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MIT President Also Had an Antisemitism Problem at Duke
MIT President Sally Kornbluth is no stranger to making light of antisemitism. Kornbluth is now notorious for her evasive response to questions at the December 5 Congressional hearing about Jew hatred at MIT, Harvard, and UPenn. What many people don’t realize, however, is that Kornbluth had a legacy of indifference towards antisemitism during her time at Duke University, where she was Provost before her move to MIT in January of this year.
One of the most egregious examples of her behavior involves Kornbluth’s handling of the Duke University Press (DUP). In late 2017, DUP published Jasbir Puar’s infamous and poorly written Right to Maim, in which Puar uses inscrutable and bizarre language to claim that Israelis — i.e. Jews — intentionally maim “Palestinians” in order to control them and use them for economic gain.
When Jewish faculty at Duke wrote a letter of concern to Duke’s President Vincent Prince, he brushed them off, saying the book would be judged “in the court of public opinion.” He passed the buck to Sally Kornbluth, since the DUP reported to her as Provost. He promised that she would evaluate “the issues” and “how the editorial board is selected and how diversity of thought and expertise is ensured going forward.” Kornbluth did nothing of the kind.
Kornbluth took no action on Puar’s book, and DUP continued to publish material dehumanizing Jews and erasing Jewish historic ties to the land of Israel. Examples include The Colonizing Self Or, Home and Homelessness in Israel/Palestine, which accuses Israelis of living in “Palestinian” homes, and Palestine Is Throwing a Party and the Whole World Is Invited, which claims that investment policies maintain the “occupation” and subordination of “Palestine” in relation to Israel.
Jewish faculty learned in early 2022 that additional problematic publications were planned, such as Invited to Witness Solidarity Tourism across Occupied Palestine and a Detours: A Decolonial Guide to Palestine, both of which ignore Jewish presence and relationship to Israel. The faculty members requested a meeting with the DUP director, to include Kornbluth. She did not show.
Many believed over the years that since Kornbluth is Jewish, she would support our community — but they were wrong.
In 2019, Duke and the University of North Carolina hosted a conference on Gaza that was rife with antisemitism. A civil rights complaint was filed, requiring Duke to address its antisemitism problem.
Kornbluth was silent.
Also in 2019, Duke’s Students for Justice in Palestine chapter held its Israeli Apartheid Week. Speakers included local students who visited leaders of the terrorist group. the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP). Speakers called Israel a “white supremacist nation” and invited students to sign up for more Eyewitness Palestine trips.
Kornbluth was silent.
In November 2021, approval of a new Students Supporting Israel (SSI) chapter was vetoed by the Duke Student Government (DSG), when an SSI member dared to push back on the false “settler colonial” narrative about Israel. SSI was eventually reinstated, but only after the DSG was called out for their discriminatory behavior. Price and Kornbluth ignored the plight of Jewish students and Duke’s role in enabling antisemitism, saying that DSG’s actions are “independent of, and not determined by or sanctioned by the University.”
In 2022, Mohammed El-Kurd — who claims that “Zionists have an unquenchable thirst for Palestinian blood” and feed on organs of “Palestinians” — spoke to a large audience at Duke. He mocked Jewish students, crumpling up their fliers on stage as the audience laughed. Many individuals and organizations reached out to Duke president Price. Price did nothing — and Kornbluth was silent.
So, what did Kornbluth say publicly about antisemitism on campus? She signed a letter denying its existence.
It comes as no surprise, then, that Kornbluth denies antisemitism at MIT, just as she did at Duke. Her intransigence is beyond redemption. While there are calls for her to be fired for her tolerance of Jew hatred, President Price is just as guilty and deserves the same.
The author is a former assistant professor of General Internal Medicine, Duke University, and Co-Founder, North Carolina Coalition for Israel.
The post MIT President Also Had an Antisemitism Problem at Duke first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Russian Drone Strikes Jewish School in Kyiv, Causing ‘Significant Damage’
A Russian drone struck the main Jewish school in the Ukrainian capital of Kyiv early on Wednesday, causing “significant structural damage” but resulting in no injuries at the school.
The drone hit hours before students were expected to arrive, but officials reported several injuries in a neighboring residential building. The drone caused heavy damage to several areas within the school, including classrooms, the student lounge, and a school shuttle, but spared a gas station located just 50 meters away.
“The school’s reinforced windows, equipped with protective film, prevented further harm to the interior of the structure,” said a statement from the Or Avner Chabad educational network, which runs the Perlina school.
