At the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, a handful of anti-Israel and pro-Hamas faculty members gathered to celebrate the acts of “resistance” by Hamas on October 7. A report on the anti-Israel meeting by one of those who attended can be found here: “The Anti-Israel Hate and Moral Bankruptcy at UNC Is Stunning,” by Peter Reitzes, Algemeiner, March 12, 2024:
Five days after the event, UNC Provost Christopher Clemens wrote a blistering letter of concern to UNC faculty that included Claudia Yaghoobi, Director of the UNC Center for Middle East & Islamic Studies, and Conghe Song, chair of the Department of Geography and Environment. They were included since their two departments sponsored the Nov. 28 event.
Clemens wrote:
I will admit that I struggle to understand what the rhetoric in this event was supposed to accomplish….
One thing is clear: from the outside, the academy appears to be fostering a banal kind of evil.
In preparation for the meeting with Provost Clemens, Purifoy sent an email to Conghe and Sara Smith. Smith is a UNC professor of Geography who introduced the Nov. 28 panel:
I hope that today’s meeting will go as well as possible. I’ve attached a screenshot of Mark Davidson’s comments about the panel last Tuesday which might be helpful. He and Rania [Masri] approved of my sharing it with you.
Purifoy is hoping that the comments by the pastor, Mark Davidson, in which he praises the pro-Hamas event, will be enough to assuage Provost Clemens’ fury. But it won’t. Davidson is just as morally obtuse as the others who were in attendance, or even more so, because while many of them remained silent, Davidson was positively glowing over the event.
In the comments that Purifoy attached, Davidson wrote, “The inmate prison-break from the concentration camp [Gaza] in the early morning hours of October 7 was, from a Palestinian perspective … something to celebrate.” In this single sentence, Davidson compared Israel to the Nazis and celebrated Hamas….
So Gaza, according to Davidson, was akin to a “concentration camp.” The Israelis are the new Nazis. And the Palestinians are the new Jews, being tormented by the SS-men of the IDF. Or if Gaza is not a concentration camp, then it is at the very least a prison. And the 3,000 Hamas operatives who raped, tortured, and murdered Israelis on October 7 were engaged in a “prison break.” But was Gaza a prison? In the last few years, 150,000 Gazans have left the Strip and moved to other Arab countries or to Europe. Israel didn’t stop them. And Israel has even given work to 19,000 Gazans who entered the Jewish state every day to work — or did, until October 7. While working in Israel, those Gazans earned wages that were from three to ten times more than what they could earn in Gaza. concentration camp. What kind of a prison lets thousands of inmates out every day?
Cometh the hour, cometh the man. The UNC Provost, Christopher Clemens, is not about to let such insidious praisers of mass rape, torture, and murder as Rania Masri be sponsored by teachers at his school, and heaped with praise for what she said, on his campus, with her grotesque comments about what a “beautiful day” October 7 had been. And no one in the audience took issue with her, none there deplored her sentiments. Clemens is clearly not about to let this matter drop. Danielle Purifoy, Ajamu Dillahunt, Claudia Yaqhoobi, Conghe Song, fasten your seatbelts. For all of you, it’s going to be a bumpy ride.
The campus justification of Hamas’ atrocities is a big problem. It’s all over the place. But at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and on every other campus where analogous incidents are unfolding, some faculty members, and some members of the administration, and some trustees and alumni, and even some students, have got to grab hold of this problem, and not let go.
rick says
Other than an individual here and there ,one can never expect a sense of humanity towards Jews from Palestinians. But it is sad to see real Americans, not Arab Americans whom you can expect to be Anti-Semites, join in the Kill-the-Jews-Jihad. But in the 1930s there were many Americans who supported Hitler and the Nazis, so I guess it is not so strange after all.
OLD GUY says
You’re right and some of these anti-jewish people don’t even know why they hate these people, they just want to be apart of something.
Rick Gordon says
The overall response from UNC – especially those departments that are supposed to represent global affairs – is more than appalling. It’s disgusting to see such behavior in America – and at a public taxpayer supported university.
For me, the faculty that headed the events and taught such hatred ought to be fired. Administrators who do not speak out for American values and further discipline those who continued hateful behavior ought to follow.
James Lincoln says
UNC-Chapel Hill:
WARNING!
Do not send your child there!
brenrod says
In my view these universities are supporters, enablers, facilitators and accessories to terror. They should be denied all public funding as well as the faculties and students. Also, they deserve to receive what Hamas did to Israelis on Oct 7.