PRESS RELEASE: Antisemitic rioting on US campuses

From: Interfaith Taskforce for America and Israel (ITAI)

To: CBS-TV News Channel 3, Philadelphia

Subject: Antisemitic rioting on US campuses

Date: May 8, 2024

The Palestinian Islamist organization Hamas has been designated by the US government and the European Union as a terrorist organization.

Hamas more than lived up to its terrorist title on October 7th, 2023, when unprovoked, it murdered 1,200 innocent Israelis in their homes in the most brutal and barbaric way, which was reminiscent of the Holocaust crimes.  In addition, Hamas kidnapped 250 Israelis, some in their pajamas, and dragged them to Gaza. A violation of international law. 

Subsequently, as a result of torture, outright murder, starvation, deliberate denial of medical help and medicines, numerous hostages have died.

The media, by providing space; both visual and verbal, to the rioters/ demonstrators/students on campuses throughout the US, including Pennsylvania, has encouraged the continued unacceptable actions by these students led by many non-student professional Hamas associated provocateurs, who instigate physical harassment of Jewish students with hateful antisemitic catcalls that have no place in academic institutions, especially when funded by the US government.

ITAI calls on the US government, federal and state, to withhold funding to such institutions who appease the rioters, accede to their demands, or fail to expel them from campus grounds. 

Moreover, supporting a terror organization while at the same time employing verbal and physical abuse on Jewish students is a violation of civil rights. Words such as “From the River to the Sea Palestine will be free,” constitute a call for the extermination of the Jewish state. 

“Jews to the ovens” as chanted by many “students” is another demand to murder Jews.

It is high time that the national and local media remind the viewing public of the events of October 7, and of Israel’s legal and moral right to retaliate against Hamas perpetrators in order to the secure the safety of its citizens.