Perlina’s principal, Elena Vasilivna, noted that the school also doubled as a home for some of its students.
“Some of our students are refugee children from other cities, and sometimes they have to sleep at the school; we have rooms specifically for such cases,” she told The Algemeiner.
Vasilivna noted that she had updated all the parents, “assuring them we would do everything to resume classes as quickly as possible.”
“Throughout the war, we made sure to continue the school routine to provide the children with stability, a supportive atmosphere, and a place where they can play with their friends,” she added.
Kyiv’s Chief Rabbi Yonatan Markovitch also pledged the school would remain open, despite the attack. “Just as the school has remained operational throughout the war, so too will we continue to nurture our children’s souls, even in these challenging times,” he said.
Markovitch hailed the “tremendous miracle” that students were not in the building at the time of the strike.
He visited the site of the impact, accompanied by several city officials, including Kyiv mayor and former boxing world champion, Vitalyi Klitschko.
Jewish communities in the embattled country, many of which are run by Chabad, maintain good relations with Ukrainian authorities.
President Volodymyr Zelensky even called Markovitch last week to wish him a happy birthday, gifting him a signed copy of his book with a personal dedication.
To mark 30 years since the passing of the Lubavitcher Rebbe, Menachem Mendel Schneerson, the Ukrainian Postal Service recently issued a commemorative stamp featuring the famous 770 Chabad building located in Crown Heights, Brooklyn, in his honor and as a tribute to the Chabad movement and its activities in Ukraine.
Wednesday’s strike marked the 19th such assault on Kyiv by Russian forces in October alone, with more than 60 Iranian-produced Shahed drones launched across Ukraine that morning.
The post Russian Drone Strikes Jewish School in Kyiv, Causing ‘Significant Damage’ first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Lebanon, Israel Could Agree to Ceasefire Within Days, Lebanese Prime Minister Says
Lebanon’s prime minister expressed hope on Wednesday that a ceasefire deal with Israel would be announced within days as Israel‘s public broadcaster published what it said was a draft agreement providing for an initial 60-day truce.
The document, which broadcaster Kan said was a leaked proposal written by Washington, said Israel would withdraw its forces from Lebanon within the first week of the 60-day ceasefire. It largely aligned with details reported earlier by Reuters based on two sources familiar with the matter.
Lebanese caretaker Prime Minister Najib Mikati said he had not believed a deal would be possible until after Tuesday’s US presidential election. But he said he became more optimistic after speaking on Wednesday with US envoy for the Middle East Amos Hochstein, who was due to travel to Israel on Thursday.
“Hochstein, during his call with me, suggested to me that we could reach an agreement before the end of the month and before Nov. 5,” Mikati told Lebanon’s Al Jadeed television.
“We are doing everything we can and we should remain optimistic that in the coming hours or days, we will have a ceasefire,” Mikati said.
The draft published by Kan was dated Saturday, and when asked to comment, White House national security spokesperson Sean Savett said: “There are many reports and drafts circulating. They do not reflect the current state of negotiations.”
But Savett did not respond to a query on whether the version published by Kan was at least the basis for further negotiations.
The Israeli network said the draft had been presented to Israel‘s leaders. Israeli officials did not immediately comment.
Israel and the Lebanese terrorist group Hezbollah have been fighting for the past year in parallel with Israel‘s war in Gaza after Hezbollah struck Israeli targets in solidarity with its ally Hamas in Gaza.
Since Oct. 8 of last year, one day after the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas’s invasion of southern Israel, Hezbollah has been attacking northern Israel almost daily with barrages of missiles, rocket, and drones. The relentless attacks have forced about 70,000 Israelis to flee the northern part of the country, and Israel’s government has vowed to push Hezbollah away from the Lebanon border to ensure the displaced citizens can return to their homes.
The conflict in Lebanon has dramatically escalated over the last five weeks, with most of the 2,800 deaths reported by the Lebanese health ministry for the past 12 months occurring in that period.
Hezbollah did not immediately comment on the leaked ceasefire proposal.
But the Iran-backed group’s new leader, Naim Qassem, said earlier on Wednesday that it would agree to a ceasefire within certain parameters if Israel wanted to stop the war, but that Israel had so far not agreed to any proposal that could be discussed.
The post Lebanon, Israel Could Agree to Ceasefire Within Days, Lebanese Prime Minister Says first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Latest Pro-Hamas Faculty Group Formed at George Washington University
Anti-Israel faculty at George Washington University have founded a Faculty for Justice in Palestine (FJP) chapter, according to an op-ed written by several professors who initiated the endeavor.
