GUEST ROOM | Holding Prof. Rickford Accountable

Re “A Assertion Relating to My Actions From Oct.15″ (Letter to the Editor, Oct. 18)

On Saturday, Oct. 7, the terrorist group Hamas carried out probably the most horrific assault on Israel for the reason that Yom Kippur Conflict. Terrorists stormed into Israel and murdered over 1,400 Israelis and kidnapped virtually 200. However these terrorists, a designation positioned on Hamas by america, the European Union and dozens of nations, didn’t simply kill harmless males, ladies and youngsters. Their actions recalled a number of the worst atrocities in Jewish historical past. At Kfar Aza,  40 infants and toddlers had been murdered, a few of them beheaded.  On the a music competition close to the Israeli facet of the 1948 border, ladies had been raped earlier than they had been butchered.

Simply over per week later, Mahmoud Abbas, the President of the Palestinian Authority condemned Hamas’ actions, stating that they don’t signify the Palestinian folks. The identical day, on Sunday, Oct. 16, Cornell College Prof. Russel Rickford, historical past, referred to as Hamas’ actions “exhilarating” and “energizing.” As a substitute of condemning acts of terrorism, Professor Rickford celebrated Hamas’s actions as they “modified the steadiness of energy” in Israel. Professor Rickford’s phrases stand in stark distinction to the values of Cornell College’s superb of “free and open inquiry and expression.” We can’t stand idly by as college students are traumatized by hateful speech from a professor, as this creates a tradition of concern of presenting different views, lest their tutorial standing undergo.