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‘Sickening’: University of Florida President Ben Sasse Slams Higher Education’s Response to Hamas Atrocities
by Dion J. Pierre
Former US Sen. Ben Sasse (R-NE), now president of the Universiy of Florida, speaks on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC, US, Oct. 14, 2020. Photo: Patrick Semansky/Pool via REUTERS
University of Florida President Ben Sasse on Wednesday sharply condemned Hamas’ terror campaign against Israel, calling out fellow leaders in higher education across the US for being afraid to do the same and instead drawing a moral equivalence between the two sides.
“I will not tiptoe around this simple fact: What Hamas did is evil and there is no defense for terrorism. This shouldn’t be hard,” Sasse, a former Republican US senator from Nebraska, wrote in a letter to the university’s Jewish alumni. “Sadly, too many people in elite academia have been so weakened by their moral confusion that, when they see videos of raped women, hear of a beheaded baby, or learn of a grandmother murdered in her home, the first reaction of some is to ‘provide context’ and try the blame the raped woman, beheaded baby, or the murdered grandmother.”
Sasse added that blaming the victims of Hamas’ terrorism isn’t the only way in which academia has failed in its messaging. Outwardly supporting the group’s violence is also a moral failure, he noted, describing such thinking as “sickening,” “dehumanizing,” and “beneath people called to educate our next generation of Americans.”
Sasse is one of only a few senior university leaders who have unequivocally condemned Hamas in such a public manner.
On Tuesday, Tammi Rossman-Benjamin, executive director of antisemitism watchdog AMCHA Initiative, told The Algemeiner that the countenancing of terrorism wholesale by students is also a major point of concern, just as much as statements issued by administrators.
Discussing a nationwide “Day of Resistance” to promote conflict against Israel planned by student activists for Thursday, she said, “This new level of alignment of SJP [Students for Justice in Palestine] with the genocidal goals of Hamas should be troubling to every university that hosts an SJP chapter. Supporting horrific violence against Jews in Israel in the name of resistance ‘by any means necessary’ is terrifying to American Jewish students, staff, and faculty, many of whose close family and friends live in Israel.”
Follow Dion J. Pierre @DionJPierre.
