Over 30 Harvard University student groups publicly blamed Israel for the Islamist militant Hamas movement’s terrorist attack on the Jewish state Saturday.
“We, the undersigned student organizations, hold the Israeli regime entirely responsible for all unfolding violence,” they said in a joint statement.
In Israel, at least 1,000 have died, many of whom were killed when Hamas opened fire on a crowd at the Supernova musical festival in the Negev desert near the Gaza Strip, where Hamas crossed into Israel to launch its attack. Israeli officials also say Hamas has captured up to 100 hostages, including women and children. The attack was the worst breach in the country since the 1973 Yom Kippur War.
The statement has been widely condemned by many, including lawmakers, CEOs, and professors. Former university President Lawrence H. Summers said the statement was “morally unconscionable.”
Among the groups that signed the statement that said “the apartheid regime is the only one to blame” were Muslim and Palestinian student organizations, as well as Harvard Prison Divest Coalition and African American Resistance Organization.
Videos of the Hamas attack circulated around social media, showing the horror of the events, including dead young women being paraded around by the militants as they cheered “Allahu Akbar” (“God is greatest” in Arabic).
“Women have been raped at the area of the rave [music festival] next to their friends’ bodies, dead bodies,” a survivor of the rave massacre told Tablet magazine.
“The initial failure of Harvard administrators to release a statement on the situation and their continued failure to unequivocally condemn pro-terrorist student groups is unpardonable, though perhaps not surprising, considering the political climate at Harvard,” said Harvard alumna Anna Low, a grassroots assistant for Heritage Action for America. (The Daily Signal is the news outlet of The Heritage Foundation. Heritage Action for America is an independent nonprofit organization affiliated with The Heritage Foundation.)
“When students are waving around signs reading ‘victory is ours’ in the wake of a terrorist attack, it is clear that Harvard’s radical exercises in DEI [diversity, equity, and inclusion] and ‘anti-racism’ have helped normalize extremism and racism at one of America’s most prestigious academic institutions,” she said.
The Daily Signal has sought comment from several student organizations and will update this report if any organizations respond.
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