Hamas is a terrorist group plain and simple. Over the last few days, reports have shown Israeli women being raped, kidnapped, murdered, numerous other elderly civilians murdered and toddlers reportedly beheaded at the hands of Hamas. Meanwhile in America, the reaction amongst student groups at elite universities is shocking and not in the way you would think.
Student groups at Yale, Harvard, Columbia, CUNY and many more have all expressed support for Hamas and Palestine at a time of massive pain and suffering for all those living in Israel. The student groups have both students and faculty that protested and yet will not put their names to paper, rather will hide behind the immoral organizations they claim have the moral high ground.
Many of the students who have pledged to support Hamas’ actions against Israel intend to use the organization’s name in order to remain anonymous, continuing to spout disgusting anti-semitic hatred against Jews and the citizens of Israel.
These students and faculty should face criticism and be subject to debate on their ideas not to hide behind “Amnesty International at Harvard,” a group who publicly claimed they “hold the Israeli regime entirely responsible for all” the massacres and rapes.” A statement such as that must be debated and defeated so students and young Americans understand exactly what they’re claiming.
According to Professor Alan Dershowitz of Harvard Law School, he believes if students feel Hamas was justified for these terrorist activities and believe so strongly in their views, then they should ascribe their names to their statements so that “fellow students, future employers, and others should be able to judge their friends and potential employees by the views they have expressed.”
“As a university professor for 50 years, I would not grade down a student because she supported Hamas atrocities. Nor would I befriend or employ such a student. Freedom of speech is not freedom from being held accountable for one’s speech. It is interesting that most of the counter-petitions protesting Hamas’ activities contain the names of students and faculty, but that is far less true of petitions that support Hamas’ atrocities. That is understandable because there is no reasonable defense for what Hamas has done. Those who support Hamas should be ashamed and shamed, and those who oppose Hamas should be praised. That, too, is part of the marketplace of ideas,” Dershowitz wrote in an opinion piece for the Daily Caller News Foundation.
“Let the student newspapers, many of which are rabidly anti-Israel, publish the names of all students and faculty members who belong to groups that support and oppose Hamas. Hypothetically, if a club was formed at any of these universities that advocated rape or the lynching of African Americans, the newspapers would most assuredly publish the names of everyone associated with such a despicable group. Why is this different? Rape has become a weapon of war for Hamas, along with lynching, mutilation, mass murder and kidnapping. Expressing support for these acts, while constitutionally protected, is wrong. The answer to wrong speech isn’t censorship; it is right speech and transparency,” he wrote. “So let the names be published. Let the despicable students and faculty members who support Hamas stand up and defend their indefensible views, and let the marketplace of ideas decide who is right and who is wrong.”
