(The Center Square) – A Harvard University student group invited Noura Erakat, a pro-Palestine activist with ties to the terror group Hamas, to give a speech on campus Monday.
Erakat will headline an event titled, “We Charge Genocide: The Potential and Limits of International Law.” Harvard’s Palestine Solidarity Committee student group will administer the event.
Erakat took part in a 2020 online panel discussion with senior Hamas official Ghazi Hamad. Hamad appeared on MemriTV weeks after the Oct. 7th attacks against Israel and promised to repeat the terrorist actions against the Jewish state over and over again.
“We must teach Israel a lesson, and we will do it twice and three times. The Al-Aqsa Deluge [the name Hamas gave its October 7 onslaught] is just the first time, and there will be a second, a third, a fourth,” Hamad vowed during an Oct. 24 interview.
Harvard has restricted Erakat’s event to university ID holders only. No other sanctioned events within the Harvard’s Center for Middle Eastern Studies prevent non-Harvard community members from attending, according to the department’s website.
Erakat accused Israel of committing a “genocide” during her appearance on the socialist YouTube show “Democracy Now!” on Feb. 12. She claimed that Israel has no right to self-defense against Hamas.
While speaking at The Palestine Festival of Literature on Nov. 1, Erakat dismissed Israel as an “alien occupation and racist regime.” She argued that Palestinians “have a right to use armed force” against the Jewish state, a tacit endorsement of the Oct. 7 attacks.
On Nov. 4, Erakat appeared at the March on Washington for Palestine and accused the Biden administration of helping enact a “genocide” in Gaza. She said that the Israel-Palestine conflict “reveals our enduring colonial reality.”
During a Nov. 26 appearance on The Katie Halper Show, Erakat argued that people should not be surprised at the Oct. 7 attacks, citing Israel’s ongoing blockade on Gaza and multiple military offenses of Gaza as a result of terrorism. She pointed to the Abraham Accords as a source of legitimate outrage for Palestinians, suggesting that Arab countries were abandoning their cause in favor of normalizing relations with Israel.
“What did they think these young people were going to do as the rest of the world, in this moment, was negotiating the Abraham Accords to actually normalize Israel’s relationship with Arab regimes even further, and even after everyone is applauding apartheid?” Erakat said.
Harvard has faced immense criticism over its handling of anti-Israel protests on campus in the wake of the Israel-Hamas war. Immediately following the Oct. 7 attacks on Israel, left-wing campus groups issued statements blaming the Jewish state for the terroristic slaughters of their own civilians. A bevy of Harvard alumni and donors, including famed financier Bill Ackman, condemned the university and pulled back funding.
Following then Harvard President Claudine Gay’s Congressional hearing on campus antisemitism, the university scrambled for solutions to quell the intensifying anger among its donors. Interim President Alan Gerber installed an antisemitism task-force, which has endured controversy since its creation. Congress issued a subpoena to Harvard, requesting documents related to campus antisemitism investigations.
Amid the antisemitism controversy, Harvard applications for early admissions dropped by 17% in December.