unfolding violence. ... The apartheid regime is the only one to blame. ... The coming days will require a firm stance against colonial retaliation. We call on the Harvard community to take action to stop the ongoing annihilation of Palestinians.”

In a similar vein comes this statement from students at Northwestern University: “the instigator and perpetuator of this sustained injustice [Israel] cannot then justifiably claim victimhood when the oppressed rise in response to such oppression.” No matter what Hamas does, it’s always Israel’s fault.

Perhaps these young radicals are taking their talking points from the Squad, the Members of Congress on the far-left edge of the Democratic party. Rep. Ilhan Omar has already said the world must oppose Israel’s missile strike against targets in Gaza as well as the Hamas attacks. So, just to be clear, the Israeli retaliation is the same as the Hamas aggression. Rep. Rashida Tlaib places the blame for this “cycle of violence” on Israel (and the United States for funding its security guarantees, which we do primarily pursuant to its peace treaty with Egypt).

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio Cortez had the decency to at least “condemn Hamas’ attack in the strongest possible terms.” But then she immediately pivoted to call for “immediate ceasefire and de-escalation.” This is another argument applied only to Israel: When any other country is attacked, it has the right to self-defense. When Israel is attacked by terrorists acting at the behest of a foreign power, an immediate ceasefire and de-escalation is demanded as soon as the initial terrorist attack ends.

The Harvard students’ statement led former Harvard president Larry Summers to tweet, “The silence from Harvard’s leadership, so far, coupled with a vocal and widely reported student groups’ statement blaming Israel solely, has allowed Harvard to appear at best neutral towards acts of terror against the Jewish state of Israel.” Harvard did eventually issue a statement, and it reeked of studied neutrality. Though it acknowledged “the attack by Hamas that targeted citizens in Israel,” it did not actually condemn the attack. Instead, it simply acknowledged “the emotional toll that these events are taking” and promised to “take steps as an academic community to deepen our knowledge of the unfolding events and their broader implications for the region and the world.” Harvard’s president later specifically condemned the Hamas attacks.

Summers is especially insightful to compare Harvard’s initial non-response to the unstinting outrage displayed by that university, and pretty much every university, Fortune 500 corporation, and editorial board, after the unprovoked invasion of Ukraine by Russia or the Black Lives Matter protests in response to police brutality.

In the first instance, Harvard’s president named the “deplorable actions” of Putin, promised to “continue to speak against cruelty,” and raised the blue-and-yellow Ukrainian flag over Harvard Yard. She also said at the time, “Institutions devoted to the perpetuation of democratic ideals and to the articulation of human rights have a responsibility to condemn such wanton aggression.” Apparently that responsibility is not so clear when it comes to condemning wanton aggression by Hamas against the human rights of innocent Israelis. Such is the double standard our elites regularly apply to Israel.