LONDON: An Israeli billionaire has left the executive board of Harvard’s Kennedy School in protest at the “shocking and insensitive” official response to a student letter that held Israel accountable for last week’s Hamas attack.
Idan Ofer, a shipping and chemicals businessman, and his wife Batia said they were quitting their roles at Harvard following the row.
A group of 33 student organizations at Harvard, led by the Harvard Undergraduate Palestine Solidarity Committee, released a statement last Saturday holding Israel’s “apartheid regime” responsible for causing the latest outbreak of violence.
The statement said: “Today’s events did not occur in a vacuum. For the last two decades, millions of Palestinians in Gaza have been forced to live in an open-air prison. The apartheid regime is the only one to blame.”
The university’s response to the statement was criticized by 160 Harvard faculty members, who claimed that the student organizations “can be seen as nothing less than condoning the mass murder of civilians based only on their nationality.”
Harvard President Claudine Gay was accused by the Harvard Hillel Jewish center of contributing to “further hatred and antisemitism” by allegedly refusing to explicitly condemn Hamas in a response to the student group statement.
Harvard authorities said on Monday: “We write to you today heartbroken by the death and destruction unleashed by the attack by Hamas that targeted citizens in Israel this weekend, and by the war in Israel and Gaza now underway.”
A day letter, following criticism from former university President Lawrence Summers and former Harvard Medical School dean Jeffrey Flier, Gay said: “As the events of recent days continue to reverberate, let there be no doubt that I condemn the terrorist atrocities perpetrated by Hamas.
“Such inhumanity is abhorrent, whatever one’s individual views of the origins of longstanding conflicts in the region.
“Let me also state, on this matter as on others, that while our students have the right to speak for themselves, no student group — not even 30 student groups — speaks for Harvard University or its leadership.”
Hedge fund CEO Bill Ackman called for the names of the student signatories to be released to the public so that companies could avoid hiring them.
Sanaa Kahloon of the Harvard Undergraduate Palestine Solidarity Committee said the student group’s message had been misinterpreted.
“To restate what should be obvious: The PSC staunchly opposes violence against civilians — Palestinian, Israeli, or other,” she added.
Committee members have been sent death threats in the wake of the row, with the group calling off a planned vigil to mourn deaths in Israel and Gaza over safety fears.
Israeli billionaire quits Harvard executive board over Hamas support row
https://arab.news/bkey4
Israeli billionaire quits Harvard executive board over Hamas support row
- 33 student organizations blamed Israeli ‘apartheid regime’ for violence, saying ‘events did not occur in a vacuum’
- Idan Ofer calls official response to student letter ‘shocking and insensitive’
Iran conservatives tighten grip in parliament vote
- Elected members are to choose a speaker for the 290-seat parliament when they begin their work on May 27
- Conservatives won the majority of the 45 remaining seats up for grabs in the vote held in 15 of 31 provinces: local media
TEHRAN: Iran’s conservatives and ultra-conservatives clinched more seats in a partial rerun of the country’s parliamentary elections, official results showed Saturday, tightening their hold on the chamber.
Voters had been called to cast ballots again on Friday in regions where candidates failed to gain enough votes in the March 1 election, which saw the lowest turnout — 41 percent — since the 1979 Islamic Revolution.
Candidates categorized as conservative or ultra-conservative on pre-election lists won the majority of the 45 remaining seats up for grabs in the vote held in 15 of Iran’s 31 provinces, according to local media.
For the first time in the country, voting on Friday was a completely electronic process at eight of the 22 constituencies in Tehran and the cities of Tabriz in the northwest and Shiraz in the south, state TV said.
“Usually, the participation in the second round is less than the first round,” Interior Minister Ahmad Vahidi told reporters in Tehran, without specifying what the turnout was in the latest round.
“Contrary to some predictions, all the candidates had a relatively acceptable and good number of votes,” he added.
Elected members are to choose a speaker for the 290-seat parliament when they begin their work on May 27.
In March, 25 million Iranians took part in the election out of 61 million eligible voters.
The main coalition of reform parties, the Reform Front, had said ahead of the first round that it would not participate in “meaningless, non-competitive and ineffective elections.”
The vote was the first since nationwide protests broke out following the September 2022 death in custody of Mahsa Amini, a 22-year-old Iranian Kurd, arrested for allegedly breaching the Islamic republic’s strict dress code for women.
In the 2016 parliamentary elections, first-round turnout was above 61 percent, before falling to 42.57 percent in 2020 when elections took place during the Covid pandemic.
UN reports fighting in Sudan’s Darfur involving ‘heavy weaponry’
- The United States last month warned of a looming rebel military offensive on the city, a humanitarian hub that appears to be at the center of a newly opening front in the country’s civil war
PORT SUDAN: A major city in Sudan’s western region of Darfur has been rocked by fighting involving “heavy weaponry,” a senior UN official said Saturday.
Violence erupted in populated areas of El-Fasher, putting about 800,000 people at risk, Clementine Nkweta-Salami, the UN’s humanitarian coordinator for Sudan, said in a statement.
Wounded civilians were being rushed to hospital and civilians were trying to flee the fighting, she added.
“I am gravely concerned by the eruption of clashes in (El-Fasher) despite repeated calls to parties to the conflict to refrain from attacking the city,” said Nkweta-Salami.
“I am equally disturbed by reports of the use of heavy weaponry and attacks in highly populated areas in the city center and the outskirts of (El-Fasher), resulting in multiple casualties,” she added.
For more than a year, Sudan has suffered a war between the army, headed by the country’s de facto leader Abdel Fattah Al-Burhan, and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF), commanded by his former deputy Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo.
The war has killed tens of thousands of people and forced more than 8.5 million to flee their homes in what the United Nations has called the “largest displacement crisis in the world.”
