RUTHFULLY YOURS

In the annals of campus presumption, this latest news takes some kind of cake. Various student groups at Harvard who are united in their hatred of Israel, and in their solidarity with those who wish to destroy the Jewish state and replace it with a twenty-third Arab state, have just issued an ultimatum to President Claudine Gay. She has until Monday, November 27 to respond. More on this absurdity can be found here: “‘Your Move’: Anti-Israel Harvard University Students Issue Demands to School President, Give Monday Deadline,” by Dion J. Pierre, Algemeiner, November 24, 2023:

Dozens of anti-Israel student groups at Harvard University, along with several allied campus groups across the US, have issued a set of demands to Harvard President Claudine Gay and given her until Monday to respond, adding further fuel to what’s become an explosive situation at one of the world’s most elite universities over the Israel-Hamas war.

Earlier this week, students protested on campus and issued the list of demands, which included the reinstatement of a student proctor who three weeks ago participated in mobbing a Jewish student and screaming “Shame!” into his ears.

That proctor was part of a group that ganged up on a Jewish student, surrounding him and screaming “Shame! Shame!” — while he tried to get away. You can see the disturbing scene here.

According to The Harvard Crimson, the campus newspaper, the university had suspended indefinitely Elom Tettey-Tamaklo, a second year student at the Harvard Divinity School, from his role as a proctor over his involvement in the incident, video of which went viral earlier this month. Tettey-Tamaklo reportedly has been ordered to vacate free housing he received as compensation for holding the position, which gives graduates the opportunity to mentor freshmen.

What kind of a “mentor” to freshmen can this Elom Tettey-Tamaklo possibly be, if he thinks ganging up on a lone Jewish student, surrounding him and preventing him from leaving is an acceptable way to behave? And he’s a student the Divinity School? His spirituality takes strange forms.

This week, the students also demanded that Gay commit to pursue no disciplinary or punitive actions against “pro-Palestinian students and workers engaging in non-violent protest.” The letter came as, according to The Harvard Crimson, eight undergraduate students had been summoned to hearings as part of disciplinary proceedings against students who last week occupied University Hall on campus for 24-hours.

So they also want Claudine Gay to take no action against students who unlawfully interfered with the university’s business by occupying University Hall? That won’t happen. Claudine Gay, who is black and won’t like having a non-negotiable demand thrown in her face, will get her back up at the peremptory tone of this letter by these spoiled Harvard brats who, to judge by the photographs of their demonstrations, are almost entirely white.

The third demand in the letter to Gay was for Harvard to “disclose [its] investments in the internationally recognized illegal settlements in Palestine and divest from those holdings” — an apparent nod to the boycott, divestment, and sanctions (BDS) movement against Israel. The BDS campaign seeks to isolate Israel from the international community as a step toward the Jewish state’s eventual elimination.

Harvard University continues to attempt to silence the voices of those who refuse to watch [sic]idly by as crimes against humanity are committed against the Palestinian people,” said the letter containing the demands. “The university continually wants to ‘affirm their commitment to protecting all members of our community from harassment and marginalization.’ However, they are currently attempting to fire a black first year proctor, Elom, for standing on the side of justice.”

The “crimes against humanity” are not those committed against, but rather by a subset of the Palestinians in Gaza, that is, the sadistic torturers, rapists, and murderers who belong to Hamas. Israel does not commit “crimes against humanity.” The IDF makes colossal efforts to minimize civilian casualties. It has done this in the war against Hamas in two ways. First, the IDF dropped 1.5 million leaflets over northern Gaza to urge its residents to move to the south, in order to get out of the way of the airstrikes that the IDF knew it would soon be unleashing against Hamas operatives and their weapons in the north. Second, the IDF warned people living inside or near buildings it was about to target to leave those buildings at once. It did — and does — this by messaging, telephoning, leafletting, and by use of the “knock on the roof” technique. Of course, Hamas operatives also profit from these warnings. But that is a price the IDF is prepared to pay in order to limit civilian lives. The IDF is the only army that warns its enemy in advance of sites it is about to target. It is this practice that led British Colonel Richard Kemp to describe the IDF as “the most moral army in the world.”

The letter additionally chastised Gay for earlier this month condemning the popular anti-Israel chant “from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free” — a slogan that has been widely interpreted as a call for the destruction of Israel, which is located between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea.

Gay is being attacked for stating the obvious: “from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free” can mean only one thing, that the single Jewish state must disappear, to be replaced by a twenty-third Arab one.

“We request a response by the end of Thanksgiving break on Monday, November 27th,” the letter concluded. “The whole of Boston and the broader movement is behind us — your move.”

So “the whole of Boston” is “behind” those self-righteous Harvard swells? How do you know this? I suspect that of the 650,000 inhabitants of Boston, a city I know very well, about 640,000 are either opposed to your ghastly views, or have never heard of you. What surquidry from these jejune revolutionaries, what self-importance, what comical swank.

By the time you read this, the ultimatum to Claudine Gay by these self-regarding haters of Israel, and admirers of Hamas, will have come and gone. She will either have ignored their demand for a response, or rejected it, without further discussion. Either will do just fine.