A Tufts University student group is facing backlash after a statement praising the “creativity” of Hamas terrorists who used paragliders to launch an attack in Israel that left more than 1,000 dead, including 22 Americans.
Tufts’ Students for Justice in Palestine group called the terrorists “liberation fighters parachuting into occupied territory,” adding that they “especially showed the creativity needed to take back stolen land.”
The message added: ‘It has not been without cost as hundreds of Palestinians have been tortured and fought to free themselves and their country in recent days.’
The group’s statement was first shared Tuesday by the Anti-Defamation League New England chapter, which called it “obscene.”
The University denounced the organization’s message on Wednesday.
“We condemn the terrorism and atrocities committed by Hamas against Israel,” said spokesman Patrick Collins. ‘We strongly disagree with and condemn SJP’s statement and want to make it clear that no student group speaks on behalf of the university.’
The shrouded bodies of Israeli victims of the weekend’s infiltration by Palestinian militants are collected at Kibbutz Beeri near the border with Gaza on October 11.
Many of the school’s notable alumni took to social media to express their disappointment at the group’s statement.
‘As a person and a former student, I am disgusted by this and expect firm action by the university administration. This is one of the worst international terrorist incidents on record and Tufts SJP applauds Hamas’ creativity. Unbelievable,’ says Matthew Levitt, former Georgetown professor and former director of the Reinhard Counterterrorism Program at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy.
“SJP at my alma mater enters the whip of obscene celebration of Anti-Semitic mass murder, praising Hamas’s “creativity” in carrying out its “historic” action of mass rape and murder and infanticide,” wrote journalist John-Paul Pagano .
Tufts’ Students for Justice in Palestine group is just the latest to find itself in hot water after it appeared to applaud Hamas’ attack, which sparked the biggest conflict between Israel and Palestine in decades.
Harvard University faced massive backlash after 31 of its student associations issued a joint statement ‘holding the Israeli regime fully responsible for all unfolding violence.’
The groups said in their statement on Sunday that the attack that left more than 1,000 dead “did not happen in a vacuum”, claiming that the Israeli government had forced Palestinians to live in the open for more than two decades -to live in prison.
Billionaire hedge fund manager Bill Ackman claimed that co-CEOs want to know who they are, so ‘none of us accidentally hires any of their members’.
The CEO of Pershing Square Capital Management said he had been approached by a number of CEOs, adding: “One should not be able to hide behind a corporate shield when issuing statements supporting the actions of terrorists, which, we now learned, decapitated babies, among other unimaginably despicable acts.’
Columbia University’s Students for Justice in Palestine also released a statement blaming Israel for the terror attacks, claiming that Hamas’ actions are a “counter-offensive against their settler-colonial oppressor.”
The Ivy-League schools were also joined by a Northwestern University group called Justice in Palestine that said they “stand steadfast in our commitment to address the profound injustices facing the Palestinian people light.’
The Harvard statements were widely condemned, including by former US Treasury Secretary Larry Summers, who wrote on X: ‘In nearly 50 years of @Harvard affiliation I have never been more disillusioned and alienated than I am today.’
Ryna Workman, 24, a non-binary student at NYU’s School of Law sent out a weekly newsletter saying that the innocent slaughter of Israeli children, women and civilians over the past week is Israel’s “full responsibility.”
The first space of the statement released by the Students for Justice in Palestine and a Jewish Voice for Peace from Columbia University
Meanwhile, the president of New York University’s Law School Bar Association had a job offer rescinded from a pro-LGBTQ+ law firm after she declared that Hamas’ massacre of children in Israel was ‘necessary’.
Ryna Workman, 24, a non-binary student at NYU’s School of Law, sent out a weekly newsletter saying that the killing of innocent Israeli children, women and civilians over the past week was Israel’s “full responsibility.”
On Tuesday, the law firm Winston & Strawn — which regularly highlights its legal work representing the LGBTQ+ community — told DailyMail.com in a statement that its offer of employment to Workman had been rescinded.
The number of US citizens confirmed dead in the Israel-Hamas war has risen to at least 22 with at least 17 unaccounted for, the State Department said Wednesday. This is an increase in the death toll from 14 the previous day.
American citizens are among the estimated 150 hostages taken by Hamas militants during their shocking weekend attack on Israel, President Joe Biden confirmed Tuesday.
The war has already claimed at least 2,200 lives on both sides.