CAMBRIDGE, MASSACHUSETTS: Larry Summers, former treasury secretary and Harvard University president, recently ripped the Ivy League school’s administration for failing to act when dozens of student organizations blamed Israel for Hamas’ attack.
On Saturday, October 7, the Palestinian militant organization Hamas broke Israel's defense with a bombardment of almost 2000 rockets and ground assaults, leaving nearly 900 Israelis dead and another 2,600 gravely injured.
Following the attacks, a group of 31 Harvard student organizations condemned Israel by releasing a letter to the public as a 'Joint Statement by Harvard Palestine Solidarity Groups on the Situation in Palestine.’
The pro-Palestine letter claimed that the ongoing Hamas attack “did not happen in a vacuum” and that the Israeli government has forced Palestinians to live in “an open-air prison for over two decades.”
“We, the undersigned student organizations, hold the Israeli regime entirely responsible for all unfolding violence,” it stated, according to Daily Mail.
The organizations signing the letter included the African American Resistance Organization, Amnesty International, 'Harvard Act on a Dream,' groups of Muslim and South Asian students from the Kennedy and Chan schools, the Harvard Islamic Society, and Harvard Jews for Liberation.
Following the letter's release, Summers, who is Jewish and led Harvard University from 2001-2006, issued his own statement, claiming that he is 'sickened' by the Ivy League school's response to Hamas' terror attack on Israel.
Summers became a professor of economics at Harvard University in 1983. In 1991, he left Harvard and went on to serve as the 71st United States Secretary of the Treasury from 1999 to 2001.
Later, he also worked as director of the National Economic Council from 2009 to 2010.
Larry Summers criticises Harvard for failing to act
On Monday, Summers reacted to Harvard’s silence over controversial org message, saying, “In nearly 50 years of @Harvard affiliation, I have never been as disillusioned and alienated as I am today.”
“The silence from Harvard’s leadership, so far, coupled with a vocal and widely reported student groups’ statement blaming Israel solely, has allowed Harvard to appear at best neutral towards acts of terror against the Jewish state of Israel,” he wrote on X, formerly known as Twitter.
“Instead, Harvard is being defined by the morally unconscionable statement apparently coming from two dozen student groups blaming all the violence on Israel,” he wrote, adding, “I am sickened. I cannot fathom the Administration’s failure to disassociate the University and condemn this statement.”
Summers claimed that there is nothing wrong in criticizing Israel’s past policies but the country’s current situation is really devastating.
“I have been sharply critical of [Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu. But that is very different from lack of clarity regarding terrorism,” he stated.
The former University president expressed that he hopes a condemnation of the student groups’ statement “will soon be forthcoming.”
He also noted that Harvard President Lawrence Bacow issued a statement condemning Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February of last year.
The school even hoisted the Ukrainian flag over Harvard Yard in solidarity, noted Summers, who lamented that there was “no official Harvard statement at this time of moral testing.”
The student organizations have yet not replied to Summers’ scathing statement.
