Harvard Crimson Editorial Board Comes Out in Support of the BDS Movement
“We first and foremost wish to extend our sincere support to those who have been and continue to be subject to violence in occupied Palestine”
This is as sickening as it is ignorant.
From the Harvard Crimson:
In Support of Boycott, Divest, Sanction and a Free Palestine
When oppression strikes anywhere in the world, resistance movements reverberate globally. The desire for rightful justice spreads, like wildfire, moving us to act, to speak, to write, and right our past wrongs.
Over the past year, the Harvard College Palestine Solidarity Committee has strived to do just that. Amid escalating tensions between Israel and Palestine, PSC has hosted informational programming, organized weekly demonstrations of support through “Keffiyeh Thursdays,” and even installed a colorful, multi-panel “Wall of Resistance” in favor of Palestinian freedom and sovereignty.
In at least one regard, PSC’s spirited activism has proven successful: It has forced our campus — and our editorial board — to once again wrestle with what both Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International have called Israel’s “crimes against humanity” in the region.
We first and foremost wish to extend our sincere support to those who have been and continue to be subject to violence in occupied Palestine, as well as to any and all civilians affected by the region’s bellicosity. We are not sure how these words will reach you, or whether they’ll do so at all. But our stance isn’t rooted in proximity or convenience, but rather in foundational principles we must uphold — even if (or perhaps especially when) it proves difficult.
This editorial board is broadly and proudly supportive of PSC’s mission and activism, including its recent art display. The admittedly controversial panels dare the viewer to contend with well-established, if rarely stated, facts. They direct our eyes towards the property and land confiscations, citizenship denials, movement restrictions, and unlawful killings that victimize Palestinians day in and day out. Art is a potent form of resistance, and we are humbled by our peers’ passion and skill.
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Comments
This seems strange, since a large fraction of Harvard’s students are Jewish. When I was there (early ’70s), the admissions office was limiting the fraction of Jewish students to 40%.
Now, Harvard has admitted that they discriminate against Asian students, but I suspect they still discriminate against Jews to keep them below 40%. But 40% is a lot of students, and I hope they aren’t so indoctrinated by woke politics that they will allow attacks like this to go unchallenged.
My daughter is a former Editorial Chair of the Harvard Crimson. This editorial made me ill. Then again, The Harvard administration allowed the Students for Justice in Palestine-sponsored “Israel Apartheid Week” to take place in Harvard Yard the week before, complete with anti-Israel posters and – as a special treat- a box car to remind the Jewish students of how their relatives were transported by the Nazis to the death camps. The rabbi at Harvard Hillel finally awoke from his 20-year slumber to alert Jewish alumni and parents of Jewish undergraduates to the latest and greatest antisemitic activities on Harvard’s campus. This is a school that has a Jewish president, Lawrence Bacow, who is the son of a Holocaust survivor.
What should be done? The Jewish professors on campus – those who still consider themselves Jewish, should petition the Harvard president to stop this nonsense on campus. The Jewish alumni should notify the Harvard administration that they will no longer donate a single cent to The school, and will no longer participate in any school- sponsored activities, including interviewing perspective students, until the Harvard administration bans this kind of hateful activity on campus. The Crimson staff should offer a written apology to the Jewish students and alumni for their stupid and hateful actions. And they should be required to take a course on the true history of Israel so they can reconsider why Israel is a beacon of hope to the Jewish people.
That’s worse than I ever imagined. The part about the boxcar sounds like a sadistic threat, like hanging dozens of nooses on the trees. I can’t see how Harvard would permit that. And the Undergraduate Council actually gave money to support it.
At least the Crimson published a student’s op-ed that told the truth and is worth reading:
https://www.thecrimson.com/article/2022/5/2/araten-perl-iaw-op-ed/
Considering Harvard’s $53 billion endowment, withholding donations won’t do much. I think the Jewish alumni would have more leverage by publicizing Harvard’s antisemitic activities and making them apologize and make an effort to avoid a bad reputation.
This will start winding down when recruiters stop going to places like Harvard, or, openly declining interviews to those grads and tell them why.
“Prospective students”