HAMAS’S USEFUL IDIOTS

George Orwell famously observed that “there are some ideas so absurd that only an intellectual could believe them.” The reaction in some academic quarters to the barbarisms inflicted on civilians in Israel by Hamas murderers illustrates the obverse:  There are some facts so obvious that only an intellectual could fail to believe them.

Here are some of those obvious facts.  On October 7, members of Hamas penetrated the border with Israel and proceeded to conduct a murderous rampage on unarmed civilians. They raped women, shot the elderly, and burned infants. They seized about 150 traumatized civilians — again, many of them women, children, and the elderly — and carried them off to Gaza, where brutalized women were spat upon by the cheering, jeering local populace.   

We know these are facts, and not mere rumors or allegations, because the perpetrators themselves filmed these actions and proudly posted them on social media.

(And by the way, could we please stop referring to the perpetrators as “militants” or “fighters”? Armed men who butcher women, babies, and the elderly do not fit the definitions of those terms. We do not say that “German militants” killed millions of Jews in concentration camps. We do not say that “Hutu fighters” killed 800,000 Tutsis in Rwanda.)

Sensible people, regardless of their views on the geopolitics of the Middle East, can readily understand that these heinous facts must be condemned.  But — referring back to the obverse of Orwell’s observation — there are some facts so obvious that only an intellectual could fail to believe them.

Unfortunately, Harvard is an incubator of such intellectuals.

One of the first responses to the barbarisms displayed on social media was a statement drafted by the Harvard College Palestine Solidarity Committee (PSC), and co-signed by 33 other Harvard organizations, representing, among others, graduate students from Harvard’s medical, law, and divinity schools. It reads in relevant part: “We, the undersigned student organizations, hold the Israeli regime entirely responsible for all unfolding violence….  The apartheid regime is the only one to blame.”

Many outside the University were stunned and repelled by the profound ignorance of the statement. Could anyone really believe that the Hamas murderers and rapists were not responsible for their own actions?

One Harvard alumnus, Hedge fund manager Bill Ackman, was so appalled he asked Harvard to release the names of the signors of the statement, so that he could be certain not to hire them in the future. Other corporate CEOs followed suit.

At that point, the PSC removed the names of the signatory organizations from the public posting. They posted this explanation: “For student safety, the names of all original signing organizations have been concealed at this time.” Of course, the student signors’ safety was not imperiled. Only their future job prospects were. With that in mind, at least five of the original signing organizations rescinded their endorsement of the statement.

Larry Summers, a former President of Harvard, was one of the first and most passionate critics of the statement. But he opposed Ackman’s request for the release of names of the signors, speculating that some of the signors “didn’t fully know what they were signing,” and that others were just “naïve and stupid.”

Ironically, his excuse for the signors actually bolstered Ackman’s position. For if these prospective business executives, lawyers, doctors, and other professionals signed such an outrageous statement because they “didn’t fully know what they were signing” or because they were “naïve and stupid,” that would constitute an even stronger argument for not hiring them. After all, a student who signed intentionally, and with full knowledge, would have at least demonstrated seriousness. His beliefs might be awful, but he might also be open to rational argument and persuasion. In contrast, a student who signed negligently, without fully knowing what he was signing, would have demonstrated such a lack of attention that hiring him to run a business department, manage a litigation, or perform a medical procedure would be an act of criminal negligence.

If the Harvard student reaction was abhorrent, the administration was little better.

Claudine Gay, the new President, issued a statement on October 9. She began by stating that she was “heartbroken by the death and destruction unleashed by the attack by Hamas that targeted citizen of Israel.” But the rest of the statement was a squishy expression of even-handed concern over the “feelings of fear, sadness, anger, and more that create a heavy burden” among members of the Harvard community. She pledged to “deepen our knowledge of the unfolding events and their broader implications for the region and world,” and to “take steps that will draw on common humanity and shared values.”

