The University of Pittsburgh chapter of Students for Justice in Palestine plans to host an event on Holocaust Remembrance Day, which falls this year on Thursday. The purpose of this event is not to commemorate the Holocaust but rather to vandalize the day by painting Israelis as modern-day Nazis.
This perverse ahistorical comparison fits squarely under the State Department definition of anti-Semitism. According to Pitt, however, this is academically enriching and students can be given incentives to attend.
As stated on Web pages advertising this event, “SJP Holocaust Rememberence [sic] Day” … “qualifies and is offered as [Outside the Classroom Curriculum] credit.”
According to the Pitt website, OCC is “designed to help students receive a well-rounded education … and ultimately gain a competitive edge.” By recording one’s attendance at 70 events over four years in 10 different “goal areas,” students can earn the right to “graduate with distinction” and qualify for a $1,500 Pitt Advantage Grant, among other “perks.” Any student can use attendance at SJP’s event to eventually be honored and rewarded by the university.
This adds insult to injury. SJP works to destroy Israel through isolation and economic warfare. SJP would deny self-determination to the Jewish people alone and proudly rejects dialogue with pro-Israel students. SJP routinely violates pro-Israel students’ right to assemble by disrupting their events. At Pitt last November, masked demonstrators disrupted an event featuring an Israeli military officer that SJP also was protesting, though SJP claimed it had no connection to the masked intruders.
SJP says it does all of this in the name of humanitarianism and Palestinian rights, but it is largely silent about Palestinians being brutalized by the Palestinian Authority, Hamas, Syria and now the so-called Islamic State. It is bad enough that Pitt lets this kind of anti-Semitism be part of its academic milieu, but, sadly, Pitt is not unique in this. To reward students for attending an event whose hateful motive is so self-evident is indefensible.