Ivy League professor: Hamas attack was 'inspiring'

Russell Rickford defended his comment, saying it only referred to the beginning of the attack. Photo: X

Mr Glaeser, whose parents are Israeli, said: “I never felt that my personal safety was at risk until we started hearing that Hamas' actions were encouraging to another person because they were completely focused on one goal. , which inflicts as much suffering as more terror and as much horror as possible on the Jewish civilian population, the Jewish people.”

Mr Rickford later told the newspaper that he was referring only to the initial phase of the Hamas attack, when the group broke through the border fence. the separation of southern Israel from the Gaza Strip, not the killing of Israeli civilians.

“What I meant was that in those first few hours when they broke through the apartheid wall, it seemed like a symbol of resistance and in fact a new phase of resistance in Palestinian struggle,” he said.

“In the days that followed, we learned of some horrific realities. “I want to make it clear that Hamas is a fundamentalist organization,” Mr. Rickford added, repeating that he “abhors the killing of civilians.”

The Telegraph has contacted Mr. Rickford for comment.

< img src="/wp-content/uploads/2023/10/88e824d3a7392c5630fe6dadcf846bb9.jpg" />Russell Rickford said that Palestinians were able to breathe for the first time in years. Photo: Cornell University

Cornell University appeared to try to distance itself from Rickford's remarks, with President Martha Pollack saying she was “sickened” by the statements. “celebrating the viciousness of Hamas terrorism.”

“No member of our community who made such statements speaks for Cornell; in fact, they directly contradict everything we stand for at Cornell,” she said in an open letter published on the university's website Monday.

“I am outraged by them and, along with the senior leadership of the Cornell University Board of Regents, again condemn them in the strongest possible terms.”

The controversy comes just days after a Stanford University faculty member reportedly ordered Jewish students to stand in corner and told them, “This is what Israel is doing to Palestine.”

The teacher is supposed to have said that “only” six million Jews were killed in the Holocaust, and referred to the students as “only” six million Jews. colonizers” or “colonized” depending on their origin.

He also said Hamas' massacre of hundreds of Israelis was “legitimate” and called the terrorists “freedom fighters”, according to the US newspaper The Forward. targeted at Jewish audiences.

Richard Saller, Stanford's president, and Provost Jenny Martinez said in a letter Wednesday that a non-faculty member was suspended following reports that he “addressed Middle Eastern conflict in a manner that challenged individual students in the classroom based on their background and personality.”