Harvard invites Palestinian prof who justified Oct. 7 attack as 'normal human struggle for freedom' to speak
Harvard Kennedy School is facing criticism after one of its professors invited a Palestinian professor who attempted to justify the October 7, 2023 Hamas terrorist attack as a "normal human struggle for freedom."
Harvard Kennedy School is facing criticism after one of its professors invited a Palestinian professor who attempted to justify the October 7, 2023 Hamas terrorist attack as a “normal human struggle for freedom.”
The Harvard Kennedy School Belfar Center in Cambridge, Massachusetts is slated to host Dalal Saeb Iriqat for a panel on March 7. Fox News Digital reported several of Iriqat’s posts on X, where the Arab American University Palestine professor attempted to justify the Hamas terror attack.
”The world tolerated watching >35000 Palestinian youth seek refuge via territorial waters, putting their lives at risk, choosing to drawn in the Sea over their miserable lives in a big prison called #Gaza after 17 yrs Israeli siege,” the professor wrote. “Today is just a normal human struggle 4 #Freedom.”
In a statement on its website, the Harvard Kennedy School explained that professor Tarek Masoud organized the event, which is part of the Middle East Dialogues series, stating that it finds Iriqat’s comments abhorrent.
”February 04, 2024 Professor Tarek Masoud has established a series of events for the Harvard Kennedy School community to learn about the developments in Israel and Gaza and about possible pathways to peace. Consistent with the Kennedy School’s commitment to academic freedom for faculty members, Professor Masoud chose and invited the speakers for the series himself,” according to the statement. “The purpose of the series is to provide a venue for debate and discussion, recognizing that different views will be offered and challenged—including views that many at the Kennedy School and beyond may disagree with vehemently and even find repugnant.”
”Dean Douglas Elmendorf personally finds abhorrent the comments by Dalal Saeb Iriqat quoted in the press that justify and normalize the horrific terrorist attack by Hamas,” Harvard Kennedy School added. “An invitation to speak at the Kennedy School never implies an endorsement of a speaker’s views by the Kennedy School or members of the Kennedy School community.”
In an Oct, 8, 2023, post on X, Iriqat wrote “Justice shall prevail” and posted a screenshot of text reading “We will never forgive the Israeli right wing extreme government for making us take their children and elderly as hostages.”
Masoud told the Harvard Crimson that he “obviously” disagreed with Iriqat on her views of the Israel and Hamas war, but thought she had a perspective that was important for students to hear.
“If you are going to engage with Palestinians, you’re going to have to engage with these ideas,” Masoud said. “My view is that we have to subject these ideas — and all the ideas that we encounter — to polite but rigorous inquiry.”
The event comes as Harvard is under investigation by the House Education and the Workforce Committee into anti-Semitism on the campus, as Campus Reform reported.
