RSS
Claudine Gay resigns from Harvard, weeks after contentious antisemitism hearing
(JTA) – Harvard University President Claudine Gay has resigned in the wake of plagiarism allegations and months-long criticism of her response to allegations of antisemitism at the school.
Gay is the second Ivy League university president to step down following congressional testimony on campus antisemitism last month that drew intense criticism. University of Pennsylvania President Liz Magill resigned her post on Dec. 9.
Gay had also faced criticism over the school’s initial statement on Hamas’ Oct. 7 invasion of Israel. Critics called the statement tepid, particularly in the wake of a letter from a coalition of student groups that blamed the attack on Israel. The Department of Education has also opened a civil rights investigation into one reported instance of a Jewish Harvard student being targeted on campus.
Soon after the congressional testimony, the university’s trustees, known as the Harvard Corporation, voiced its support for Gay’s continued leadership. On Dec. 13, the board issued a statement backing her and appearing to curb speculation that she would resign.
Instead Gay, the first Black president in the school’s history, will also become its shortest-tenured; she has served for just over six months. In addition to her handling of antisemitism, she was also under fire for allegations of plagiarism in her research papers. A new wave of plagiarism accusations surfaced this week.
Alan Garber, Harvard’s Jewish provost, will serve as the school’s interim president, the Harvard Corporation, announced. In November, Garber said that he had regrets about his school’s initial response to the Oct. 7 attack.
Gay’s resignation was first reported Tuesday by the Harvard Crimson, the student newspaper.
“It has become clear that it is in the best interests of Harvard for me to resign so that our community can navigate this moment of extraordinary challenge with a focus on the institution rather than any individual,” Gay wrote in a letter to the campus community.
Criticism of Gay mounted following the Dec. 5 congressional hearing, where she, Magill and Massachusetts Institute of Technology President Sally Kornbluth said that calls for the genocide of Jews may not necessarily violate their schools’ codes of conduct. At the hearing, Gay had testified that on-campus calls for “intifada” are “personally abhorrent to me,” but stopped short of saying they would violate the university’s rules. Instead, she, like the other presidents, said such matters were dependent on “context.”
“When speech crosses into conduct that violates our policies, including policies against bullying, harassment or intimidation, we take action and we have robust disciplinary processes that allow us to hold individuals accountable,” she said at the hearing.
That answer drew bipartisan rebuke, including from several lawmakers who are Harvard alums — such as New York Republican Rep. Elise Stefanik, who asked the question. Gay later apologized for her testimony.
Gay’s resignation was welcomed by a vocal contingent of Jewish Harvard students, alumni and donors who had pushed to hold the Ivy League university accountable for her testimony and for what they say is an unsafe campus environment for Jewish students. Bill Ackman, a Jewish alum and billionaire hedge-fund investor, had been among the more prominent voices calling for her to step down; other Jewish donors had pledged to reduce their giving to $1 in protest, or to only donate to Jewish groups on campus.
Calls to oust Gay were also backed by several right-wing figures, including Christopher Rufo, previously an architect of the Republican campaign against “critical race theory.”
Following Gay’s resignation, Ackman posted the message “Et tu Sally?” — an apparent reference to Kornbluth.
—
The post Claudine Gay resigns from Harvard, weeks after contentious antisemitism hearing appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
RSS
Smotrich Says Defense Ministry to Spur Voluntary Emigration from Gaza
Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich attends an inauguration event for Israel’s new light rail line for the Tel Aviv metropolitan area, in Petah Tikva, Israel, Aug. 17, 2023. Photo: REUTERS/Amir Cohen
i24 News – Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich said on Sunday that the government would establish an administration to encourage the voluntary migration of Palestinians from the Gaza Strip.
“We are establishing a migration administration, we are preparing for this under the leadership of the Prime Minister [Benjamin Netanyahu] and Defense Minister [Israel Katz],” he said at a Land of Israel Caucus at the Knesset, Israel’s parliament. “The budget will not be an obstacle.”
