From the Liveblog of
Monday, December 25, 2023
Pro-Israel university students land in Tel Aviv to hear victims’ testimonies
Cnaan Lidor is The Times of Israel's Jewish World reporter
More than two dozen pro-Israel students from US universities, including the University of Pennsylvania and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), are visiting Israel on a mission to hear the testimonies of victims of Hamas terrorists following the Palestinian terror group’s murderous October 7 attack.
“We are here to tell the world as Jewish students that we will not be silent in the face of antisemitism on campus, that we are proud to be in Israel at this historic moment,” Ethan Oliner, a junior at Cornell University, says in statement sent out by the trip’s organizers today.
The visit comes on the heels of widespread backlash over controversial comments made on December 5 by the presidents of UPenn, MIT, and Harvard, at a congressional hearing where they could not clearly answer a question on whether calling for a genocide against Jews violated the universities’ policies on harassment and intimidation. They all said this depended on the “context.”
Following an uproar, the then-president of UPenn, Elizabeth Magill, apologized and resigned. Harvard President Claudine Gay has clarified her position, saying that “those who threaten our Jewish students will be held to account.” MIT President Sally Kornbluth has not apologized.
Expressions of antisemitism are on the rise on North American campuses and beyond, following the massacre in Israel on October 7, when terrorists from Gaza murdered more than 1,200 people in Israel and took 240 hostages. Israel responded by declaring war against Hamas, in the Gaza Strip.
The mission, dubbed “Take Action for Israel,” is sponsored by Hasbara Fellowships and IsraelAmbassadors.com and includes students from Columbia, Brandeis, Temple, and Johns Hopkins, as well as Cornell, UPenn, and MIT.
Cornell has dealt with its own antisemitism-related issues following the arrest last month of a junior accused of threatening to murder Jews on campus.
The students’ program during the visit includes meetings with soldiers, hostage families, and officials, including Knesset lawmaker Danny Danon, who greeted the students upon their arrival.
