Sen. Dan Sullivan (R-Alaska) wrote an article about his experience visiting Boston last weekend which was published in the Wall Street Journal on Friday.
While in Boston, he decided to visit his alma mater, Harvard Universty, especially the “places that held significance to me while I was there” – including “of course, Widener Library—a monument to learning, study and contemplation that sits like a temple in the middle of Harvard Yard.”
Sullivan continued: “When I walked upstairs to the famous Widener Reading Room, I couldn’t believe my eyes. Nearly every student in the packed room was wearing a kaffiyeh. Fliers attached to their individual laptops, as well as affixed to some of the lamps in the reading room, read: ‘No Normalcy During Genocide—Justice for Palestine.’ A young woman handed the fliers to all who entered. A large banner spread across one end of the room stated in blazing blood-red letters, ‘Stop the Genocide in Gaza.’
“Curious about what was going on, I was soon in a cordial discussion with two of the organizers of this anti-Israel protest inside of one the world’s great libraries—not outside in Harvard Yard, where such protests belong. They told me they were from Saudi Arabia and the West Bank. I told them I was a U.S. senator who had recently returned from a bipartisan Senate trip to Israel, Egypt and Saudi Arabia. I mentioned the meetings I had. I expressed my condolences when they told me their relatives had been killed by Israeli military action in Gaza.
“One then asked whether I supported a cease-fire in Gaza. I said I didn’t, because I strongly believe Israel had the right both to defend itself and to destroy Hamas given the horrendous attacks it perpetrated against Israeli civilians on Oct. 7.
“Their tone immediately changed. ‘You’re a murderer,’ one said. ‘You support genocide,’ said the other.
“‘Excuse me, what did you say?’ I asked in disbelief.
“They repeated their outrageous charges. I tried to debate them, noting the Israel Defense Forces don’t target civilians, and that the only group attempting to carry out genocide is Hamas. But civil debate with these women was pointless. As I was leaving Widener Library, they pulled out their iPhones and continued taunting: ‘Do you support genocide? Do you support genocide?’ The Harvard Palestine Solidarity Committee posted some of this exchange on Instagram.
“As a U.S. senator who has been through two election campaigns, I’ve had plenty of iPhones aggressively shoved in my face by members of radical groups. Nevertheless, I was shocked and, again, ashamed of my alma mater. All of this—the anti-Israel protests, the big banner, the fliers, the iPhones, the taunting questions—took place inside the Widener Library, a revered place of quiet study for tens of thousands of Harvard students and alumni.
“My thoughts then turned to Harvard undergrads. Imagine if you were an 18-year-old Jewish or Israeli student, or even a pro-Israel Catholic like me, and you wanted to study for your chemistry final in the Widener Reading Room on a Sunday morning. Imagine being confronted by this protest, obviously condoned by Harvard’s leadership and commandeered by the Palestine Solidarity Committee, the group behind the notorious statement that holds ‘the Israeli regime entirely responsible for all unfolding violence’ in the immediate aftermath of the Oct. 7 attack.
“Would you feel welcome in Harvard’s most famous library? Would you feel rattled, intimidated and harassed by the anti-Israel banner screaming ‘Stop the Genocide in Gaza’? As Jason Riley has written, ‘If accusing Israel of genocide isn’t defamation of Jewish people, I don’t know what is.’ If you were that 18-year-old student, would you believe the vacuous statement recently put out by the Harvard Corp., after it decided not to fire Ms. Gay, that ‘disruptions of the classroom experience will not be tolerated’?
“If students were handing out fliers and hanging large banners in the Widener Library Reading Room denouncing, say, affirmative action or NCAA rules allowing men to compete in women’s swim meets, Harvard leaders would shut them down in a minute. But an anti-Israel protest by an antisemitic group, commandeering the entire Widener Reading Room during finals? No problem.
“Is that what Ms. Gay meant when she testified that ‘it depends on the context’?”
(YWN Israel Desk – Jerusalem)
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20 Responses
Mr. Sullivan, thank you for posting your outrage publicly. Far too many may feel like you but fear the backlash and just stay quiet. You were not like that.
