Zionist Organization of America (ZOA) National President Morton A. Klein released the following statement:

It is appalling that Northwestern University President Michael Schill, Provost Kathleen Hagerty and Vice President for Student Affairs Susan Davis entered into a lopsided, dangerous agreement to appease numerous demands of the antisemitic, anti-American, anti-Israel, pro-Hamas “NU (Northwestern Univ.) Divestment Coalition”. The agreement rewards the NU Divestment Coalition’s trespass and five-day illegal encampment/occupation of Northwestern’s Deering Meadow; rewards the trespassers’ abominable, threatening behavior towards Jewish students; will cost Northwestern University many millions of dollars; will increase antisemitism and anti-Israel propagandizing at Northwestern; and will result in the NU Divestment Coalition taking further dangerous actions and making further bigoted antisemitic demands against Northwestern. Indeed, the NU Divestment Coalition’s organizers emphasized that their achievements in the agreement are only a “floor” for continuing their action to obtain even more concessions.

President Schill, Provost Hagerty, and VP Davis should be fired immediately for this disaster – and this dangerous agreement must be rescinded! If a group of white supremacists took over Deering Meadow and chanted for the deaths of Blacks, the white supremacists would be immediately removed from the campus – not rewarded with scholarships, professorships, buildings, power over vendors and investment powers. The same standard should apply here. The Northwestern officials who negotiated and entered into this agreement must be fired, and their agreement must be thrown in the dustbin. The student and faculty trespassers and promoters of anti-Jewish violence should be arrested and expelled or fired.

The Agreement: In this lopsided Agreement, the NU Divestment Coalition only agreed to remove most of their tents – something that they were already obligated to do! In other words, Northwestern gained nothing in the Agreement. (Incidentally, the tents were promptly then moved to pro-Hamas encampments at the University of Chicago, the University of Wisconsin at Madison, and the University of Wisconsin at Milwaukee.)

On the other hand, the University officials damaged the university, and especially harmed its Jewish students and faculty, by agreeing to:

• Disclose (“answer questions from internal stakeholders about”) the university’s specific holdings. The NU Divestment Coalition crowed that such disclosure is a first step towards divestment from Israel.

• Re-establish an Advisory Committee on Investment Responsibility (ACIR), including faculty and students, to be a conduit to the Board of Trustees’ Investment Committee. This will further aid the pro-Hamas coalition’s efforts to divest from Israel, Jews, and American companies that do business with Israel.

• Allow the NU Divestment Coalition to continue occupying the Deering Meadow (with one tent) until the end of the semester (the NU Divestment Coalition promptly brought in lawn chairs to replace the tents.)

• Provide full tuition and attendance costs for five Palestinian Arabs to attend Northwestern, thus bringing in even more Jew-haters and America-haters to make life on campus miserable. At current tuition rates, this will cost the university $1,825,800.00.

• Hire at least two Palestinian Arab professors for two years, thus enabling more antisemitic, anti-Israel propaganda to be inculcated at Northwestern. At reported current professor salaries, this will cost the university about $1.2 million.

• Provide immediate temporary space for MENA/Muslim students, and provide and renovate a house for MENA/Muslim students. This will bring in yet more antisemitic students to Northwestern and cost the university millions of dollars. Why is Northwestern rewarding bigoted trespassers with a newly-renovated house??

• Protect the pro-Hamas trespassers by publicly condemning their doxxing [public identification], and by advising employers not to rescind their job offers (for supposedly merely engaging in “free speech”).

• Provide additional support for Muslim and Jewish students. The “Jewish” students that this apparently refers to are the radical anti-Jewish, anti-Israel Jews of “Jewish Voice for Peace” – who demanded an “alternative” to Northwestern’s Hillel.

• Include student input regarding campus dining services and residential and retail vendors. This will enable antisemitic groups to harass and try to remove Jewish and pro-Israel vendors and services from Northwestern!

