Epigraph:
Every human life is precious and sacred and killing an innocent is like triggering a genocide. (Al Quran 5:32/33)
By Matt Egan, CNN
Updated 3:53 PM EDT, Wed October 11, 2023
Source: CNN
Billionaire hedge fund CEO Bill Ackman and several other business leaders are demanding Harvard University release the names of students whose organizations signed on to a letter blaming solely Israel for the deadly attacks by Hamas.
The CEOs want the students blacklisted. But some of those students have since distanced themselves from the letter.
“One should not be able to hide behind a corporate shield when issuing statements supporting the actions of terrorists,” Ackman said in a post on X, formerly known as Twitter.
If the members support the letter, the names of the signatories “should be made public so their views are publicly known,” Ackman said. The CEO of Pershing Square Capital Management said he wanted to ensure his company and others don’t “inadvertently hire” any students belonging to Harvard groups that signed the letter.
Following a backlash to the statement, some of the student groups have since withdrawn their endorsements.
Multiple other business leaders, including the CEOs of shopping club FabFitFun, health tech startup EasyHealth and Dovehill Capital Management supported the call from Ackman to name the students.
“I would like to know so I know never to hire these people,” Jonathan Neman, CEO of restaurant chain Sweetgreen, said on X.
Neither Neman nor Ackman responded to requests for comment.
Others warn that naming the students whose groups backed the statement could put the students in harms way and did not account for differences of opinion within the student groups.
Suggested additional reading
Einstein’s Quote on Human Compassion
Categories: Anti-Semitism, Counter Terrorism, Free Speech, hate speech
Why BBC doesn’t call Hamas militants ‘terrorists’ – John Simpson
Government ministers, newspaper columnists, ordinary people – they’re all asking why the BBC doesn’t say the Hamas gunmen who carried out appalling atrocities in southern Israel are terrorists.
The answer goes right back to the BBC’s founding principles.
Terrorism is a loaded word, which people use about an outfit they disapprove of morally. It’s simply not the BBC’s job to tell people who to support and who to condemn – who are the good guys and who are the bad guys.
We regularly point out that the British and other governments have condemned Hamas as a terrorist organisation, but that’s their business. We also run interviews with guests and quote contributors who describe Hamas as terrorists.
The key point is that we don’t say it in our voice. Our business is to present our audiences with the facts, and let them make up their own minds.
As it happens, of course, many of the people who’ve attacked us for not using the word terrorist have seen our pictures, heard our audio or read our stories, and made up their minds on the basis of our reporting, so it’s not as though we’re hiding the truth in any way – far from it.
Any reasonable person would be appalled by the kind of thing we’ve seen. It’s perfectly reasonable to call the incidents that have occurred “atrocities”, because that’s exactly what they are.
No-one can possibly defend the murder of civilians, especially children and even babies – nor attacks on innocent, peace-loving people who are attending a music festival.
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-67083432