AIPAC uses the US Congress to attack US university students and faculty

Steven Sahiounie , journalist and political commentator

On December 5, Harvard University’s Claudine Gay, the University of Pennsylvania’s Liz Magill and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Sally Kornbluth appeared before the House Committee on Education and the Workforce. The US Congress held televised hearings in which the three US college presidents were grilled about their campus policies governing student safety and hate speech. The three were all females and Claudine Gay was the only woman of color.

House GOP Conference Chair Elise Stefanik repeatedly questioned the three educators, asking if their campus policy allows for calling for the genocide of the Jewish people.

Rep. Virginia Foxx of North Carolina, the committee’s Republican chairwoman, said administrators “have largely stood by, allowing horrific rhetoric to fester and grow” amid “countless examples of antisemitic demonstrations on college campuses.” The demonstrations were not antisemitic , but were Pro-Palestinian.

The three educators replied with legal theories and convoluted statements which infuriated the Congressional panel. The American people were most likely disappointed in the replies, as the question is very simple to answer from a moral and ethical standpoint: no hate speech calling for the genocide of any group should be condoned on any campus.

The educators failed to present their policies clearly, which resulted in the eventual resignation of Liz Magill, the Penn leader.

From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free. This is the chant voiced by US students of colleges and universities in the US after the October 7 attack on Israel, which began a brutal bombardment of the Palestinian people in Gaza. The gruesome Israeli attack on Gaza has killed upward of 20,000 people, and was launched as a revenge attack for the Hamas attack which killed about 1,200 Israelis, and over 100 were taken as hostages to Gaza.

The Zionist Israeli Jews also use that phrase, ‘from the river to the sea’, to refer to their religious belief that God gave them all the land from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea. They consider the Bible to be their deed to the land, and the Israeli Ambassador to the UN actually held up the Old Testament and called it their national deed to all of the land from the river to the sea.

The Israeli government neither considers the Palestinians people to have any right to any portion of the land, nor any human rights.

The chant, from the river to the sea, is describing a piece of geography, and calling for the freedom of the Palestinian people who have suffered a brutal military occupation by Israel since 1948, in which they have been denied human rights, property rights, and are a stateless people, despite the UN resolution calling for a two-state solution in which the Gaza and West Bank portions of the land would form a Palestinian state separate of Israel.

The chant does not call for the genocide of Jews, or Israelis, or any other peoples. It describes a place, and calls for freedom.

The American people, as well as Europeans, have responded to the 3 months of gruesome butchery in Gaza with huge protests in major cities across the western and democratic world, as well as college students have taken up the cause of Palestinians rights, and the anti-war theme which is familiar to college campuses in the US from the days of the Vietnam, Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya and Syria wars carried out by the US and NATO.

These young students, and faculty as well, are seeking justice and freedom for Palestine and are not calling for the destruction of, or genocide of the Jews, or Israelis, or any other group.

How did the US Congress determine to spend time on this topic, when the Congress faces pressing issues which have yet to be decided upon, such as funding for allies in war, immigration policies, and a looming budget crisis? Why would the US Congress take the time and effort, and the resulting media coverage on prime time broadcasts, to focus on three US campuses and their policies?

The answer is AIPAC. The American Israel Political Action Committee is one of the hardest working, most dedicated and successful lobby groups in American history. For decades, it has been widely accepted, and numerous books written on the subject, exposing the unusually high influence AIPAC has on the Oval Office, State Department, and the US Congress, both in the Senate and the House of Representatives.

Many critics and experts alike have said for decades that AIPAC controls the US government. That is a broad statement, and the reality is that AIPAC holds control over those issues which are in the interest of Israel.

A Harvard-Harris poll was conducted on people aged 18-24 since the October 7 attack. The question to the youthful group was, “Was the Hamas attack on Israel justified given the past history?” 51% answered “yes”.

This poll was a shock to AIPAC, and directly threatened the interest of Israel, and presented a potential existential threat to the very existence of the Jewish State of Israel.

Ariel Sharon, former Defense Minister and Prime Minister of Israel, said that Israel need not worry about a unified Arab threat to destroy Israel, but the only threat to the existence of Israel would be a situation developing in which the US would stop their full and unconditional support of Israel and the Israeli occupation of Palestine.

America is their strongest supporter, but also a weak-link for Israel. The Biden administration has maintained total and unconditional support of Israel in the face of the Hamas attack. Even though the UN and virtually all the international community has called for a ceasefire in Gaza, the US has continued to steadfastly promote the genocide of the Palestinian people of Gaza. US President Joe Biden is a career politician, and has learned his lessons well over decades in the Congress. He knows full well that AIPAC controls the narrative, and any US official cannot stand up to AIPAC and hope to survive in their career, elections, and it can potentially affect their health, safety and family members.

The Biden administration’s workforce comprises younger and more diverse people than ever before in US history. In the White House there have been heated discussions and complaints about the Israeli policies carried out in Gaza which are not in line with American democratic values, or humanitarian laws. At the State Department, Josh Paul, a veteran weapons section manager, resigned out of protest after Biden insisted on fast-tracking weapons to Israel even though the US policy to hold up weapons to any conflict which might be breaking humanitarian and international laws of war. Others in the State Department have complained so much that Secretary of State Antony Blinken was forced to address some of their concerns. He never changed his pro-Israel policy, and his workforce in general has held their complaints in silence out of the fear their career would be affected by AIPAC.

American foreign policy to Israel is held in bondage by AIPAC. When the public tide of opinion on college campuses in the US was seen to be swiftly moving against the Israeli war on Gaza, and standing in support of the Palestinian cause of freedom, AIPAC went to work and organized the US Congressional hearings to grill and demean the three educators. The goal was to present a different narrative to the US public, a type of conspiracy theory, in which evil educators and leaders of leading US higher educational facilities were encouraging extremist views among young impressionable students.

Instead of focusing on the death and suffering of the people in Gaza, being killed by US weapons sent free of charge to Israel, paid for by the hard working US taxpayer; the focus would shift away from the root cause of the war, to ultimately be lost on the condemnation of educators, campus policies, and the view that American students are too stupid to form their own opinions.

Christopher F. Rufo, a conservative activist against critical race theory, singled out Gay for attack, the only person of color involved in the issue following the Congressional hearing. The New York Post wrote about allegations of plagiarism by Gay, but did not provide a source for the allegations, which had been circulating on anonymous chat forums accompanied by racial epithets and conspiracy theories.

Rufo admitted he timed the publication of his initial allegations of plagiarism to do maximal damage to Gay’s presidency at Harvard.

A review by Harvard of the past writings by Gay said the passages at issue, “while regrettable, did not constitute research misconduct,” which had to involve “intentional deception or recklessness.”

Gay has held on to her position, but the attacks upon her demonstrate the far reaching hand of political groups to seek to demean, embarrass and harass Gay, the child of Haitian immigrants, who had to deal with social issues to get to the position she holds at Harvard.

Steven Sahiounie is a two-time award-winning journalist