Hamas Loyalist Professor: Russell Rickford at the Cornell University “[October 7th] was exhilarating! It was exhilarating! It was energizing.” by Sara Dogan
https://www.frontpagemag.com/hamas-loyalist-professor-russell-rickford-at-the-cornell-university/
#3: Russell Rickford, Cornell University
Cornell associate professor of history Russell Rickford made national headlines for his enthusiastic and boisterous approbation of Hamas’s barbaric October 7th massacre of Israeli civilians during which over 1200 were maimed, mutilated, and slaughtered, and hundreds more taken hostage.
At a rally hosted by the ironically-named group, Jewish Voice for Peace, in Ithaca, New York on October 15, 2023, barely a week after Hamas’s attack, Rickford lauded Hamas in the highest terms and celebrated the outright slaughter of Israel’s Jews.
“What has Hamas done?,” Rickford asked. “Hamas has shifted the balance of power. Hamas has punctured the illusion of [Israeli] invincibility. That’s what they’ve done…Hamas has changed the terms of debate.”
Rickford continued extolling the virtues of the terrorist group, saying that “Hamas has challenged the monopoly of violence” and that the Palestinians “were able to breathe for the first time in years” thanks to the bloody October 7th massacre.
“[I]t was exhilarating! It was exhilarating! It was energizing! And if they [Palestinians] weren’t exhilarated by this challenge to the monopoly of violence, by this shifting of the balance of power, then they would not be human. I was exhilarated!” Rickford concluded, expressing sheer joy at the extent of Hamas’s slaughter.
Even in the highly anti-Semitic world of higher education, Rickford’s remarks praising the massacre were considered a step too far. The professor requested and was granted a leave of absence from the university but remained an employee and is still listed as a professor on the university’s website.
Unsurprisingly, Professor Rickford has a long history of praising terrorist violence against Israel. At a September 2021 lecture held by anti-Semitic Rutgers Professor Noura Erakat on “Palestine: Settler Colonialism, Sovereignty and Apartheid,” Rickford celebrated the recent escape of several convicted terrorists from the maximum security Gilboa Prison in Israel, citing the incident as “a marvelous example of tenacity and defiance that would live on in the imaginations of people around the world.” The escapees were members of the terror groups Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) and the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade who had been convicted of criminal attacks on Israelis during the bloody Second Intifada.
Rickford also penned an article for Vox.com describing “How Black Lives Matter reenergized Black-Palestinian solidarity.” In the piece, Rickford described his experience marching at a Cornell rally in support of acts of terrorism from the terrorist organizations Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) as “one of the truly gratifying moments of my life as an internationalist.”
The professor has a long record of demonizing Israel and promoting anti-Semitic tropes. In a 2018 article published by the African American Intellectual History Society, Rickford stated that “Israel and the U.S. are leading propagators of racist belief systems” and claimed that “Israel is especially useful because it serves as a laboratory for the development, testing and dissemination of techniques of surveillance and control… that enable the targeting of Black and brown people within the U.S.”
In an interview with the Cornell Sun from 2017, Rickford argued that “[the] colonial occupation of Palestine remains one of the world’s most visible campaigns of white supremacist violence”—an absurd accusation given that the majority of Jewish citizens of Israel are of Middle Eastern or North African descent.
Professor Rickford has half-heartedly attempted to apologize for his most heinous comments—those describing Hamas’s October 7 massacre as “exhilarating” and “energizing”—but one can be excused for doubting his sincerity. In the immediate backlash that followed these remarks, Rickford doubled down on his enthusiasm for Hamas’s brutality, only to later apologize “for the horrible choice of words,” which he described as “reprehensible.” It remains unclear whether the professor regrets not only his choice of words, but also his pro-Hamas sentiments and celebration of Israel’s potential annihilation.
As of the Fall 2024 semester, Rickford is back teaching at Cornell again, and the university has clarified that no disciplinary action was taken against him for his comments celebrating Hamas’s massacre of Israel’s Jews. Given Rickford’s long history of celebrating terrorism against the world’s only Jewish state and repetition of Hamas’s propaganda lies, a true change of heart seems unlikely.
Previous Articles in the Series:
#4: Hamas Loyalist Professor: Huda Fakhreddine at the University of Pennsylvania.
#5: Hamas Loyalist Professor: Joseph Massad at Columbia University.
#6: Hamas Loyalist Professor: Samer Alatout at UW-Madison.
#7: Hamas Loyalist Professor: Steven Thrasher at Northwestern University.
#8: Hamas Loyalist Professor: Noura Erakat at Rutgers University.
#9: Hamas Loyalist Professor: Jairo Fúnez-Flores at Texas Tech University.
#10: Hamas Loyalist Professor: Jeffrey McCully at Moraine Valley Community College.
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