Harvard after Penn [also after critical - emergency Board meeting]

The real problem people have is not with the words Palestinians are using but that we have the audacity to speak up at all. Please do not be desensitized to what’s happening in Gaza.

Boston 10.44am

According to CNN, 39 hours after board meeting [last Sunday], Harvard President Claudine Gay will remain in office with the support of the University highest governing body.

Imagine being more outraged about hypothetical calls for genocide in Ivy League environment than actual genocide taking place in Gaza. Mary Elizabeth ‘Liz’ Magill's resignation is not the victory over the "woke left" that some on the right would have you believe." An all-too-rare nuanced & thoughtful take on the campus moral panic. The right wing’s latest witch hunt in academia isn’t a cure for bigotry, it’s a warning of creeping authoritarianism.

2 Symbol of Gaza. Plestia Bosbos Alaqad and Motaz Azaiza. Both [even[ westernized. Motaz part of UNRWA USA. Plestia is Albert Schweitzer Scholars. As of minute-time, 1.57am Melbourne [Plestia] and 4.57pm Gaza [Motaz]

It'll never stop fascinating me how some senior academics in America [and entire Europe, plus Australia] seem so afraid of taking a strong stance on anything. Many years building careers through pragmatic & strategic options have devoid them of the capacity to engage in spontaneous action underpinned merely by strong ethics.

If you punish people for what they say it does not change their mind. They will not stop thinking whatever you are stopping them from saying. They just get good at talking in code and plotting unobserved -after all, you told them to shut up. and they will, since dialogue that way is impossible. Congratulations, you leave them with no options but to kill you.

Please do not be desensitized to what’s happening in Gaza right now. I know you’re fatigued. But please do not let this be normal. In every standard of war, genocidal in Gaza is not normal.

Two Goebbels. 1st, ‘Goebbels of Trump’, Elise Stefanik

2nd, ‘Goebbels of Netanyahu’, another ‘Eli’, Eli David:

When Harvard President Claudine Gay was inaugurated as the University’s 30th president, many expected her to lead Harvard for the next decade.

But after Claudine Gay’s testimony on Tuesday before the House Committee on Education and the Workforce, many are demanding she resign in her first semester because unclear antisemitism stance position.

During the hearing, Gay — alongside University of Pennsylvania President Elizabeth Mary ‘Liz’ Magill and MIT President Sally A. Kornbluth — repeatedly declined to directly answer a question from Rep. Elise Mary Stefanik ’06 (R-N.Y.) about whether calls for the genocide of Jews violate Harvard’s policies on bullying and harassment.

The fallout from the testimony was swift. Magill resigned on Saturday amid the backlash. And Gay, who had previously only faced a few isolated calls to resign, faced dozens of additional calls for her resignation as the exchange with Elise Mary Stefanik went viral. Mary kills [career of] another Mary [Magill].

Gay said in an that she has the support of Penny S. Pritzker ’81, senior fellow of the Harvard Corporation — the University’s highest governing body.

Hate speech is a scourge. Combatting it is an important goal of any society. Speech that incites violence or creates a threatening environment cannot be tolerated within civilized communities or public or private institutions.

There are other dangers associated with hate speech, however. These include a lack of clarity in defining what is hateful or dangerous or worse, abuse of the impulse to regulate such speech.

As much as the dangers of recent weeks have revealed the pervasive nature of the threats of antisemitism and Islamophobia within society and, in particular, within American universities, sadly they have also revealed our vulnerability to heat of the moment-driven definitions of what poses a threat, and mob mentality regarding how and when to regulate speech.

The debate surrounding the testimony of the presidents of Harvard, MIT, and Penn (regarding their views on hate speech and creating a safe campus environment) is more likely to compound the current drift toward authoritarianism in the U.S. than it is likely to help solve these difficult problems.

In particular, the pressure to fire those presidents for seeking to present appropriately nuanced answers to questions posed to them is misguided. The fact that it has already forced the resignation of one widely respected academic leader, Mary Elizabeth ‘Liz’ Magill, the now ex-president of Penn, is not the victory over the “woke left” that some on the right would have you believe it is.

Magill’s resignation does not move us a step closer to producing campuses that are free of antisemitism, Islamophobia, or other forms of hate. Quite the contrary, given the track records of many of those who are leading the condemnation of the university presidents, it is a step toward further perverting the nature of academic discourse in America.

