Capitol Hill is habitually leapfrogging meaningful censure and castigation of its blind support of a genocidal regime on occupied territories. The exponential arms sales, political statements hailing Israeli crackdown while ignoring crimes against humanity, and attempts to silence Palestinian voices on university campuses has become the standard modus operandi in a highly polarizing and divisive domestic and international environment. In essence, the 2023 crisis has demonstrated that the Joe Biden administration has lived up to the toxic legacy of its predecessor or the disgraced former President, Donald Trump, in allowing Zionism to run amok and stripping the Palestinians of their just right to self-determination. The latest bigoted stunt witnessed in Congress was an attempt to strip off reputed academics from their posts in some of the best institutions in the world. 

The strategy employed goes right up to the President of Harvard University, of which the latter by all metrics, is the best academic institution in the world. The victim is Dr. Claudine Gay who is the first black President in the university’s illustrious 400-year history. Her testimony, in front of a House Committee on Anti-Semitism at American Universities, did not go down well with GOP House Conference Chairwoman, Elise Stefanik, who stated that such university professors made history by putting the most morally bankrupt testimony into the Congressional record. Additionally, more than seventy lawmakers from both sides of the political spectrum, added Gay’s and University of Pennsylvania’s President Elizabeth Magill’s names to a letter demanding their removal. Magill eventually had to step down after releasing a video expressing regret over her testimony. 

The question remains- what exactly was Gay’s crime? She simply did not provide an adequate response on condemning Hamas for its attack on the Israelis and responded evasively to the subsequent congressional hearing on anti-Semitism. Additionally, Gay alongside MIT President Sally Kornbluth and Magill were unable to explicitly state that calls for genocide of Jews would violate Harvard’s code of conduct which resulted in a knee-jerk response from the US corporate sector, politicians, and donors. This involved coming down hard on the world’s leading academics and pressuring them to step down from their respective posts. 

In light of this, it is unfathomable that a country that purportedly seeks to uphold ‘freedom of expression’ and ‘diversity of thought’ is clamping down on academics who refuse to toe the status quo on genocidal machineries of the Israelis and their supporters. While there is little doubt that attacks against Jews have taken place on university campuses, the GOP House Conference has chosen to ignore similar attacks on Palestinian students, activists, academics, and social media influencers. These shocking attacks have been left unchecked by university and state-level law enforcement agencies in the United States. As a result, taking exception to the so-called ‘evasive’ answers by US academics who are shrewd enough to point out equivalences between Israel’s genocide of Palestinians and Hamas, cannot detract from realities such as three Palestinian students being attacked by gunmen in the US state of Vermont or bloodlust from Jewish students against their Palestinian counterparts in both Columbia and Harvard universities. 

In fact, by muzzling out dissent in world-renowned academic institutions with a legacy of promoting critical inquiries, theories, and informed discourses aimed at fostering peace and interfaith harmony, the US Congress is implementing dictatorial strategies that support the status quo. In essence, far-right Zionist voices are given a level playing field while Palestinian dissent is noosed and dubbed as inflammatory and contrary to democratic norms. This is both ironic and an absurd display of apathy as the President’s being targeted hail from the very same universities that were and continue to be champions of anti-apartheid advocacy, whether it was during the pre-1994 South Africa period or presently in 2023 with the Israeli occupation of Palestine becoming more entrenched and consolidated.

Yet, as a testament to abiding by principles of humanity, the Executive Committee of Harvard University’s Alumni Association announced its unwavering support for Gay and over eight hundred African American alumni praised her efforts towards building a resilient, inclusive and tolerant community at Harvard while promoting freedom of speech and thought. As per economy professor, Dr. Jason Furman who was also the top advisor to President Barack Obama, it is hoped that the Harvard Corporation continues to press figures such as Claudine Gay and other schools to fix mistakes and move forward in a better way. 

What is not promising, however, is the state of the US Congress. Stuck in the whims of policy making, the Biden administration with the same, putrid rhetoric of ‘the United States stands with Israel’, fails to convince seasoned academics such as Norman Finkelstein of the merits of America’s policy making in the Middle East which ignores the plights of the Palestinians. To target academics wantonly shows that Washington D.C. is adamant that the Palestinian cause has to be belittled and made irrelevant even if it means flashing the ‘anti-Semitism’ card. Even that is a controversial endeavor, given that there remain stark differences between supporting Zionism and supporting the extermination of Jews of which the latter is not something that any Palestinian or sane mind would endorse. 

Yet insanity is permeating in the US Congress on the subject of "Israel". Roping in academics who have nothing to do with arming or supporting the genocide but have the sense to maintain a balanced perspective, is a deplorable strategy.