Ruth R. Wisse
WSJ, Apr. 24, 2025
I taught at Harvard from 1993 through 2014, and I don’t think the federal government’s threats will be effective at changing the university’s culture. Harvard’s leaders don’t yet understand the danger that culture poses to the country or why it required intervention.
On Sept. 11, 2001, the Islamists of al Qaeda attacked the U.S. in a suicide mission that used American planes as their instruments of destruction. On Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas Islamists exploited Israel’s openness by invading the country, massacring civilians and kidnapping others. Jihadists use these new forms of warfare against those they can’t conquer by force. What concerns us here is their capture of elite American schools as outposts.
Harvard became directly implicated on Oct. 8, 2023, when the Undergraduate Palestine Solidarity Committee issued a statement endorsed by more than 30 student groups that asserted “the Israeli regime” was “entirely responsible for all unfolding violence.” Students for Justice in Palestine declared Oct. 12 a “day of resistance” and had a “toolkit” ready for the encampments and demonstrations that spread beyond campus. SJP praised the “unity intifada” and “resistance” and declared that Palestinian students were “PART of this movement, not in solidarity with this movement.” In 2001 there were no such support groups for Islamists at Harvard.….SOURCE