Posted on 12/09/2023 8:37:38 PM PST by george76
Excuses - and silence - in the face of evil..
Slaughter in cold blood. Beheadings of babies. Torture. Rape as a weapon of war. All were part of Hamas’s genocidal attacks against Israeli Jews on October 7, 2023. This rampage, which took more Jewish lives in one day than on any other day since the Holocaust, should shock the conscience of any person who has a conscience. But what we see too often instead is a disgusting display of excuses, moral equivalence, and indifference in response to the gruesome violence that Jews, including so many defenseless women and girls, suffered on October 7th.
The heads of three leading universities – Harvard University, the University of Pennsylvania, and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology – disgraced themselves and their universities during their testimony before the House Committee on Education and the Workforce on December 5th. Asked what their universities were doing to combat anti-Semitism on campus, they gave talking point answers full of fluff and no substance. Worse yet, rather than unequivocally condemn the pro-Hamas protests on campus calling for genocide of Jews and pledge to discipline the offenders, these university leaders tried to contextualize the hate speech.
In response to New York Republican Rep. Elise Stefanik’s question whether “calling for the genocide of Jews” is against the universities’ respective codes of conduct, the university presidents responded that it all depends on the context. And they tried to hide behind the First Amendment.
“It is a context-dependent decision,” University of Pennsylvania President Liz Magill responded. Rep. Stefanik bluntly replied, “Calling for the genocide of Jews is dependent on the context? That is not bullying or harassment? This is the easiest question to answer ‘yes,’ Ms. Magill.”
Ms. Magill added that speech calling for genocide of Jews presented a complex question as to whether hate speech crosses over into incitement to violence that is not protected by the First Amendment. “The chanting, I think, calling for intifada, global revolution, [is] very disturbing,” Magill said during questioning. “I believe at minimum that is hateful speech that has been and should be condemned. Whether it rises to the level of incitement to violence under the policies that Penn and the city of Philadelphia follow, which are guided by the United States Constitution, I think is a much more difficult question. Incitement to violence is a very narrow category.”
Harvard President Claudine Gay responded, “When speech crosses into conduct, we take action.” She declared that Harvard embraces “a commitment to free expression – even views that are objectionable, offensive, hateful.”
MIT President Sally Kornbluth responded that such language would only be “investigated as harassment if pervasive and severe.” She said that MIT has a responsibility to “ensure that we protect speech and viewpoint diversity for everyone.”
Jewish students recounted their dreadful experiences on campus and their fears sparked by the pro-Hamas protests while the school administrators have sat on their hands.
“What is the administration doing? We’ve brought them policy violations, proof that they happen, and the student handbook that were explicitly violated,” Jewish Harvard Law student Jonathan Frieden said. “When they respond, if at all, responses are empty and meaningless responses such as, ‘We are aware of the situation.’”
The university presidents’ attempt to take refuge behind the First Amendment’s free speech protections when it comes to menacing rants against Jews is the height of hypocrisy. They have disciplined students and faculty for allegedly offensive comments that hurt the feelings of minority groups other than Jews without worrying about the First Amendment. Similarly, they have rallied around critical race theory and diversity, equity, and inclusion ideologies.
The Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression’s and College Pulse’s fourth annual College Free Speech Rankings of the free speech cultures of 248 of America’s largest and most prestigious campuses placed Harvard at the bottom of the list. The University of Pennsylvania ranked as the second worst institution of higher learning in the free speech rankings. MIT did better but was still ranked pretty far down on the list –136th.
It is all well and good for the university presidents to have condemned Hamas’s attack, which took Ms. Gay days to do after a coalition of pro-Hamas students signed a letter claiming that the attack was all Israel’s fault. But the university presidents’ waffling on the question as to whether inflammatory calls on campus for genocide of Jews, which have led some Jewish students to hide their identities and stay away from class for fear of being attacked, should be a firing offense.
Of course, the universities’ despicable responses to the Jew-hatred on their campuses are not the only examples demonstrating moral cowardice or worse. We see this inexcusable behavior at the United Nations and within feminist organizations that have pushed for unquestioned belief in women’s claims of sexual assault, except when it comes to Jewish women and girls who were raped by the Hamas terrorists. We see it amongst pseudo-human rights groups, celebrities, left-leaning media, and government officials.
The Obamas are prime examples. Former President Barack Obama insisted in his usual outrageous fashion that “all of us are complicit to some degree” in the Israel-Hamas conflict.
Michelle Obama had no problem condemning Boko Haram when their terrorists kidnapped 276 girls from a school in Nigeria. She even began a social media campaign on behalf of the girls. But, as reported by the DailyCaller, Michele Obama had nothing to say when an Israeli female official asked her “to condemn Hamas for its vicious attack on Israeli women including multiple rapes and murders in the October 7 massacre.”
“Never again” has turned into “never mind” as far as much of the world is concerned when it comes to responding to Hamas’s promised genocide of the Jewish people and its brutal rapes of Jewish women and girls.
Netanyahu is a soft spoken ROCK, an example for our times . . . come back quickly, President Trump.
In speech, the left is ready to embrace rape, murder and racism as political means. Where is the line drawn, if it is at all?
You would think universities would put some limits on free speech besides those they impose on Christians. Not only did the Nazis murder 6,000,000 Jews, but they managed to kill two out of every three Jews living in Europe in 1940.
This is not the first time people have had such an ambivalent attitude towards the Jews. Abba Eban was an observer at the UN as countries debated establishing Israel. In his autobiography he said one diplomat told him that 6,000,000 dead Jews had bought no more than two years of tolerance for the statehood issue.
Leftards twist themselves into pretzels defending racist bigots as long as they are on their side. Sick puppies.
Brains taken over by Satan.
Probably true. What else explains their bizarre inability to condemn the brutal rapes, torture, and murder of innocent people, including women, children, even babies?
And these Universities are supposed to represent the best and brightest among us?
Indoctrination camps headed by anti-truth, anti-freedom, anti-American, anti-life collectivists.
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think the the long march worked ?
The woke always condemn conservatives by calling them Nazis yet it is the woke who are praising Nazis beliefs and violence.
We can hope the donations dry up for Ivies but their donors are leftist.
Hamas Won, They may win the war and force Israel to give up more land—on the Peace Table (better yet call it the piece table). If this sparks a bigger war—Israel will be forced to use nukes on Egypt or Turkey, Iran or Syria. Israel will be no more and a become a blood bath—we must be ready to pull all six million Jews out of the Middle East—These are people we can accept. Christians will also be cut down in the invasion.
Will we send troops to stop the bloodbath? Will France? Russia?
I will speculate that now probably the only place Jews can count on genuine acceptance is overtly Christian colleges.
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