The RSF has seized four out of five state capitals in Darfur, a region about the size of France and home to around one quarter of Sudan’s 48 million people.
El-Fasher is the last major city in Darfur that is not under paramilitary control and the United States warned last month of a looming offensive on the city.
UN chief Antonio Guterres said Saturday he was “very concerned about the ongoing war in Sudan.”
“We need an urgent ceasefire and a coordinated international effort to deliver a political process that can get the country back on track,” he said in a post on social media site X.
Tunisian police arrest prominent lawyer critical of president
- Dozens of lawyers took to the streets in protest on Saturday night, carrying banners reading “Our profession will not kneel” and “We will continue the struggle” Saied came to power in free elections in 2019
TUNIS: Tunisian police stormed the building of the Deanship of Lawyers on Saturday and arrested Sonia Dahmani, a lawyer known for her fierce criticism of President Kais Saied, and then arrested two journalists who witnessed the confrontation, a journalists’ syndicate said.
Two IFM radio journalists, Mourad Zghidi and Borhen Bsaiss, were arrested, an official in the country’s main journalists’ syndicate told Reuters. The incident was the latest in a series of arrests and investigations targeting activists, journalists and civil society groups critical of Saied and the government. The move reinforces opponents’ fears of an increasingly authoritarian government ahead of presidential elections expected later this year.
Dahmani was arrested after she said on a television program this week that Tunisia is a country where life is not pleasant. She was commenting on a speech by Saied, who said there was a conspiracy to push thousands of undocumented migrants from Sub-Saharan countries to stay in Tunisia. Dahmani was called before a judge on Wednesday on suspicion of spreading rumors and attacking public security following her comments, but she asked for postponement of the investigation.
The judge rejected her request. Dozens of lawyers took to the streets in protest on Saturday night, carrying banners reading “Our profession will not kneel” and “We will continue the struggle” Saied came to power in free elections in 2019. Two years later he seized additional powers when he shut down the elected parliament and moved to rule by decree before assuming authority over the judiciary.
Since Tunisia’s 2011 revolution, the country has won more press freedoms and is considered one of the more open media environments in the Arab world. Politicians, journalists and unions, however, say that freedom of the press faces a serious threat under the rule of Saied. The president has rejected the accusations and said he will not become a dictator.
Syrian Kurdish force hands over 2 Daesh members suspected in 2014 mass killing of Iraqi troops
- Iraq has, over the past several years, put on trial and later executed dozens of Daesh members over their involvement in the Speicher massacre
BEIRUT: Syria’s US-backed Kurdish-led force has handed over to Baghdad two Daesh militants suspected of involvement in mass killings of Iraqi soldiers in 2014, a war monitor said.
The report by the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights came a day after the Iraqi National Intelligence Service said it had brought back to the country three Daesh members from outside Iraq. The intelligence service did not provide more details.
Daesh captured an estimated 1,700 Iraqi soldiers after seizing Saddam Hussein‘s hometown of Tikrit in 2014. The soldiers were trying to flee from nearby Camp Speicher, a former US base.
BACKGROUND
Daesh captured an estimated 1,700 Iraqi soldiers after seizing Saddam Hussein‘s hometown of Tikrit in 2014.
Shortly after taking Tikrit, Daesh posted graphic images of Daesh militants shooting and killing the soldiers.
Farhad Shami, a spokesman for the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces, said the US-backed force handed over two Daesh members to Iraq.
It was not immediately clear where Iraqi authorities brought the third suspect from.
The 2014 killings, known as the Speicher massacre, sparked outrage across Iraq and partially fueled the mobilization of militias in the fight against Daesh.
Iraq has, over the past several years, put on trial and later executed dozens of Daesh members over their involvement in the Speicher massacre.
The Observatory said the two Daesh members were among 20 captured recently in a joint operation with the US-led coalition in the northern Syrian city of Raqqa, once the capital of Daesh’s self-declared caliphate.
Despite their defeat in Iraq in 2017 and in Syria in March 2019, the extremist sleeper cells are still active and have been carrying out deadly attacks against SDF and Syrian government forces.
Shami said a car rigged with explosives and driven by a suicide attacker tried on Friday night to storm a military checkpoint for the Deir El-Zour Military Council. This Arab majority faction is part of the SDF in the eastern Syrian village of Shuheil.
Shami said that when the guards tried to stop the car, the attacker blew himself up, killing three US-backed fighters.
No one immediately claimed responsibility for the attack, but it was similar to previous explosions carried out by IS militants.
The SDF is holding over 10,000 captured Daesh fighters in around two dozen detention facilities, including 2,000 foreigners whose home countries have refused to repatriate them.
Protesters return to streets across Israel, demanding hostage release
- Family members of the hostages, carrying pictures of their loved ones still in captivity, joined the crowds that demonstrated in Tel Aviv
TEL AVIV: Thousands of Israelis took to the streets on Saturday demanding that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government do more to secure the release of hostages being held in the Gaza Strip by Islamist group Hamas.
Family members of the hostages, carrying pictures of their loved ones still in captivity, joined the crowds that demonstrated in Tel Aviv.
One of them was Naama Weinberg, whose cousin Itai Svirsky was abducted during Hamas’ Oct. 7 assault on Israeli towns and, according to Israeli authorities, was killed in captivity. In a speech she referenced a video Hamas made public on Saturday, claiming that another of the Israeli captives had died.
“Soon, even those who managed to survive this long will no longer be among the living. They must be saved now,” Weinberg said.
As the evening progressed, some protesters blocked a main highway in the city before being dispersed by police, who used water cannons to push back the crowd. At least three people were arrested.
Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack sparked the devastating war in Gaza, now raging for nearly seven months.
