Dissent: The Editorial Board is Scared to Say The Obvious

On Oct. 7, 2023, before any bodies were buried, before we had a sense of the sheer scale of the bloodshed, while we were still frantically checking to see if our family and friends were alive, the Harvard Undergraduate Palestine Solidarity Committee issued a statement where the very first sentence blamed Israel for its own massacre.

The post’s timing was callous, its reasoning infantile, its purpose patently nonexistent.

A year later, we hoped Harvard’s pro-Palestinian coalition would have learned from the understandable backlash their offensive post occasioned, as well as the harm that backlash wrought on our campus. Evidently they did not.

On the anniversary of October 7th, the PSC and other groups took to Instagram, glorifying how “Gaza broke through Israel’s blockade,” in a demonstration that “apartheid cannot stand.”

Their enthusiastic tone — and tacit approval of the rape and the ruin, the bloodshed and the barbarism of that painful day — displays a chilling moral reprehensibility.

Recognizing this, the Editorial Board condemns the PSC’s post, but then fails to explain how our campus discourse — and their role in it — led us to this stage.

When pro-Palestinian groups published their first statement in response to October 7th — a masterclass in gaslighting and victim blaming — the Editorial Board was silent.

Then, when protesters picked up the chant “intifada” — a word that symbolizes blood and death to millions — the Editorial Board alluded to its violent history but failed to say it outright, and lacked the courage to condemn the protesters, encouraging them only to leave the word behind.

When these groups published a cartoon so obviously antisemitic the Board could no longer remain silent, our editorial excused the problem as a handful of sloppy activists insensitively posting on Instagram, ignoring the broader cultural problem plaguing our campus.

Looking back over a year, we can’t help but wonder: How many excuses must our Board offer to sanitize the hatred of an undeniably influential subset of Harvard’s pro-Palestine activists?

We’re left wondering, did our peers in the PSC not see the look on Noa Argamani’s face as she was dragged away on a Hamas motorcycle, her hand extended in a desperate plea for help? Did they not read about how 86-year-old Shlomo Manzur survived both the Holocaust and the Farhud riots in Iraq only to be taken hostage in Gaza, where he remains today? Listen to the recordings of celebratory calls home from Hamas members on the very phones of their victims?

Or did they see them, hear the cries of Jewish and Israeli pain, and ignore them, basking in self-righteousness at the expense of their moral compasses?

But we will not fall to the level of these groups. We believe the great majority of our campus — with wide and diverse political beliefs — will not, either. We know that Harvard is better than this.

Just a week before their son was murdered in Hamas captivity, the parents of Hersh Goldberg-Polin reminded us that the Jewish tradition teaches “kol adam olam um lo’o” — that “every person is an entire universe.”

As we mourn, we continue to believe that maintaining the sanctity of all life — including all Jews and Palestinians — is not just a possibility but a moral duty. We only wish that our peers would too.

Leah R. Baron ’25, a Crimson Editorial Editor, is a Statistics concentrator in Lowell House. Charles M. Covit ’27, a Crimson Editorial editor, lives in Lowell House. A. Naftali T. Horowitz ’27, a Crimson Editorial editor, lives in Cabot House. Jane S. Lichtman ’26, a Crimson Editorial editor, is a Government and History concentrator in Lowell House. Isaac R. Mansell ’26, a Crimson Editorial editor, is a Statistics concentrator in Kirkland House. Matthew E. Nekritz ’25, an Associate Editorial editor, is a Social Studies concentrator in Cabot House. Jacob M. Miller ’25, a Crimson Editorial Chair, is a double concentrator in Mathematics and Economics in Lowell House. Max A. Palys ’26, an Associate Editorial editor, is a double concentrator in Mathematics and East Asian Studies in Currier House. Maya Shiloni ’26, a Crimson Editorial editor, is a double concentrator in Government and Economics in Mather House.

Dissenting Opinions: Occasionally, The Crimson Editorial Board is divided about the opinion we express in a staff editorial. In these cases, dissenting board members have the opportunity to express their opposition to staff opinion.