Stanford University students have hung bedsheets bearing slogans defending Hamas terror attacks on Israel, echoing sentiments shared by pupils at several elite institutions in America.
More than 700 Israelis were slaughtered over two days when Hamas launched its attack at the weekend, and hundreds of Palestinians in Gaza have now also been killed as Benjamin Netanyahu’s government hit back.
As the tensions escalated into all-out war this week and the death toll breached quadruple figures, Stanford students hung bedsheets from their windows backing the Hamas terrorists.
‘The Israeli occupation is NOTHING but an ILLUSION OF DUST’ read one banner, while another claimed: ‘The illusion of Israel is BURNING.’
Some supported Palestine with slogans like ‘the land remembers her people’ alongside drawings of the nation’s flag, while others went further by attacking Israel and defending Hamas for taking land back ‘by any means necessary.’
Stanford University students have hung bedsheets bearing slogans defending Hamas terror attacks on Israel, echoing sentiments shared by pupils at several elite institutions in America
Referring to a cartoon character symbolic of Palestinian identity called Handala, one of the Stanford drapings read: ‘Handala is returning, by any means necessary’
Hamas members ride an Israeli military jeep in the streets of Gaza during the storming of Israeli settlements. Rocket barrages were launched from the Gaza Strip early Saturday in a surprise attack claimed by the Islamist movement
Hundreds of Palestinians have now also been killed in the latest strikes as Benjamin Netanyahu ‘s government struck Gaza, vowing to obliterate Hamas and their homeland
Referring to a cartoon character symbolic of Palestinian identity called Handala, a fourth draping read: ‘Handala is returning, by any means necessary.’
The banners were shared by a former Stanford student on X, formerly known as Twitter, who questioned what the university policy is towards ‘students that paint bedsheets red with incitements to genocide against Israeli Jews’.
More than 150 people commented, largely in support of his question and describing the slogans as ‘disgusting’ and ‘repulsive.’
‘It’s beginning to appear that the elite universities in this country continue to tolerate antisemitism among other things,’ one person said.
Some Stanford students have also hit back – including Julia Steinberg, a writer for the university’s newspaper, who said she is ‘not excited to be a Jew on Stanford’s campus today’.
She condemned the pro-Hamas banners which have emerged and described ‘the difficulties of living on a college campus where “Zionism” is a dirty word, often used as a proxy for apartheid and genocide’.
‘In the past year, a Jewish student living in my dorm had their door plastered with a portrait of Adolf Hitler. Swastikas were carved in bathrooms across campus,’ Steinberg wrote in the Stanford Review.
‘Last spring, while walking to class, I overheard a student say to her friend that “she’s Jewish, but politically good.”
‘The history of Israel is undeniably fraught and complex. But Zionism is not a question to be relitigated.
‘Israel does exist, and without the country’s continued existence, there is no guarantee that the seven million Jews living there now will be kept alive.’
DailyMail.com has contacted Stanford for a comment on the banners. The university’s website has issued a lengthy statement on the conflict generally, and offered counseling to students.
As the tensions escalated into all-out war this week and the death toll breached quadruple figures, Stanford students hung bedsheets from their windows backing the Hamas terrorists
‘The Israeli occupation is NOTHING but an ILLUSION OF DUST’ read one banner, while another claimed: ‘The illusion of Israel is BURNING’
‘Stanford University as an institution does not take positions on geopolitical issues and news events,’ the website reads.
‘This is grounded in a principled belief that the appropriate role of university administrators in relation to geopolitical events is not to take positions or issue statements, but to create an environment in which faculty and students are free to develop and exchange ideas free from institutional orthodoxy.
‘As a general matter, Stanford is unambiguously opposed to all forms of racial, ethnic, or religious hatred.
‘The university encourages respectful discourse and communication across differences, and works to support students of all backgrounds, nationalities, and religions in successfully pursuing their studies and the broader experience of campus life and engagement.’
On the issue of whether it would condemn banners, the California institutions stated it ‘does not typically comment on students’ constitutionally protected speech’.
It added that the banners it has reviewed ‘do not appear to cross that legal boundary’ but they ‘do run afoul of the university’s viewpoint-neutral time, place and manner rules,’ which outline where banners can be placed and how big they can be.
