Wealthy Israeli donors resigned from Harvard University’s board following what they called the President’s “insensitive” handling of several student groups co-signed a letter supporting Hamas and took part in pro-Palestinian demonstrations on campus.
Idan Ofer and his wife, Batia, who have an estimated net worth of over $14 billion, withdrew a multi-million dollar donation that the couple had planned to give to Harvard. In a statement, Mrs. Ofer said, “We resigned as a protest against the shocking and insensitive response of the university president who did not condemn the letter of the student organizations that held Israel solely responsible for the massacres.”
Harvard University’s President, Claudine Gay, released a statement in response to 33 student organizations signing a letter, authored by the Harvard Undergraduate Palestine Solidarity Committee, asserting the desire to “hold the Israeli regime entirely responsible for all unfolding violence.” After signing on to the letter, several students then met for pro-Palestine demonstrations on campus, which have also taken place at several colleges around the country.
Gay issued two statements regarding the ongoing war in Israel; one statement called for students to “illuminate and not inflame” in their rhetoric, while the other appeared to give credence to the student demonstrations which lauded Hamas’ terroristic actions.
In a video statement now widely shared online, Gay said, “Our university embraces a commitment to free expression. That commitment extends even to views that many of us find objectionable, even outrageous. We do not punish or sanction people for expressing such views.”
Collins Rugg posted to X, formerly Twitter, “The students who blamed Israel for the attacks are now learning what it means to be held accountable,” in reference to an incident that occurred on campus this week, in which a truck was reportedly driven around the school by Accuracy in Media, “with a digital screen that read ‘Harvard’s Leading Antisemites’ and listed all the students [who] defended Hamas.”
In her statement, Gay added that Harvard ‘rejects terrorism” as well as “harassment or intimidation,” which some speculate she said in response to Accuracy in Media’s actions.
Other demonstrations have taken place at universities across the U.S., despite tearful pleas from Jewish students for the protests to end. In one video, captured at the University of Washington, a female Jewish student can be seen sobbing, asking an administrator at the school, “How are you allowing this? They want us dead,” referring to the Hamas terrorists who explicitly have called for violence against Israelis.
Students at UCLA marched across campus, carrying Palestinian flags and chanting “intifada” which, according to Al Jazeera, is “an Arabic word that literally means ‘shaking off’ and in the Palestinian context, it is understood to mean a civil uprising.”
Stanford University also reportedly suspended a “non-faculty instructor” and teaching assistant after the individual “told the Jewish students to take what they had with them, stand in a corner, and stated, ‘This is what Israel does to the Palestinians.'”
This piece first appeared at TPUSA.
