An Israeli billionaire says he and his wife are quitting the board of Harvard University’s famous Kennedy School of Business over the school’s president’s response to the surprise Hamas attacks in Israel.
Idan Ofer is the founder of Eastern Pacific Shipping reportedly worth over $14billion, according to Forbes. His wife Batia is an art collector and the descendant of Holocaust survivors.
Batia Ofer told the Hebrew-language outlet TheMarker that she and her husband are both quitting the school’s executive board over President Claudine Gay’s response to 31 Harvard organizations signing a letter placed the blame on Israel for Hamas’ brutal attacks that have killed over 1,500.
Their actions are ‘in protest of the shocking and insensitive response by the president of the university, who did not condemn the letter by student organizations who blamed Israel for the massacres.’
‘We write to you today heartbroken by the death and destruction unleashed by the attack by Hamas that targeted citizens in Israel this weekend, and by the war in Israel and Gaza now underway,’ Harvard administrators wrote in the statement from Monday, credited to Gay.
Idan Ofer (pictured left) is the founder of Eastern Pacific Shipping reportedly worth over $14billion, according to Forbes. His wife Batia (pictured right) is an art collector and the descendant of Holocaust survivors
The statement’s lack of explicit condemnation for the terrorist group Hamas incited outrage from many Harvard alums.
Gay had to issue a follow-up statement clarifying her words on Tuesday.
‘As the events of recent days continue to reverberate, let there be no doubt that I condemn the terrorist atrocities perpetrated by Hamas,’ she wrote.
‘Such inhumanity is abhorrent, whatever one’s individual views of the origins of longstanding conflicts in the region.’
For the Ofers – one of the wealthiest families in Israel, with Idan a majority shareloder of the country’s largest holding companies and co-owner of soccer powerhouse Atletico Madrid – the statement clearly isn’t enough.
Harvard has yet to respond with a comment on the matter.
The organizations released a letter to the public as a ‘Joint Statement by Harvard Palestine Solidarity Groups on the Situation in Palestine’ on Sunday to condemn Israel in the wake of the violence. Several Kennedy School groups were signatories.
They claim that Hamas’ attacks, which are still ongoing, ‘did not happen in a vacuum’ and the Israeli government has forced Palestinians to live in ‘an open-air prison for over two decades.’
Ofer told the Hebrew-language outlet TheMarker that she and her husband are both quitting the school’s executive board over the school’s response to student groups placing the blame on Israel
Batia Ofer (pictured center) said their actions are ‘in protest of the shocking and insensitive response by the president of the university, who did not condemn the letter by student organizations who blamed Israel for the massacres.’
The Ofers are both quitting the school’s executive board over President Claudine Gay’s response
‘We, the undersigned student organizations, hold the Israeli regime entirely responsible for all unfolding violence,’ the groups wrote.
It’s another moment of contention for the school just a day after a professor was forced to apologize for implying the Hamas attack on Israel was an attempt to distract from Benjamin Netanyahu’s ‘own corruption.’
The groups then repeat a familiar trope of the left in accusing the Israeli government of forcing Palestine to live under an apartheid state.
‘The apartheid regime is the only one to blame. Israeli violence has structured every aspect of Palestinian existence for 75 years,’ they continue.
‘From systematized land seizures to routine airstrikes, arbitrary detentions to military checkpoints, and enforced family separations to targeted killings, Palestinians have been forced to live in a state of death, both slow and sudden.’
Despite the many dead in Israel, including at least four Americans, the groups’ asked for an end to brutalization of Palestinians to conclude the letter.
‘Today, the Palestinian ordeal enters into uncharted territory. The coming days will require a firm stand against colonial retaliation. We call on the Harvard community to take action to stop the ongoing annihilation of Palestinians.’
The Palestine Solidarity Committee has held inflammatory events in relation to the conflict, including protests, an ‘Apartheid Week’ and a ‘Boycott Israel Trek.’
The Palestine Solidarity Committee holding banners outside the prestigious college
The group has also taken credit for getting the Harvard Crimson – the school’s long-running student newspaper – to support BDS, or Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions of Israel.
The groups include the school’s African American Resistance Organization, Amnesty International, ‘Harvard Act on a Dream,’ groups of Muslim and South Asian students from the Kennedy and Chan schools, the Harvard Islamic Society and Harvard Jews for Liberation.
As the full scale of the horrors of the weekend were coming into focus, Israel’s military was ramping up preparations for a ground invasion, and Hamas was continuing to launch rockets into Israel.
‘Now is the time for war,’ said Israel’s military chief, Lieutenant General Herzi Halevi, as his country amassed tanks near the Gaza Strip.
Seeking to build support for its response, Israel’s government showed U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken and NATO defense ministers graphic images of children and civilians they said Hamas had killed in a weekend rampage in Israel.
Blinken said they showed a baby ‘riddled with bullets,’ soldiers beheaded and young people burned in their cars.
‘It’s simply depravity in the worst imaginable way,’ he said. ‘It’s really beyond anything that we can comprehend.’
Israel has vowed to retaliate for the attack – the deadliest by Palestinian militants in Israeli history.
An armed Palestinian militant leading a man during the Supernova music festival
An armed Palestinian militant is seen walking around the Supernova music festival near Kibbutz Reim in the Negev desert in southern Israel
Sitting on the back of a terrorist’s motorcycle, her outstretched arms pointing towards her helpless boyfriend, student Noa Argamani pleads for her life
Aftermath: Burnt-out and abandoned cars where revellers tried to escape the onslaught
At least 260 were killed in the massacre while many are still missing – either dead or taken hostage by the bloodthirsty militants
Like others across the globe, Blinken urged Israel to show restraint, but he also reiterated America’s support, saying: ‘We will always be there by your side.’
On Friday he was due to meet King Abdullah and Mahmoud Abbas, head of the Palestinian Authority in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, in Jordan as part of a Middle East tour aimed at stopping spillover from the war.
America’s top diplomat, Blinken planned to visit key U.S. allies Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Egypt and the United Arab Emirates – some with influence on Hamas, an Islamist group backed by Iran.
Halevi said lessons would be drawn from the security failures around Gaza that enabled the attack.
‘We will learn, investigate, but now is the time for war,’ he said.
The U.S. military is placing no conditions on its security assistance to Israel, U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said, adding Washington expected Israel’s military to ‘do the right things’ in prosecuting its war against Hamas.
Austin was due in Israel on Friday and planned to meet Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
Hamas called on Palestinians to rise up on Friday in protest at Israel’s bombardment of the enclave, urging Palestinians to march to East Jerusalem’s Al-Aqsa Mosque and clash with Israeli troops in the occupied West Bank.
Public broadcaster Kan said the Israeli death toll had risen to more than 1,300.
The American death toll rose to 27.
Scores of Israeli and foreign hostages were taken back to Gaza; Israel said it had identified 97 of them.
Israel has responded so far by putting Gaza, home to 2.3 million people, under siege and launching a bombing campaign that destroyed whole neighborhoods.
Gaza authorities said more than 1,500 Palestinians had been killed.
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