She said nothing about the letter signed by the 34 Harvard student organizations blaming Israel for the violence and death. Instead, she said: “We must all remember that we are one Harvard community … held together by a commitment to mutual respect and support.”

Really?  One community? Where was the “mutual respect” expressed by the 34 Harvard student organizations? Her evenly balanced language evoked Donald Trump’s remark after Charlottesville that there “were very fine people on both sides.”

Apparently made aware that her statement was inadequate if not offensive, President Gay issued another one the following day. This time she condemned “the terrorist atrocities perpetrated by Hamas.” But rather than also condemn the student groups for blaming Israel for the massacre, she would only go so far as to say: “While our students have the right to speak for themselves, no student group – not even 30 [sic]  student groups – speaks for Harvard University or its leadership.”

Perhaps it was reassuring to some to hear from the President of Harvard that the student statement blaming Israel for the massacre of its own citizens did not represent the position of Harvard University. But beyond that, she was unable to condemn or even criticize the signors.

Why is it so hard for intellectuals to believe what any less educated man or woman could easily grasp? Why is it so hard to condemn those who condone or rationalize setting fire to families?

The answer lies in the paradigm contaminating the air at Harvard and many other institutions of higher learning. Under this paradigm, the Jewish people, whose connection to the Land of Israel goes back more than three thousand years, are viewed as European colonialists.  Under this paradigm, it is proper to adopt any means necessary to “decolonize” the region. After all, those families burned to death in their homes were white supremacist colonists.  The land must be decolonized, and decolonization is not for the squeamish.

As Najma Sharif, a writer for Soho House Magazine and Teen Vogue, posted: “What did y’all think decolonization meant? vibes? papers? essays? losers.”

Intellectuals may not approve of the murders, rapes, and kidnappings going on in Israel, as Najima Sharif apparently does, but they are cognitively unable to condemn it because they have accepted this false “colonialist” paradigm.

For the same reason, anti-Israel sentiment permeates college campuses like Harvard. On April 29, 2022, the Harvard Crimson, the college’s main student newspaper, formally endorsed the BDS (Boycott, Divest, Sanctions) movement, which seeks to isolate Israel from all academic and economic contact. The editorial cited Israel’s “crimes against humanity.”

This editorial was published right after the annual Israel Apartheid Week, put on at Harvard by the Palestine Solidarity Committee, the same organization that authored the statement blaming Israel for the Hamas murder spree. The Crimson editorial commended the PSC for installing “a colorful, multi-panel ‘Wall of Resistance’ on campus.”  That “colorful” wall proclaims: “Zionism is Racism Settler Colonialism White Supremacy Apartheid.”

Sensible people might find the alleged connection between white supremacists and Jews strange. After all, white supremacists, including Nazis and neo-Nazis, tend toward the anti-Semitic side of the political spectrum, don’t they? But here we have an example, not of the obverse of Orwell’s observation, but of the original observation itself: the idea that Jews are Nazi equivalents is so absurd that only an intellectual could believe it.  

This same “colonialist” paradigm was evident at Harvard in December 2022, when the FXB Center for Health and Human Rights held a conference entitled “Settler Colonialism, Structural Racism, and The Palestinian Right to Health.”  The main topic of discussion was how Israel’s “colonial” and “apartheid” policies adversely affected Palestinian health. There was no discussion about how Hamas attacks on Israel, which are intended to provoke a military response, or how Hamas’s employment of children to build tunnels, which led to the death of at least 160 of them, might also affect Palestinian health.

Harvard’s intellectual climate is not unique. The same could be said of Cornell, Northwestern, Stanford, Dartmouth, Columbia, and many other institutions of higher learning which have shown themselves unable or unwilling to condemn the Hamas barbarism.

The unfortunate truth is that the signors of the PSC statement were not aberrants. They are the spawn of the intellectual climate prevalent in American academia today. And they simply cannot fathom what is so obvious to those who are unburdened by their intellectual pretensions.