While it may move us a step away from the tortured legalisms of the remarks of the three college presidents before Congress, it also makes it more likely that university administrators will increasingly (to paraphrase Lillian Hellman) have to cut their consciences to fit the views which are fashionable among their donors and other influential special interest groups.

What is and is not suitable academic discourse will in such a world be determined by those with leverage over university budgets. While that has always been true to a degree, this moves us further away from the aspirational ideal of setting the bounds of on campus discourse based on sound principles of openness, fairness, and fact-based guidelines for what is or is not acceptable.

It is CRITICAL that American derive the right message--and avoid deriving the wrong one--from Mary Elizabeth ‘Liz’ Magill's "voluntary" resignation.

The wrong one is that universities like Penn need more restrictions of speech. The right one is that double standards will no longer be tolerated.

One transparent standard for all — free speech without freedom to harass or threaten.

If from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free is genocidal, so we updated ‘from the east bank of the jordan river exclude Israel ettlement

It is argued by some, for example, that the use of the phrase “from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free” constitutes a call for genocide. While this may be true if it is uttered by a Hamas terrorist, it could very well not be true for many who, for example, see it as simply a call for one contiguous Palestinian state. It does not necessarily imply the eradication of Jews but, rather, could envision their relocation or their willingness to live in a Palestinian state. That’s a political issue that one should be able to debate within clear ground rules in academia.

Or take this statement from GOP candidate Nimarata Nikki Haley, “If you don’t think Israel has a right to exist, that is antisemitic.” This is a variation on a theme, promoted actively by the Israeli government and its supporters, that being anti-Zionist is antisemitic.

Is this something that should be codified into law? Should questioning the Zionist thesis that Israel has a greater claim to the land Israel occupies than those who occupied it for hundreds of years prior be grounds for being silenced or kicked out of a university for hate speech?

“In a country lurching toward authoritarianism as we may be, it is vitally important we see such efforts at politically motivated campus censorship for the warnings of potential future abuses that they are.”

History and political theory are involved here. There are legitimate debates to be had. (Many Jews have opposed the modern idea of Zionism since the idea was first proposed by Theodor Herzl in 1897. And many more believe the current Israeli state has compromised its legitimacy by its mistreatment of Palestinians and the anti-democratic policies of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the Israeli right.)

Who answers these questions? Should it be big donors to academic institutions? Political action organizations that advocate on behalf of the current government of Israel? Politicians who have promoted white supremacist ideas like “replacement theory” or who have called neo-Nazis “fine people?”

We should, of course, work tirelessly to combat all hate speech and to promote greater understanding and cohesiveness within our country and worldwide. That said, we must acknowledge other dimensions to our current reality.

For example, as noted earlier, contrary to the arguments of the internet mobs targeting these academic leaders, there were no crowds explicitly calling for genocide at these universities. Further, for the reasons cited above, anti-Zionism or the opposition to the policies of the Israeli government should not automatically be seen as antisemitic.

“Progressives” cannot fairly be assessed to support Hamas terrorism simply because they are critical of Israel. Indeed, all but a demented handful of extremists actively and openly oppose all terror groups. “From the river to the sea” is not necessarily a call for genocide. Context does matter. And academia should be as open as possible to diverse ideas so long as they do not put anyone at imminent risk and so long as the ideas promoted are intellectually sound.

Remember the very same people who are arguing today to condemn what they call “antisemitism” (by which they mean support for the right-wing ethno-nationalist Israeli government) are the ones supporting a presidential candidate who has lifted up neo-Nazis and hate-fueled white supremacist garbage.

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I know a lot of high-ranking media, such as New York Times, Guardian, Anadolu, BILD, Spiegel, Financial Times, Strait Times, Washington Post etc subscribed my substack. Plestia ‘Bosbos’ Alaqad ready to be your Stringer or Keynote Speaker or Source about [everything related] Gaza. Plestiaa2011@gmail.com or collab@plestiaalaqad.com

Toddler with Plestia, before war, living in Northern Gaza and they evacuated to Southern Gaza. Since Friday, Oct 13, when Israel announced to every Gazans from northern move to southern, more than 5,000 killed in southern, not counting barbaric bombing in northern Gaza. Northern Gaza is being depopulated, while even residents in the south are ordered to evacuate as the israelis implement their ethnic cleansing. Refugee literally fulfilled Israel warning, and still killed with barbaric bombing by Israel. Documentation by Plestia Alaqad

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