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Critics Denounce Outgoing Cornell University President Over Praise for Pro-Hamas Demonstrators
Cornell University anti-Israel protesters set up encampment on the University’s Arts Quad, May 3, 2024. Photo: USA TODAY NETWORK via Reuters Connect
Outgoing Cornell University president Martha Pollack, who will leave office at the end of June, was criticized this week for issuing a statement which praised pro-Hamas protesters and painted their detractors as bigots.
Pollack’s remarks followed a student group’s ending a “Gaza Solidarity Encampment” it had erected on campus and lived in for three weeks. In them she expressed “gratitude” for the students’ conduct and said they “minimized the disruption caused” to university business despite that Jewish students complained that their rhetoric was discriminatory, inciting, and disruptive.
Pollack then launched a volley of seemingly underhanded comments at Jews and pro-Israel activists who opposed the demonstration, saying, “The participants in the encampment shared that members of our Jewish community who have criticized Israel have been targeted with the slur ‘kapo,’ which not only is deeply offensive but also trivializes the memory of the Holocaust.”
She continued, “Other students involved in the encampment shared experiences of being called ‘terrorists’ over the past few months in an expression of anti-Arab discrimination and hatred. No matter one’s political beliefs, using such rhetoric, which questions the basis of someone’s religious, cultural, ancestral, or any form of identity is unacceptable, and I implore everyone in our community to think carefully about their words.”
Anti-Zionist students at Cornell targeted Jewish students all academic year over their support for Israel, communicating threats, uttering hate speech, and fostering what observers described as a hostile environment. The situation there has prompted numerous warnings and statements from donors, lawmakers, and nonprofit organizations.
Just last month, a former student pleaded guilty to posting a series of threats to rape Jewish women and murder Jewish men on a popular social media forum. “Rape and kill all the jew women [sic], before they birth more jewish hitlers. jews are excrement on the face of the earth,” 21-year-old Patrick Dai wrote. Days earlier, history professor Russell Rickford proclaimed at a pro-Hamas rally that the terrorist organization’s atrocities were “exhilarating” and “energizing.” Throughout April and May, according to a parent who spoke with Fox News, the pro-Hamas encampment attracted “townie antisemites.” Before Oct. 7, Cornell University saw four antisemitic incidents in five yeas, one of which involved swastika graffiti.
Cornell University law professor William Jacobson, writing on his blog Legal Insurrection, said Pollack’s remarks about the protesters amounted to “an inversion of reality” which misrepresented the situation there.
“The anti-Israel perpetrators were portrayed as the victims, and the campus victims who had to put up with seven months of abuse were portrayed as the problem,” Jacobson wrote. “The statement really upset a lot of people.”
Others denounced the remarks, including Cornell student Talia Dorr, who told Fox News that the protesters were “terrorizing students and stifling any dissenting opinion.” She added, “They are endorsing terrorism. But I don’t need to tell you that.”
Pollack announced last week that she will retire at the end of June, a decision she reportedly made in December. Her departure makes her the third Ivy League president to quit the job in just the past six months. Elizabeth Magill left the University of Pennsylvania in December after telling a US congressional committee there are circumstances in which she would not punish students for clamoring for a genocide of Jews in Israel, and Claudine Gay resigned from Harvard University after being outed as a serial plagiarist by a series of investigative journalists.
The explosion of antisemitism that Hamas’ Oct. 7 massacre across southern Israel set off on college campuses across the US has been the one constant variable in all three resignations.
Following the news, Pollack was accused of implementing policies which fostered antisemitism on campus.
“Martha Pollack was the architect of Cornell’s disastrous race-focused [diversity, equity, and inclusion] initiative that balkanized the campus and inevitably led to targeting of Jewish and pro-Israel students,” Jacobson tweeted. “While I wish her well in her personal life, it is time for the Cornell Trustees to turn the ship around, to eliminate DEI programming as is taking place elsewhere, and to refocus the campus on the inherent dignity of each individual without regard to group identity.”
US Rep. Claudia Tenney (R-NY) was also critical of Pollack, saying she was “slow to condemn the rampant antisemitism on Cornell’s campus and has failed to protect Jewish students from vile terrorist sympathizers.” Tenney added, “Her resignation is no surprise, as she lacks the courage to lead during these difficult times.”
Follow Dion J. Pierre @DionJPierre.
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Iranian Media Claims Obtaining ‘Sensitive’ Israeli Intelligence Materials
FILE PHOTO: The atomic symbol and the Iranian flag are seen in this illustration, July 21, 2022. REUTERS/Dado Ruvic/Illustration/File Photo
i24 News – Iranian and Iran-affiliated media claimed on Saturday that the Islamic Republic had obtained a trove of “strategic and sensitive” Israeli intelligence materials related to Israel’s nuclear facilities and defense plans.
“Iran’s intelligence apparatus has obtained a vast quantity of strategic and sensitive information and documents belonging to the Zionist regime,” Iran’s state broadcaster said, referring to Israel in the manner accepted in those Muslim or Arab states that don’t recognize its legitimacy. The statement was also relayed by the Lebanese site Al-Mayadeen, affiliated with the Iran-backed jihadists of Hezbollah.
The reports did not include any details on the documents or how Iran had obtained them.
The intelligence reportedly included “thousands of documents related to that regime’s nuclear plans and facilities,” it added.
According to the reports, “the data haul was extracted during a covert operation and included a vast volume of materials including documents, images, and videos.”
The report comes amid high tensions over Iran’s nuclear program, over which it is in talks with the US administration of President Donald Trump.
