Letter supporting Palestine by Harvard students provokes alumni outrage

A pro-Palestinian statement from students that blamed Israel for the violence engulfing the region was condemned on Monday by prominent Harvard University alumni, who urged the school to take action against the signatories.

The largest breach of Israel’s defences since Arab armies went to war in 1973 occurred on Saturday when the Islamist militant Hamas movement, which governs the Palestinian enclave of Gaza, assaulted the Jewish state. In response, Israel attacked Gaza with airstrikes.

In both Israel and Gaza, hundreds of civilians have died.

Following decades of occupation, a group of 34 Harvard student organisations stated that they “hold the Israeli regime entirely responsible for all unfolding violence” and added that “the apartheid regime is the only one to blame.”

Along with organisations named for a range of backgrounds, such as the Harvard Jews for Liberation and the African American Resistance Organisation, the letter’s signatories also included Muslim and Palestinian solidarity groups.

In a statement released on Monday, Harvard President Claudine Gay and senior administrators, including 15 deans, said they were “heartbroken by the death and destruction unleashed by the attack by Hamas that targeted citizens in Israel this weekend.”

However, the statement avoided making explicit mention of the student letter or the response to it.

With four of the nine presently serving Supreme Court Justices and eight former presidents, Harvard is the most significant academic institution in American politics.

Several Harvard graduates have criticised the present Harvard leadership for failing to respond, including Harvard President Emeritus Lawrence Summers, the former university president and U.S. Treasury Secretary under Democratic President Bill Clinton.

“The silence from Harvard’s leadership … has allowed Harvard to appear at best neutral towards acts of terror against the Jewish state of Israel,” Summers wrote on social media platform X.

“I am sickened.”

Although colleges have historically been a haven for radical thought and free speech, the student letter caught the attention of the political establishment.

Elise Stefanik, a Harvard graduate and Republican member of Congress from New York, referred to the speech as “abhorrent and heinous” for justifying the “slaughter of innocent women and children.”

Republican U.S. Senator Ted Cruz, a Harvard Law School graduate, wrote on X: “What the hell is wrong with Harvard?”

(With agency inputs)