It’s hard to fathom anyone standing up for the Palestinian position. On the very same day that the world is demanding Israel cease firing, Hamas continues to shoot missiles. How dare Israel stop? You do not stop aggressive treatment of cancer midway. The only way to kill the cancer is to NOT LET UP! Hamas is a cancer and Israel is obligated by virtue of helping the world to be a better place is destroy the cancer. To ease up is to let it metastasize: that is not an option. Jewish lives are not free.
why is anyone surpised..colleges are totally left wing liberal Jew haters. Its just nowadays things are shared more via media and become trendy due to that reason increasing the number of people joining the agendas
Frum Yidden never saw ourselves as becoming part of the secular liberal establishment. We might prosper but for the Torah world, we were always an “us” that could never be art of the “them.” But the secular liberal Jews have for over 150 years been striving to assimilate into the establishment. For them there is the shock of realization that those whom they worshiped are simply a bunch on nazis.
Senator Dan Sullivan should keep getting the reelected with landslide victories, and hopefully Harvard justly gets blown up, or simply experiences a fire 🔥 of the magnitude of notre dame’s fire which was so well deserved despite 700 year delay
These idiots don’t know who they are supporting. When they get into the real world they are in for a rude awakening.
Disgusting. Clearly Pauline Gay is an anti semitic pig. Harvard has dug in their heels. They’re petrified of being called a R A C I S T. It’s the beginning of the end for them. Any Jew that supports or attends this institution of hate needs to have their head examined.
This is outrageous, and the Harvard leadership needs to be held accountable.
Kudos to Senator Sullivan for sharing this, and standing up for what is right. On the other hand, Chabad Lubavitch at that university just honored the President of Harvard at their Chanukah menorah lighting there last week.
A non-Jewish Senator having more brains and courage than Chabad-Lubavitch? What a disgrace. It seems that both Harvard and Chabad-Lubavitch are seriously mixed up, and in need of new leadership now.
The terrorist ragheads have taken over harvard and the other woke poison ivy colleges. these places are now woke trash – no point in wasting tuition fees there.
Thank G-d I’m not an American
Free Gaza – from Hamas!!
Stop the Genocide – stop Hamas!!
From the river to the sea – Israel will be free, from genocide
Stop the racist, criminal antisemitic incitement – defund the Ivy League!!
Israel needs to have a professional, official task force to fight all the lies and propaganda in the mainstream media, universities and streets otherwise even victory in the battlefield will not prevent a defeat chas veshalom
When the two girls shrieked about supporting genocide, the Senator should have reminded them that their Harvard President says this is not a taboo thing anymore and supports it. These people never get the memo and aren’t ever on the same page.
They hate Jews more than they believe in their own twisted “progressive” agenda? Does these “students” know what women’s rights look like in these places or what they do to alphabet people?
They hate Jews more than they believe in their own twisted “progressive” agenda. Do these “students” know what women’s rights look like in these places or what they do to alphabet people?
Harvard went from “No Jews Allowed” to “Some Jews OK” to “It’s Pretty Much All Jews” to “Jews Need Not Apply”, to “Kill the Jews”
Here is my question. Ivy League Universities serve as incubators for American Elite Leadership. The DEI hiring and acceptance has certainly harmed their quality, but has it hurt the quality enough to prevent the current generation of Harvard students from becoming the next Senators, Judges, CEOs, College Deans, and Newsroom Editors? We may be facing real danger.
Having that huge sign in the school library is disruptive and a violation of the civil rights of the Jewish students.This needs to be investigated by the Department of Education.
“As Jason Riley has written, ‘If accusing Israel of genocide isn’t defamation of Jewish people, I don’t know what is.’”
Actually, that would be defamation of Israel, not defamation of the Jewish people. Israel does not represent the Jewish people; like any other country, Israel represents only its citizens. Israel is a Zionist, not Jewish, “State”.
The Jew-hating, anti-American “students” from Saudi Arabia and Judea and Samaria should be deported immediately — but the Biden Administration will, of course, fail to do this.
Apparently, many of the students depicted in Harvard’s Widener library are less intelligent than most of the students in Brooklyn’s Abraham Lincoln High School, circa early 1960’s.
Only one thing these schools understand… SUE THEM! They have absolutely no rights to allow this one sided bigotry.
Thank you Senator for having the moral clarity and courage to speak out against this blatant and vile antisemitism that continues unabated at Harvard and at almost every other university in the world today.
The way to fix this is for people like you to speak out loudly as you have. That is the required first step.
I’m afraid that the world today not only exhibits characteristics of pre-WWII Germany but has in many places surpassed it.
Gentiles take note: It starts with the Jews but it never ends with the Jews. Today, the radical Muslims are the new nazis. But they pose a much larger danger because:
1. they are huge in number (almost 2 billion!)
2. they are spread in almost every country throughout the world
3. because they are faithful to their religion which calls for them to murder Jews and other non-Muslims, they (unlike the nazis) are willing to die in the process. In fact, many want the reward of death.