Alec Schemmel of the Washington Free Beacon reports on the questionable selection of a speaker at a prominent university’s upcoming anti-hate event.
In an attempt to ease campus “tension” following Hamas’s Oct. 7 attack on Israel, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology is slated to bring a series of guest speakers to campus—including one who endorsed Hamas terrorism as an act of lawful “resistance.”
As part of its “Standing Together Against Hate” initiative, MIT is slated to hold a March 18 talk on Islamophobia featuring Boston University antibigotry fellow Dalia Mogahed. While MIT says the talk will help “bring our community together” by addressing “real tension between some groups and individuals,” Mogahed’s hostile rhetoric toward the Jewish state suggests her speech will have the opposite effect.
On Jan. 19, for example, Mogahed argued that Hamas is allowed to terrorize Israel under international law because Palestinians are “living under occupation.”
“It has been firmly established that resistance, including struggle against a colonial occupation force, is not only acknowledged under international law but explicitly endorsed,” she said in a social media post. “International humanitarian law further solidifies this principle by expressly embracing acts of resistance for national liberation. … As an occupied population, Palestinians inherently possess the right to resist.” Mogahed deleted the post after the Washington Free Beacon contacted her for comment.
MIT’s decision to host Mogahed comes as the school faces criticism over its response to campus anti-Semitism. MIT president Sally Kornbluth faced calls to resign in December after she participated in a disastrous congressional hearing, which saw her and other university leaders argue that calling for the genocide of Jews may not violate their school’s code of conduct. House Republicans launched an investigation into MIT and other elite schools in the wake of the hearing.
Kornbluth has since vowed to reassess MIT’s policies on “harassment, bullying, intimidation, and discrimination.” Mogahed’s inclusion in the school’s “Standing Together Against Hate” initiative, however, calls into question MIT’s pledge to combat anti-Semitism.
