In the wake of the public outcry following the shocking failure of the presidents of “elite” universities to unequivocally condemn calls for the genocide of the Jewish people, University of Pennsylvania President Liz Magill posted a video statement on Wednesday.
Magill said, among other things, that she “should have been focused on the irrefutable fact that a call for the genocide of the Jewish people is a call to the most terrible violence that human beings can perpetrate.”
Several social media users commented that Magill’s scripted statements reminded them of “hostage videos.” Many people are demanding the resignation of Magill, along with Harvard President Claudine Gay and MIT President Sally Kornbluth.
Congresswoman Elise Stefanik responded to the video by stating: “This pathetic PR clean-up attempt by Penn shockingly took over 24 hours to try to fix the moral depravity of the answers under oath yesterday. And there was not even an apology. By the way, the questions were asked over and over and over again. No statement will fix what the world saw and heard yesterday. There is zero question that the world knows that the only answer is for Penn to deliver accountability and bring in new leadership immediately.”
Yad Vashem issued a statement saying: “The positions taken by the three university presidents in their testimonies highlight a basic ignorance of history, including the fact that the Holocaust did not start with ghettos or gas chambers, but with hateful antisemitic rhetoric, decrees and actions by senior academics, among other leaders of society.”
Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla stated: “I was ashamed to hear the recent testimony of three top university presidents. In my personal opinion, it was one of the most despicable moments in the history of U.S. academia. The three presidents were offered numerous opportunities to condemn racist, antisemitic, hate rhetoric and refused to do so hiding behind calls for ‘context.’ The memories of my father’s parents, Abraham and Rachel Bourla, his brother David, and his little sister Graciela, who all died in Auschwitz, came to mind. I was wondering if their deaths would have provided enough ‘context’ to these presidents to condemn the Nazis’ antisemitic propaganda.”
(YWN Israel Desk – Jerusalem)
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12 Responses
We need Mashiach to come ASAP.
The best trick to get Mashiach to come:
We have to unite, stop bad mouthing our neighbors or other people that belong to a different Rebbe.
Give the benefit of the doubt.
Judge another Yid in a favorable manner.
The generation of King Achav got lucky because they were united.
Zero stabbing people behind their backs.
“Yad Vashem issued a statement saying: “The positions taken by the three university presidents in their testimonies highlight a basic ignorance of history, including the fact that the Holocaust did not start with ghettos or gas chambers, but with hateful antisemitic rhetoric, decrees and actions by senior academics, among other leaders of society.””
While the University presidents discussed are indeed deplorable, Yad VaShem, as a propaganda organ of its Zionist State, is covering up the immense Zionist contributions to that Holocaust including the Zionists lobbying governments against allowing in Jews to escape Europe to their countries, condemning those Jews to the Nazi murder camps instead.
stop demanding their resignation already. [and if you do, at least call it “firing” and not “resigning”.] Demand their JOINT –not c”v individual– murders.
Nice try…
All 3 of these university leaders should be fired immediately. There is no
“it depends” in relation to advocacy of genocide. No context, no factual predicates etc.
Here is a full transcript of what she said:
“There was a moment during yesterday’s congressional hearing on antisemitism when I was asked if a call for the genocide of Jewish people on our campus would violate our policies. In that moment, I was focused on our University’s longstanding policies aligned with the U.S. Constitution, which say that speech alone is not punishable. I was not focused on, but I should have been, the irrefutable fact that a call for genocide of Jewish people is a call for some of the most terrible violence human beings can perpetrate. It’s evil—plain and simple.
I want to be clear, a call for genocide of Jewish people is threatening—deeply so. It is intentionally meant to terrify a people who have been subjected to pogroms and hatred for centuries and were the victims of mass genocide in the Holocaust. In my view, it would be harassment or intimidation. For decades, under multiple Penn presidents and consistent with most universities, Penn’s policies have been guided by the Constitution and the law. In today’s world, where we are seeing signs of hate proliferating across our campus and our world in a way not seen in years, these policies need to be clarified and evaluated. Penn must initiate a serious and careful look at our policies, and Provost Jackson and I will immediately convene a process to do so.
As President, I’m committed to a safe, secure, and supportive environment so all members of our community can thrive. We can and we will get this right. Thank you.”
I think if she follows up this statement with quick and decisive change — meaning that she starts expelling and firing any all students, faculty and administrators who have already or will in the future threaten or intimidate any Jew on campus or the Jewish people as a whole, then she will have done teshuva and can be forgiven.
If she doesn’t follow up with decisive action, then it is just hot air. However, her statement was FAR better than the attempt by the President of Harvard to do damage control. She said the right things in the right way AND she did so via video, not via a written statement. As such, if she backs up these words with the right actions, then I commend her for changing course (regardless of her motivations). But the clock is ticking — she has very little time to show that she is serious.
I don’t think Liz Magoo has ever been focused, unless of course it involves pronouns, DEI, and LGBTQIA+ discussions. Her brain has been out to lunch since she took office at the latrine formerly known as the University of Pennsylvania.
where on earth does the pfizer ceo come in to the whole topic, what relevance does this wretched animalistic demon of a creature have to antisemitism?
what lies in it for him?
are pfizer’s big investors/donors etc ‘jewish’…?
This disingenuous woke piece of human filth masquerading as an academic leader is truly despicable for saying that calls for genocide of jews is violation of college rules depending on context. Substitute genocide of jews for blacks or gays or Muslims or trans and I suspect this woketard would have a different take.
All three of these women are rabid Anti-Semites. Their smirks throughout the testimony are a lot more indicative than this prepared “statement”. Even in her statement here, she essentially blamed it on the Penn policy that needs to be clarified instead of on her statements made during her testimony.
While I agree with Albert Bourla here, “in my personal opinion, the most despicable moment in the history of U.S. academia” had to with a forced Pfizer product on zero-risk students.
The thing is, if Harvard, Penn, and Princeton had been government colleges the presidents’ testimony would have been 100% correct. A government college is bound by the first amendment. Private colleges are not bound by it, but they all have an official policy that they allow the same freedom of speech as if they were; so according to that policy their testimony would have still been OK.
The real problem that nobody is talking about is that all three colleges have been blatantly violating that policy for many years; anyone who advocated or praised or even merely condoned the killing of black people would be disciplined severely. Even people who merely say the obvious truth that gender is binary and innate, and that calling a man a woman doesn’t make him so, are disciplined or fired. So however praiseworthy this policy is, for them to invoke it now shows something very wrong with their thinking. Calling for Israel to be demolished is at least as bad as referring to Caitlin Jenner as a man. If you don’t allow the first, you have no excuse for allowing the second. The correct answer is not to drop the policy but to pledge to start applying it consistently.