“As we pass one year of a genocide funded by the United States and US universities that has expanded to bombing campaigns in Syria, Lebanon, Iran, and Yemen, we and other conscientious members of GW’s faculty and staff have recently established a chapter of Faculty and Staff for Justice in Palestine,” professors Peter Calloway, Helen DeVinney, Amr Madkour, Sara Matthiesen, and Dara Orenstein wrote in the piece, which was published on Monday by The GW Hatchet. “Though our chapter includes many more faculty in solidarity with the students who are unable to be named publicly for fear of retaliation, we want students, community members, and the administration to know that there are faculty at GW who are aligned with the movement for a free Palestine.”
A spinoff of Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP), a group with numerous links to Islamist terror organizations, FJP chapters have been opening on colleges since Hamas’s massacre across southern Israel last Oct. 7. Throughout the 2023-2024 academic year, its members, which include faculty employed by the most elite US colleges, fostered campus unrest, circulated antisemitic cartoons, and advocated severing ties with Israeli companies and institutions of higher education.
As The Algemeiner has previously reported, in May, Harvard University’s FJP chapter published an antisemitic cartoon depicting a left-hand tattooed with a Star of David, and containing a dollar sign at its center, dangling a Black man and an Arab man from a noose. FJP members have also fostered unrest to coerce university officials into accepting their demands, and attempted, in some instances, to prevent police from dispersing unauthorized demonstrations and detaining lawbreakers.
According to an AMCHA Initiative report published in September, titled “Academic Extremism: How a Faculty Network Fuels Campus Unrest,” the group’s presence throughout academia is insidious and should be scrutinized by lawmakers.
“Our investigation alarmingly reveals that campuses with FJP chapters are seeing assaults and death threats against Jewish students at rates multiple times higher than those without FJP groups, providing compelling evidence of the dangerous intersection between faculty activism and violent antisemitic behavior,” AMCHA said in a press release. “The presence of FJP chapters also correlates with the extended duration of protests and encampments, as well as with the passage of [boycott, divestment, and sanctions (BDS) movement] resolutions on their campuses.”
The BDS movement seeks to isolate Israel on the international stage as a step toward the Jewish state’s destruction.
FJP, the report added, also “prolonged” the duration of “Gaza Solidarity Encampment” protests on college campuses, in which students occupied a section of campus illegally and refused to leave unless administrators capitulated to demands for a boycott of Israel. It also said that such demonstrations lasted over four and a half times longer where FJP faculty were free to influence and provide logistic and material support to students. Additionally, professors at FJP schools also spent 9.5 more days protesting than those at non-FJP schools.
Monday’s op-ed discussed extensively the disciplinary charges the university has filed against pro-Hamas protesters who occupied school property for several weeks during spring semester and committed other severe violations of school rules prohibiting unauthorized demonstrations and vandalism.
“Indeed, as GW faculty and staff, we bear witness alongside brave and visionary students — who are committed to disclosure and divestment and who call for our administration to treat students with dignity and respect using their voices, bodies, and organizing skills to fight for a better world for all,” they continued. “We urge the administration to drop the criminal disciplinary charges against students … and agree to students’ demands for disclosure of GW’s investments and divestments from entities enabling Israel’s war crimes in Gaza and beyond.”
The op-ed did not mention any antisemitism emanating from the anti-Zionist movement, nor the racist behavior and rhetoric of pro-Hamas students — a subject which The Algemeiner has covered since it began last semester, when US Ambassador to the United Nations Linda Thomas-Greenfield visited George Washington’s campus to discuss the benefits of a career in foreign policy with African American students.
In a pamphlet distributed to everyone who showed up to Thomas-Greenfield’s event, the GW Student Coalition for Palestine (GWSCP) accused the ambassador of being a “puppet,” alluding to the fact that she is a Black woman holding a distinguished presidential appointment. GWSCP, in addition to comparing Thomas-Greenfield to enslaved overseers, appeared to suggest that the color of Greenfield’s skin excluded the possibility that she is an agent of her own destiny. Later, GWSCP encircled GW Dean of Student Affairs Colette Coleman while a member of the group began “clapping in her face” and others screamed that she should resign.
Follow Dion J. Pierre @DionJPierre.
The post Latest Pro-Hamas Faculty Group Formed at George Washington University first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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