Something Is Deeply Wrong at Harvard
Something is deeply wrong at Harvard. Not just a moral failing. Not just a bureaucratic stumble. But an existential crisis in broad daylight, unfolding as the nation watches the university’s leadership capitulate to ideological radicals while its reputation, and its soul, bleed out.
As a Palestinian human rights activist, I have visited the campus numerous times. The face that Harvard has shown the world is shocking and unrecognizable to the formerly respected institution I was once proud to speak at.
I can’t believe, above all, that one of the two students who assaulted a Jewish peer received a distinguished fellowship worth $65,000. The other was given the honor of leading students out on the field on commencement day.
There are consequences to condoning incitement and violence against Jews, and at Harvard, the consequence is a reward.
On campus over the weekend, Accuracy in Media drove around campus with billboards about these two students, and were cursed by individuals yelling epithets like, “Oh, shut up with your Jewishness.”
Recently in Boulder, Colorado, a man threw Molotov cocktails where members of the Jewish community were gathered to hold a peaceful vigil for the hostages still held in Gaza. Several people are in critical condition in what authorities have identified as a targeted act of antisemitic terrorism – the perpetrator said he wanted to kill “all Zionist people.”
And just last month, Yaron Lischinsky and Sarah Milgrim, two young diplomats for the Israeli Embassy, were gunned down outside the Capital Jewish Museum. Their assassin, Elias Rodriguez, has been linked to the Party for Socialism and Liberation (PSL) - a group that praised the October 7 Hamas massacre as “courageous” and “legitimate” - the same rhetoric that has been echoed in Harvard protests.
The same worldview-anti-Zionist, anti-Western, eliminationist-that flourishes in the name of “resistance” under Harvard’s own banner.
According to recent reporting from the New York Post about federal documents recently filed, a man accused of anti-Israel extremism on Columbia University’s campus—who allegedly discussed setting a Jewish student on fire—had a direct link to Hamas’ al-Qassam Brigades.
Tarek Bazrouk, 20, has been indicted on three federal hate crime charges and is currently awaiting trial. Prosecutors allege that he was part of a chat group that received regular communications from Abu Obeida, the official spokesperson for the al-Qassam Brigades, the military wing of Hamas.
This is the first documented instance of a campus protester receiving direct updates from Hamas and subsequently taking action during demonstrations, but I suspect it’s not an isolated incident.
Flyers circulating across Harvard Yard now bear the signature of the Harvard Fellows Accountability Commission, calling on the Corporation to resign. “Neglect your fiduciary duty and we will demand answers,” they warn. The administration’s failure to uphold truth, decency, and public safety has become so egregious that important Harvard alumni are demanding resignations.
Let’s be clear: the massacre of over 1,200 people in a single day, in the largest killing of Jews since the Holocaust, on October 7, 2023? It wasn’t misunderstood. It wasn’t ambiguous. It was Hamas executing its founding charter’s genocidal promise: “There is no solution for the Palestinian question except through jihad.” The group doesn’t hide its agenda. Why should we pretend not to see it?
And yet, many Harvard students, and worse, many of its faculty, did just that. They rationalized. They reposted. They marched. I cannot condone the violence being incited on campus in the name of my people, which is having horrific real-world consequences.
President Alan Garber and Senior Fellow Penny Pritzker have refused to take meaningful action, even after Harvard’s own report conceded that antisemitism is rampant. They still won’t agree to the Trump administration’s demands to protect Jewish students. What demands, exactly? A campus free of hate. A closer look at foreign influence. A return to intellectual balance in the classroom. At stake are about $3 billion in frozen grants, contracts, and international student credentials.
Harvard said no. Because appeasing radicals on campus was apparently more important than safeguarding the students being hunted verbally, and now, it seems, literally.
Instead of embracing a deal to protect students and preserve federal funding, Harvard’s leadership dug in. Harvard has already lost billions. Its global standing is plummeting. And the administration’s defenders? They are the ones holding signs in Harvard Yard that chant slogans lifted from groups who fire rockets at kindergartens. These are the voices the Corporation chose to listen to. That’s more than cowardice. It’s complicity.
Campus antisemitism didn’t appear overnight. Harvard’s classrooms were already steeped in a worldview that saw Zionism not as the movement for the sovereignty of the Jewish people, but as colonialist evil. In the wake of the October 7 atrocities, this framework provided perfect moral cover: why mourn Israelis, when they were cast as occupiers from the start?
Faculty members at Harvard’s Divinity School invited a parade of anti-Israel speakers without rebuttal. Public health courses taught that Zionism “manipulated Judaism.” Students who wore Stars of David were harassed. Israeli perspectives vanished from syllabi. Even the “safe spaces” on campus came with a warning: anti-Zionists welcome, Zionists… not so much.
These are not isolated events. They are the predictable outcome of decades of ideological drift, academic laziness, and cowardly leadership. The flyers that cite fiduciary failure are right. Harvard has broken faith with its mission, its students, and its country.
The consequences are not theoretical. Ask the parents of Yaron and Sarah. Ask the Jewish undergraduates who fear walking to class alone. Ask the donors walking away, the federal agencies tearing up contracts, and the global academic community now viewing Harvard not as a light of learning, but as a cautionary tale.
This moment demands clarity. Hamas is a terrorist organization with genocidal aims. The Hamas charter doesn't speak in riddles. It openly calls for jihad against Jews. When university groups cheer Hamas or excuse its actions, they are not “raising awareness,” they are inciting violence.