Skirmishes broke out in New York City’s Times Square on Sunday amid full-scale war in Israel and Palestine
This comes after students at several Ivy League institutions, including Harvard and Columbia, condemned Israel.
A group of 31 Harvard organizations, including its branch of Amnesty International, has placed the blame on Israel for Hamas’ brutal, surprise attack that has killed at least 700 Israelis.
The organizations released a letter to the public as a ‘Joint Statement by Harvard Palestine Solidarity Groups on the Situation in Palestine’ on Sunday to condemn Israel in the wake of the violence.
They said that Hamas’ attacks, which are still ongoing, ‘did not happen in a vacuum’ and 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,’ the groups wrote.
Harvard’s President Emeritus Larry Summers condemned the letter, saying he was ‘sickened’ by it.
Summers, who is Jewish and led Harvard University from 2001-2006, addressed the school, tweeting: ‘In nearly 50 years of 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.’
It marked another moment of contention for the school after a professor was forced to apologize for implying the Hamas attack on Israel was an attempt to distract from Benjamin Netanyahu’s ‘own corruption.’
Columbia Students for Justice in Palestine have also said that Hamas’ actions were a ‘counter-offensive against their settler-colonial oppressor.’
‘The weight of responsibility for the war and casualties undeniably lies with the Israeli extremist government and other Western governments,’ their statement, which was also signed by a group named Jewish Voice for Peace, read.
Columbia University is located in New York, the city with the world’s largest Jewish population.
Israel’s Benjamin Netanyahu vowed to incite ‘mighty vengeance’ against Hamas by reducing Gaza – which is also home to around two million innocent Palestinians – to ‘rubble’. Many of the attacks have struck mosques in Gaza (pictured)
The protester pointed the swastika – the symbol used by Nazis during the Holocaust – at the Israeli counter protesters
Fiery protests over the conflict have broken out in the Big Apple and beyond. Hundreds of pro-Palestine protesters clashed with Israel demonstrators in Times Square on Sunday – just 3.5 miles away from Columbia’s campus.
As NYPD erected metal barricades to separate the two groups, one pro-Palestine protester brandished a swastika at Jewish demonstrators in the opposing pen.
The Hamas atrocities came after the UN carved the colonized nation formerly known as ‘British Palestine’ into two separate states known as Israel and Palestine – and decades of violent sparring between various factions ensued.
U.N. Human Rights chief Volker Turk has condemned Israeli retaliatory air strikes against the Hamas militant group for targeting residential buildings and schools across the Gaza Strip. He added that ‘sieges’ were illegal under international law.
Turk also condemned ‘horrifying mass killings by members of Palestinian armed groups’ and said the militants’ abduction of hostages was also forbidden under international law.
An Israeli fire fighter walks through the aftermath of burned cars after a rocket fired from the Gaza Strip hit Ashdod, Israel, on Monday
The Israeli military said on Monday it had called up an unprecedented 300,000 reservists and was imposing a total blockade of the Gaza Strip, in a sign it may be planning a ground assault in response to the devastating weekend attacks by Hamas gunmen.
Israel’s air attacks – the worst in the 75-year history of its conflict with the Palestinians – also hit ‘premises of the UN relief and works agency, UNRWA (U.N. Palestinian refugee agency),’ a U.N. rights office statement said, adding that civilians were among the dead and injured.
Netanyahu vowed to take ‘mighty revenge’ after the Hamas attack left its streets strewn with bodies.
Israeli media said 900 people were killed in the attacks and most were civilians, while nearly 700 Gazans were killed in Israeli strikes, according to Gaza officials, with entire districts flattened.
The United Nations said more than 180,000 Gazans had been made homeless, many huddling on streets or in schools.
At the morgue in Gaza’s Khan Younis hospital, bodies were laid on the ground on stretchers with names written on their bellies. Medics called for relatives to pick up bodies quickly because there was no more space for the dead.
Israel’s diplomatic mission in Geneva criticized Turk’s statement. ‘He cannot bring himself to condemn those who carried out the (Hamas) attacks as terrorists,’ it said.
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