Administrators at a taxpayer-funded New Jersey college backtracked on a statement condemning the rise of anti-Semitism in the United States following a pressure campaign by the anti-Israel Students for Justice in Palestine.
Rutgers-New Brunswick chancellor Christopher Molloy and provost Francine Conway said in a Wednesday statement that they were “saddened by and greatly concerned” by the spike of anti-Semitism in the United States, as dozens of American Jews have been harassed and assaulted by extremist Palestinian activists following unrest between terrorists in the Gaza Strip and Israel. By Friday, the campus leaders had rescinded their disapproval of anti-Semitism, saying they “failed to communicate our support for Palestinian” faculty and students.
“Our diversity must be supported by equity, inclusion, antiracism, and the condemnation of all forms of bigotry and hatred,” they said in an apology note first reported by the Daily Caller.
The apology came after Students for Justice in Palestine, a national campus group known for bullying and harassing Jewish students, disapproved of the administrators’ note in a Thursday statement.
“The Chancellor and Provost’s statement exclusively addressing antisemitism comes during a time when Israel’s occupation of Palestine is finally receiving widespread criticism, and despite mentioning the ‘deaths of children and adults and mass displacement of citizens in the Gaza region,’ conveniently ignores the extend to which Palestinians have been brutalized by Israel’s occupation and bombing of Gaza,” Rutgers-New Brunswick’s chapter of Students for Justice in Palestine said in an Instagram post.
The group’s positions gained support, however, from more than 140 Rutgers faculty members who signed a letter condemning “Zionist settler colonialism.” Linda Sarsour, a Palestinian activist who was ousted from the board of the Women’s March for anti-Semitic comments, praised the letter on Twitter. – READ MORE
Listen to the insightful Thomas Paine Podcast Below --