Office Hours: Should employers refuse to hire students who blame Israel?

Friends,

I continue to be horrified by what has and is occurring in Israel and Gaza, as I’m sure you are. The atrocities committed by Hamas militants a week and a half ago were unmitigated evil. But that evil does not render morally justifiable retaliatory airstrikes on Gaza or a siege that cuts off electricity, food, and water — causing innocent people grievous injury or death. The only moral certainty here is the need to minimize further human suffering.

Shortly after the horrific mass killing and kidnapping of Israelis, several Harvard student groups issued a statement blaming “the Israeli regime” for the massacre, and saying that it “did not occur in a vacuum.” The statement went on to say that “for the last two decades, millions of Palestinians in Gaza have been forced to live in an open-air prison. Israeli officials promise to ‘open the gates of hell,’ and the massacres in Gaza have already commenced. … In the coming days, Palestinians will be forced to bear the full brunt of Israel’s violence. The apartheid regime is the only one to blame.”