The NU Divestment Coalition’s Hamas-Related Groups and Dangerous Acts: Similar to other “Divestment Coalitions” at other universities, the NU Divestment Coalition is comprised of: the organized, well-funded Hamas-affiliate “Students for Justice in Palestine” (SJP), the vile anti-Israel group misnamed “Jewish Voice for Peace” (JVP) and “Educators for Justice in Palestine” (a faculty support group for SJP). These terror-related antisemitic, anti-Israel groups have a history of violence, intimidation and harassment, and should be thrown off campus. They certainly should not be rewarded, as they are by Northwestern University.

The Daily Northwestern reported live that during their occupation of Northwestern’s Deering Meadow, the NU Divestment Coalition:

• Called for the murder of Jews, chanting: “Intifada, Intifada, long live the Intifada.” “Intifadas” are the terror wars in which Palestinian Arab terrorists murdered and maimed over 10,000 Jews.

• Confronted and surrounded Jewish or pro-Israel individuals; and “escorted them” off the lawn, while chanting: “Shame on you,” “Settlers, settlers go back home,” and “We don’t want no Zionists here.”

• Formed threatening lines in front of pro-Israel counter-protesters.

• Justified and called for “resistance” (a well-known euphemism for terrorism) against Jews, chanting, “Resistance is justified, when people are occupied.”

• Had a “no Jews” sign (a circle and “no” slash across a Jewish star).

• Confronted security guards hired by Northwestern.

• Called for Israel’s elimination, chanting “Free, free Palestine,” “From the River to the Sea, Palestine will be free,” and defacing Northwestern’s Jacobs Center by spray-painting “Free Palestine” and “Death 2 Israel.”

• Established a memorial table to Hamas propagandist Refaat Alareer, who called Hamas’ and fellow Gazans’ October 7 atrocities “legitimate and moral” and “exactly like the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising” in a BBC interview; and repeatedly wrote on X: “ALL the rape/sexual violence allegations are lies. Israel uses them as smokescreens to justify the Gaza genocide.”

It is unconscionable that Northwestern’s president, provost and student affairs VP agreed to reward these heinous, bigoted acts with an agreement that will make the situation at Northwestern even worse in the future. The Northwestern officials who negotiated and entered into this agreement must be fired, and their agreement must be thrown in the dustbin.

The Ill Effects of Northwestern’s Previous Israelophobic Faculty Decisions: Steven Thrasher, an infamous, deceptive Israelophobic professor at Northwestern’s Medill School of Journalism, Media, Integrated Marketing Communications, joined and egged on the Hamas-allied trespassers every day, praising them for “putting their bodies on the line” and telling them: “You will not stop and not rest until the University meets your demands,” and accusing the police of “assaulting” the trespassers. Thrasher also recently participated in the similar encampment at Columbia University.

In 2019, ZOA had called on Northwestern to rescind its professorship offer to Thrasher, after Thrasher hijacked his NYU graduation ceremony to defame Israel, and to praise and say that it was everyone’s duty on every campus to promote the Jew-hating, terror-linked Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) and virulent BDS groups; including SJP, whose members intimidate, harass, assault and torment Jewish students. NYU’s president condemned Thrasher’s offensive rant – which made graduating Jewish students and their families feel unwelcome, and which Thrasher had deceptively excluded “from the version of the speech he had submitted before the ceremony.” (See “ZOA Criticizes Northwestern for Failing to Rescind “Journalism” Professorship and Chair of Israelophobe Steven Thrasher,” May 29, 2019.) Too bad Northwestern refused to listen to ZOA then. It’s not too late to rectify this now. Thrasher should be fired, and the student trespassers and violence-promoters should be expelled from Northwestern now. It is outrageous that Northwestern’s officials instead agreed to hire more antisemitic Steven Thrashers and give full scholarships to and cover expenses for more students who will become the future Jew-hating-and-tormenting Steven Thrashers.