Over 100 Higher Education Institutions Declare They ‘Stand With Israel’

Protesters wave Palestinian and Latin American flags in support of Palestinians and Hamas in Los Angeles, Calif., on Oct. 12, 2023. John Fredricks/The Epoch Times

An international coalition of over 100 educational institutions issued a statement condemning Hamas and supporting Israel, calling the fight against the terror group a “fight against evil.”

“We are horrified and sickened by the brutality and inhumanity of Hamas. Murdering innocent civilians including babies and children, raping women, and taking the elderly as hostages are not the actions of political disagreement but the actions of hate and terrorism,” said the statement from Universities United Against Terrorism. “We, the presidents and chancellors of universities, colleges, and higher education associations across the United States of America and the world, stand with Israel, with the Palestinians who suffer under Hamas’ cruel rule in Gaza, and with all people of moral conscience.”

“The basis of all universities is a pursuit of truth, and it is times like these that require moral clarity,” it said. “Like the fight against ISIS, the fight against Hamas is a fight against evil.”

Founders of the coalition include Ari Berman, president of Yeshiva University; Michael M. Crow, president of Arizona State University; Julio Frenk, president of the University of Miami; Jay Hartzell, president of University of Texas at Austin; E. Gordon Lee, president of West Virginia University; Michael L. Lomax, president of the United Negro College Fund; and Marty Meehan, president of the University of Massachusetts.

The statement comes amid increasing criticism over anti-Semitic activities on American campuses. At Harvard, 33 student groups signed a letter blaming Israel for the violence perpetrated by Hamas against Israeli citizens.

Meanwhile, the University of Pennsylvania (UPenn) hosted the Palestine Writes Literature Festival, which included speakers who pushed anti-Semitic rhetoric, just weeks before the Oct. 7 Hamas attack.

During a recent speech held by The Heritage Foundation, Jewish billionaire Ronald Lauder said that he warned UPenn’s president about the Palestine Writes Literature Festival potentially tarnishing the university’s reputation. However, the president “refused to cancel it, citing freedom of speech,” he said.

“Something has gone very wrong in our education system,“ he said. ”Not long ago, the hatred of Israel in academia was confined to a few far-left socialist professors. ... But this upside-down logic now is spread everywhere, and almost every college president and administrator is afraid to stand up and condemn it.”

On Nov. 1, the presidents of several Israeli universities and research institutions wrote an open letter expressing “deep concern” about anti-Israel sentiments coming from international academia, especially from America and Europe.

“It’s unsettling to note that many college campuses have become breeding grounds for anti-Israel and anti-Semitic sentiments, largely fueled by a naïve and biased understanding of the conflict,” they wrote.

“It is ironic that the very halls of enlightenment in America and Europe, ostensibly the bastions of intellectual and progressive thought that are your campuses, have adopted Hamas as the cause célèbre while Israel is demonized.”

Anti-Israel DEI Policies in Universities

In a Nov. 4 letter to the president of Harvard University, billionaire hedge fund manager Bill Ackman highlighted the issue of diversity policies fomenting exclusion of Jewish students.

According to Mr. Ackman, he was “surprised” to learn that Harvard’s Office of Equity, Diversity, Inclusion, and Belonging “does not support Jewish, Asian, and non-LGBTQIA White students.”

“When anti-Semitism is widely prevalent on campus, and the DEI office—which ‘views diversity, equity, inclusion and belonging as the pathway to achieving inclusive excellence and fostering a campus culture where everyone can thrive’—does not welcome Jewish students, we have a serious problem.”

The issue of diversity ideologies being anti-Israel was raised in a 2021 report by The Heritage Foundation. Titled the “Inclusion Delusion,” the study analyzed the Twitter feeds of 741 diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) staff at 65 universities, comparing their stances on Israel and China.

It found that the DEI staff “tweeted, retweeted, or liked almost three times as many tweets about Israel as tweets about China.”

With regard to tweets about Israel, 96 percent were critical of the state. In contrast, 62 percent of tweets on China were favorable. The study said that there was an “overwhelming pattern” of DEI staff paying a higher amount of attention to Israel and nearly always attacking the Jewish state.

“While criticism of Israel is not necessarily anti-Semitic, the inordinate amount of attention given to Israel and the excessive criticism directed at that one country is evidence of a double standard with respect to the Jewish state, which is a central feature of a widely accepted definition of anti-Semitism,” they wrote.

“Frequently accusing Israel of engaging in genocide, apartheid, settler colonialism, ethnic cleansing, and other extreme crimes while rarely leveling similar criticisms toward China indicates an irrational hatred that is particularly directed toward Jews and not merely a concern for human rights.”

Backlash Against Universities

Anti-Israel activities on American campuses have triggered a strong backlash. Some CEOs and law firms have vowed not to hire students who blamed Israel for the massacre carried out by Hamas on Oct. 7.

For instance, Chicago law firm Winston & Strawn revoked a job offer it had granted to the president of New York University’s Student Bar Association after the student published “inflammatory” comments on the Israel-Hamas conflict.

Similarly, donors have cut off or threatened to pull out funding for universities that failed to condemn the massacre. Kenneth Griffith, the founder of hedge fund Citadel, cut off ties with Harvard. Mr. Griffith reportedly donated $300 million to the university last year.

Many U.S. colleges are now under pressure to punish faculty members who have taken an anti-Israel or pro-Hamas stance.

A petition to fire Yale University professor Zareena Grewal for her anti-Israel statements has attracted more than 56,000 signatures. Shortly after the Hamas attack on Oct. 7, Ms. Grewal called Israel a “murderous, genocidal settler state” and insisted that “Palestinians have every right to resist through armed struggle.”

During an Oct. 28 annual summit of the Republican Jewish Coalition, former president Donald Trump vowed to punish universities promoting anti-Israel sentiment once he is back in the White House.

“When I get back into office, I will put every single university and college president on notice. The American taxpayer will not subsidize the creation of terrorist sympathizers on American soil. Colleges and universities will purge the anti-Semitism,” he said.

Educational institutions that are anti-Semitic “will lose their accreditation and every last penny of federal student loans. It will not be paid to them, probably shouldn’t be paid to them anyway.”