The anti-Israel letter controversy rocking Harvard

It all began with a letter. The letter from Harvard University student groups blaming Israel for Saturday’s horrific Hamas attacks on the country has drawn a huge backlash from prominent alumni and US lawmakers. It has also resulted in an Israeli couple stepping down from their roles as board members of the university and many business leaders demanding that Harvard release the names of the students. Let’s take a closer look. The controversial letter On 7 October, the same day that Hamas carried out a meticulously prepared surprise cross-border strike on Israel, a number of Harvard University student organisations posted a letter to social media. It was co-signed by 33 student groups. They claimed that Israel’s “apartheid regime” was “entirely responsible” for the conflict, which has so far resulted in the deaths of nearly 2,800 people in Israel and Gaza, many of whom were civilians. “Today’s events did not occur in a vacuum. For the last two decades, millions of Palestinians in Gaza have been forced to live in an open-air prison,” the statement read.

It also encouraged Harvard to withdraw its sizable endowment from any companies linked to Israeli settlements in the West Bank, which are largely recognised as illegal by most of the world’s nations. Harvard is not like other universities. It has produced eight previous US presidents, four current justices of the Supreme Court, and many more significant figures in politics and industry. The university frequently stands in for the rest of US academia with its policies on issues like affirmative action. America progresses as Harvard does.

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Criticism The reaction to the letter was swift. The matter swiftly escalated to a high-level national political and cultural debate, with opposing parties accusing one another of utilising risky strategies, engaging in argumentation in bad faith, and violating free speech and intellectual freedom, according to The Independent. Those engaged in academic discussions and campus activity related to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and occupation claim that this poisoned climate is a frequent, worrisome aspect of their world. Ted Cruz, a US Senator, and Lawrence Summers, a former Harvard president and Treasury Secretary, both rapidly expressed their opinions online. Summers wrote on X,  “The silence from Harvard’s leadership, so far, coupled with a vocal and widely reported student groups’ statement blaming Israel solely, has allowed Harvard to appear at best neutral towards acts of terror against the Jewish state of Israel. To be clear nothing is wrong with criticizing Israeli policy past, present or future. I have been sharply critical of (Israeli) PM (Benjamin) Netanyahu. But that is very different from lack of clarity regarding terrorism.”

In nearly 50 years of @Harvard affiliation, I have never been as disillusioned and alienated as I am today.

— Lawrence H. Summers (@LHSummers) October 9, 2023

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According to The Harvard Crimson, 17 student organizations — including Harvard Hillel and Harvard Chabad — as well as some 500 members of the faculty and staff responded with letters of their own. The letter from almost 160 Harvard faculty members says the student signings of the original statement “can be seen as nothing less than condoning the mass murder of civilians based solely on their nationality.” “The events of this week are not complicated,” the faculty response says, adding, “Sometimes there is such a thing as evil, and it is incumbent upon educators and leaders to call it out, as they have with school shootings and terrorist attacks.” Billionaires demand names of students But after exchanging a few letters and declarations, the controversy swiftly grew more heated. In a post on social media, billionaire hedge fund manager Bill Ackman stated that his colleagues had asked him to provide the names of the students who had signed that first letter “so that none of us inadvertently hire any of their members.” “If, in fact, their members support the letter they have released, the names of the signatories should be made public so their views are publicly known,” he continued. “One should not be able to hide behind a corporate shield when issuing statements supporting the actions of terrorists, who, we now learn, have beheaded babies, among other inconceivably despicable acts.”

I have been asked by a number of CEOs if @harvard would release a list of the members of each of the Harvard organizations that have issued the letter assigning sole responsibility for Hamas’ heinous acts to Israel, so as to insure that none of us inadvertently hire any of their… https://t.co/7kzGOAGwp9

— Bill Ackman (@BillAckman) October 10, 2023

The CEOs of Sweetgreen and MeUndies also spoke out in favour of the initiative, with Jonathan Shokrian of MeUndies likening the concepts in the initial letter to a “cancer.” Other executives also expressed support for the initiative. By Wednesday, a “doxxing truck” had surfaced close to the Harvard campus. It circled the school while flashing images of Harvard students and groups that were purportedly associated with the initial statement. According to the New York Post, nonprofit news monitoring organisation, Accuracy in Media was operating the truck. The group deployed the truck because it’s “incredibly important to know who the hateful antisemites are in our society. And it’s important for people to know that their actions have consequences,” the company’s president Adam Guillette told The Post. As campus tensions increased, there was suddenly a backlash to the backlash, with groups and individuals from a range of diverse perspectives expressing a sentiment that things had gone too far. Backlash to the backlash “As the events of recent days continue to reverberate, let there be no doubt that I condemn the terrorist atrocities perpetrated by Hamas,” Harvard’s president Claudine Gay wrote in a  statement released on Tuesday, adding, “Such inhumanity is abhorrent, whatever one’s individual views of the origins of longstanding conflicts in the region.” “We will all be well served in such a difficult moment by rhetoric that aims to illuminate and not inflame,” she added. “And I appeal to all of us in this community of learning to keep this in mind as our conversations continue.” According to the New York Post, Harvard alumni, including former school president Larry Summers, have criticised Gay for issuing the “delayed” statement. According to member of the Harvard Undergraduate Palestine Solidarity Committee Sanaa M. Kahloon, the group’s message as a whole has been misinterpreted. “To restate what should be obvious: the PSC staunchly opposes violence against civilians — Palestinian, Israeli, or other,” she said. The committee claimed that after receiving “racist hate speech and death threats” on social media, the group was compelled to cancel a scheduled vigil “intended to mourn all innocent lives lost.” In the meantime, some of those who disapproved of the initial student letter also objected to its critics’ strategies. It said in an online statement, “Harvard Hillel strongly condemns any attempts to threaten and intimidate co-signatories of the Palestine Solidarity Committee’s statement, including the bus on campus displaying the names and faces of students affiliated with the groups who have signed it. “We will continue to reject the PSC’s statement in the strongest terms — and demand accountability for those who signed it,” the statement continued. “But under no circumstances should that accountability extend to public intimidation of individuals.” Summers, the former Harvard president, also expressed his concern, by saying, “I yield to no one in my revulsion at the statement apparently made on behalf of 30 plus @Harvard student groups. But please everybody take a deep breath. Many in these groups never saw the statement before it went out. In some case those approving did not understand exactly what they were approving. Probably some were naive and foolish. This is not a time where it is constructive to vilify individuals and I am sorry that is happening.”

I yield to no one in my revulsion at the statement apparently made on behalf of 30 plus @Harvard student groups. But please everybody take a deep breath. Many in these groups never saw the statement before it went out. In some case those approving did not understand exactly…

— Lawrence H. Summers (@LHSummers) October 11, 2023

Harvard law scholar Laurence Tribe linked the doxxing tactics to McCarthyism, the Cold War-era search for alleged Communists at US institutions that resulted in multiple First Amendment violations, in an interview with CNN. Israeli billionaire quits Harvard board Idan Ofer, an Israeli shipping magnate who is worth several billion dollars, and his wife Batia have resigned from their positions on the board of Harvard’s Kennedy School, according to NDTV. Their resignation is in protest over the university’s allegedly ambiguous response to a letter from student organisations. Their primary cause of discontent was Claudine Gay, president of the university, who had responded slowly and ineffectively. The couple reportedly stated that they left the board “in protest of the shocking and insensitive response by the president of the university, who did not condemn the letter by student organisations that blamed Israel for the massacres.” TheMarker, a Hebrew-language news outlet, reported that the couple’s decision to resign. With inputs from agencies