Referring to the plan championed by US President Donald Trump, Smotrich noted the “profound and deep hatred towards Israel” in Gaza, adding that “sources in the American government” agreed “that it’s impossible for two million people with hatred towards Israel to remain at a stone’s throw from the border.”
The administration would be under the Defense Ministry, with the goal of facilitating Trump’s plan to build a “Riviera of the Middle East” and the relocation of hundreds of thousands of Gazans for rebuilding efforts.
“If we remove 5,000 a day, it will take a year,” Smotrich said. “The logistics are complex because you need to know who is going to which country. It’s a potential for historical change.”
The post Smotrich Says Defense Ministry to Spur Voluntary Emigration from Gaza first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
RSS
Defense Ministry: 16,000 Wounded in War, About Half Under 30
A general view shows the plenum at the Knesset, Israel’s parliament, in Jerusalem. Photo: REUTERS/Ronen Zvulun
i24 News – The Knesset’s (Israeli parliament’s) Special Committee for Foreign Workers held a discussion on Sunday to examine the needs of wounded and disabled IDF soldiers and the response foreign caregivers could provide.
During the discussion, data from the Defense Minister revealed that the number of registered IDF wounded and disabled veterans rose from 62,000 to 78,000 since the war began on October 7, 2023. “Most of them are reservists and 51 percent of the wounded are up to 30 years old,” the ministry’s report said. The number will increase, the ministry assesses, as post-trauma cases emerge.
The committee chairwoman, Knesset member Etty Atiya (Likud), emphasized the need to reduce unnecessary bureaucracy for the wounded and to remove obstacles. “There is no dispute that the IDF disabled have sacrificed their bodies and souls for the people of Israel, for the state of Israel,” she said. Addressing the veterans, she continued: “And we, as public representatives and public servants alike, must do everything, but everything, to improve your lives in any way possible, to alleviate your pain and the distress of your family members who are no less affected than you.”
Currently, extensions are being given to the IDF veterans on a three-month basis, which Atiya said creates uncertainty and fear among the patients.
“The committee calls on the Interior Minister [Moshe Arbel] to approve as soon as possible the temporary order on our table, so that it will reach the approval of the Knesset,” she said, adding that she “intends to personally approach the Director General of the Population Authority [Shlomo Mor-Yosef] on the matter in order to promote a quick and stable solution.”
The post Defense Ministry: 16,000 Wounded in War, About Half Under 30 first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
RSS
Over 1,300 Killed in Syria as New Regime Accused of Massacring Civilians
Syria’s President Bashar al-Assad speaks during an interview with Sky News Arabia in Damascus, Syria in this handout picture released by the Syrian Presidency on August 8, 2023. Syrian Presidency/Handout via REUTERS
i24 News – Over 1,300 people were killed in two days of fighting in Syria between security forces under the new Syrian Islamist leaders and fighters from ousted president Bashar al-Assad’s Alawite sect on the other hand, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights on Sunday.
Since Thursday, 1,311 people had been killed, according to the Observatory, including 830 civilians, mainly Alawites, 231 Syrian government security personnel, and 250 Assad loyalists.
The intense fighting broke out late last week as the Alawite militias launched an offensive against the new government’s fighters in the coastal region of the country, prompting a massive deployment ordered by new leader Ahmed al-Sharaa.
“We must preserve national unity and civil peace as much as possible and… we will be able to live together in this country,” al-Sharaa said, as quoted in the BBC.
The death toll represents the most severe escalations since Assad was ousted late last year, and is one of the most costly in terms of human lives since the civil war began in 2011.
The counter-offensive launched by al-Sharaa’s forces was marked by reported revenge killings and atrocities in the Latakia region, a stronghold of the Alawite minority in the country.
The post Over 1,300 Killed in Syria as New Regime Accused of Massacring Civilians first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
You must be logged in to post a comment Login