Iranian-Israeli tensions reached an all-time high since the October 7 massacre and the subsequent Gaza war, including Iranian rocket fire on Israel and Israeli aerial raids in Iran that devastated much of the regime’s air defenses.
Israel, which regards the prospect of the antisemitic mullah regime obtaining a nuclear weapon as an existential threat, has indicated it could resort to a military strike against Iran’s installations should talks fail to curb uranium enrichment.
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Israel Retrieves Body of Thai Hostage from Gaza
Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz looks on, amid the ongoing conflict in Gaza between Israel and Hamas, in Jerusalem, Nov. 7, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Ronen Zvulun
The Israeli military has retrieved the body of a Thai hostage who had been held in Gaza since Hamas’ October 7, 2023 attack, Defense Minister Israel Katz said on Saturday.
Nattapong Pinta’s body was held by a Palestinian terrorist group called the Mujahedeen Brigades, and was recovered from the area of Rafah in southern Gaza, Katz said. His family in Thailand has been notified.
Pinta, an agricultural worker, was abducted from Kibbutz Nir Oz, a small Israeli community near the Gaza border where a quarter of the population was killed or taken hostage during the Hamas attack that triggered the devastating war in Gaza.
Israel’s military said Pinta had been abducted alive and killed by his captors, who had also killed and taken to Gaza the bodies of two more Israeli-American hostages that were retrieved earlier this week.
There was no immediate comment from the Mujahedeen Brigades, who have previously denied killing their captives, or from Hamas. The Israeli military said the Brigades were still holding the body of another foreign national. Only 20 of the 55 remaining hostages are believed to still be alive.
The Mujahedeen Brigades also held and killed Israeli hostage Shiri Bibas and her two young sons, according to Israeli authorities. Their bodies were returned during a two-month ceasefire, which collapsed in March after the two sides could not agree on terms for extending it to a second phase.
Israel has since expanded its offensive across the Gaza Strip as US, Qatari and Egyptian-led efforts to secure another ceasefire have faltered.
US-BACKED AID GROUP HALTS DISTRIBUTIONS
The United Nations has warned that most of Gaza’s 2.3 million population is at risk of famine after an 11-week Israeli blockade of the enclave, with the rate of young children suffering from acute malnutrition nearly tripling.
Aid distribution was halted on Friday after the US-and Israeli-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation said overcrowding had made it unsafe to continue operations. It was unclear whether aid had resumed on Saturday.
The GHF began distributing food packages in Gaza at the end of May, overseeing a new model of aid distribution which the United Nations says is neither impartial nor neutral. It says it has provided around 9 million meals so far.
The Israeli military said on Saturday that 350 trucks of humanitarian aid belonging to U.N. and other international relief groups were transferred this week via the Kerem Shalom crossing into Gaza.
The war erupted after Hamas-led terrorists took 251 hostages and killed 1,200 people, most of them civilians, in the October 7, 2023 attack, Israel’s single deadliest day.
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US Mulls Giving Millions to Controversial Gaza Aid Foundation, Sources Say
Palestinians carry aid supplies which they received from the US-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, in the central Gaza Strip, May 29, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Ramadan Abed/File Photo
The State Department is weighing giving $500 million to the new foundation providing aid to war-shattered Gaza, according to two knowledgeable sources and two former US officials, a move that would involve the US more deeply in a controversial aid effort that has been beset by violence and chaos.
The sources and former US officials, all of whom requested anonymity because of the sensitivity of the matter, said that money for Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) would come from the US Agency for International Development (USAID), which is being folded into the US State Department.
The plan has met resistance from some US officials concerned with the deadly shootings of Palestinians near aid distribution sites and the competence of the GHF, the two sources said.
The GHF, which has been fiercely criticized by humanitarian organizations, including the United Nations, for an alleged lack of neutrality, began distributing aid last week amid warnings that most of Gaza’s 2.3 million population is at risk of famine after an 11-week Israeli aid blockade, which was lifted on May 19 when limited deliveries were allowed to resume.
The foundation has seen senior personnel quit and had to pause handouts twice this week after crowds overwhelmed its distribution hubs.
The State Department and GHF did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Reuters has been unable to establish who is currently funding the GHF operations, which began in Gaza last week. The GHF uses private US security and logistics companies to transport aid into Gaza for distribution at so-called secure distribution sites.
On Thursday, Reuters reported that a Chicago-based private equity firm, McNally Capital, has an “economic interest” in the for-profit US contractor overseeing the logistics and security of GHF’s aid distribution hubs in the enclave.
While US President Donald Trump’s administration and Israel say they don’t finance the GHF operation, both have been pressing the United Nations and international aid groups to work with it.
The US and Israel argue that aid distributed by a long-established U.N. aid network was diverted to Hamas. Hamas has denied that.
USAID has been all but dismantled. Some 80 percent of its programs have been canceled and its staff face termination as part of President Donald Trump’s drive to align US foreign policy with his “America First” agenda.
One source with knowledge of the matter and one former senior official said the proposal to give the $500 million to GHF has been championed by acting deputy USAID Administrator Ken Jackson, who has helped oversee the agency’s dismemberment.
The source said that Israel requested the funds to underwrite GHF’s operations for 180 days.
The Israeli government did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The two sources said that some US officials have concerns with the plan because of the overcrowding that has affected the aid distribution hubs run by GHF’s contractor, and violence nearby.
Those officials also want well-established non-governmental organizations experienced in running aid operations in Gaza and elsewhere to be involved in the operation if the State Department approves the funds for GHF, a position that Israel likely will oppose, the sources said.
The post US Mulls Giving Millions to Controversial Gaza Aid Foundation, Sources Say first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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