A banner with a Palestinian flag that reads “Harvard Hates Jews” was flying above the Cambridge campus on Thursday in the wake of Harvard president’s “shocking” congressional testimony about antisemitism this week.
Jewish students reportedly hired the airplane carrying the Palestinian flag and an aerial banner with the words “Harvard Hates Jews” to circle the campus following President Claudine Gay’s testimony in Congress on Tuesday. Gay refused to answer whether calls for genocide against Jews would be considered a violation of the university’s code of conduct, leading to calls for her to resign.
Antisemitic chants have filled the Cambridge campus since the Hamas terrorist attacks in Israel on Oct. 7.
The aerial campaign “seeks to respond to the runaway antisemitism on the campus and the shocking support for Hamas terrorism and rape obscenely vocalized by Harvard faculty and students following the Oct. 7th massacre in Israel,” according to the group that took responsibility for the banner called “Harvard with Hamas.”
“The American college campuses have become toxic dumps filled with Jew hatred and anti-Israel violence,” one of the unnamed students who organized the aerial campaign said in a statement.
“Harvard’s logo ‘veritas’ is the Latin word for ‘truth’ and the banner flown over Harvard skies reveals the painful truth behind the reality of this institution today: what was once the symbol of dignity and tolerance, has sunk deep into an oblivion of hatred and lies,” the student added. “The terror flag and jarring banner will circle over their heads until they can’t hide anymore.”
The aerial banner campaign was starting ahead of the first night of Hanukkah on Thursday.
“Don’t know who’s behind this. But this is terrifying,” posted Yotam Sofer, who took a photo of the plane and banner. “A plane doing rounds above Cambridge/Allston right now. I took this picture a few minutes ago. The banner says: ‘HARVARD HATES JEWS’ attach to Palestinian flag. Today is the first day of Hanukkah.”
The Harvard College Palestine Solidarity Committee condemned the campaign, posting that it was an “antisemitic banner” using a “slogan that right-wing groups have used to target our organizing.”
Harvard PSC added, “We reject the racist weaponization of the Palestinian flag to create hate and fear on Harvard’s campus and are disgusted by this antisemitic attempt to target our Jewish community members as they prepare for the first night of Hanukkah.”
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