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Harvard Relocates Program From Hamas-Friendly University Over ‘Security Concerns’

   DailyWire.com
Birzeit University students affiliated with Hamas and Harvard
Harvard University and students at Birzeit University. Photo by Michael Fein/Bloomberg via Getty Images and Photo by Issam Rimawi/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images

Harvard University has relocated a summer program with a Palestinian university whose faculty and students have endorsed and collaborated with Hamas and other terror groups, a spokesman told The Daily Wire.

Birzeit University, which called for “glory for the martyrs” after Hamas’s October 7 terrorist massacre in Israel, was slated to host Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health’s “Palestine Social Medicine Course” from July to August. But the school has moved the program to Jordan, a spokesman told The Daily Wire, “due to security concerns in the West Bank.”

According to the program’s website, the “three-week intensive summer course is designed to introduce students to the social, structural, political, and historical aspects that determine Palestinian health beyond the biological basis of disease.” 

The program kicks off this week and ends August 17.

Students on the trip will learn from health practitioners, academics, and activists about topics including “Settler colonialism and its manifestations in Palestine” and “Health and racism,” the website states. 

Harvard’s relationship with Birzeit University came under scrutiny after The Daily Wire revealed the Palestinian university’s connections with terrorists and anti-Semites, prompting a group of lawmakers to call for an end to the partnership.

On October 10, Birzeit University’s school’s X account called for “glory for the martyrs” and repeatedly declared support for student encampments on American college campuses whose members harassed Jewish students.

The account also mourned “with great pride the martyr,” Aysar Safi, a student killed in a combat mission against the IDF, who was a member of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), according to the terrorist group’s website. Birzeit posted a photo of Safi’s on-campus funeral, where attendees were seen holding flags of the student wing of the PFLP and Hamas’s al-Qassam brigade.

Hanan Ashrawi, chairman of the university’s board of trustees, denied that Hamas sexually assaulted Israeli civilians on October 7. Ashrawi has also defended Hezbollah, and endorsed the lynching of Israeli soldiers, according to CAMERA UK.

On October 11, Ashrawi said Israel’s “spin machine” was “manufacturing horrific lies in an orchestrated smear campaign claiming rape, slaughtering babies, beheadings, burnings alive,” and claimed Western media “immediately swallowed & regurgitated such vile slander.” 

In March, Ashrawi denied a United Nations report that concluded Hamas committed sexual violence, stating that the report was invalid because it primarily included interviews with Israelis.

The Palestinian school describes itself as a “thorn in the side of the occupation” and says it is committed to making an impact through “resistance.” Birzeit has a building named after Kamal Nasser, the leader of Black September, the terror group that kidnapped and killed 11 Israeli athletes at the 1972 Munich Olympics.

Birzeit also has annual on-campus military parades where students honor Hamas and PFLP with mock suicide belts and rockets, and chants calling to “blow up the settler’s head,” the Middle East Media Research Institute reported.

The university’s student body has closely aligned itself with terrorist groups. During the school’s 2023 student council elections, the Hamas-affiliated Islamic Bloc won 25 of the 51 seats. The PFLP-affiliated group picked up six seats in the race, which had a 77 percent voter turnout, according to the Jerusalem Post.

Many Birzeit students have been arrested for assisting and joining terror groups. Last week, five members of Birzeit’s student council were arrested for attempting to carry out a shooting terror attack on behalf of Hamas. The group had an assault rifle and thousands of dollars in cash from Hamas at the time of arrest, the Times of Israel reported.

In 2022, Birzeit students were arrested for helping to launder money for terrorist attacks from Gaza to Hamas members in Turkey, The Jerusalem Post reported. On X, Birzeit said 140 students and four staff members were in prison in April.

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The Daily Wire   >  Read   >  Harvard Relocates Program From Hamas-Friendly University Over ‘Security Concerns’