Queens College president condemns Muslim student group’s denial of Hamas attacks
Frank Wu, who heads Queens CUNY campus, says ‘false and misleading’ posts about ‘obvious atrocities’ are ‘hurtful, offensive’
View of the Rosenthal Library at Queens College in New York. Photo by iStock/Littleny
By Beth Harpaz November 8, 2023
The president of Queens College on Wednesday condemned social media posts by a Muslim student group that “deny the brutal actions and atrocities committed by Hamas” on Oct. 7.
“Queens College strongly denounces such obviously false and misleading posts that in no way represent the views of Queens College,” said Frank H. Wu, president of the college, which is part of the City University of New York. “This behavior is contrary to our community values.”
In an open letter, Wu added that while “we respect and uphold freedom of speech, this same right includes our condemnation of the denial included in these posts of the obvious atrocities that occurred on October 7. We will not hesitate to denounce what is so deeply hurtful, offensive, and damaging.”
Muslim student group alleges ‘Zionist false narrative’
The posts denying Hamas attacks appeared as Instagram stories earlier this week on the Queens College Muslim Students Association account. Instagram stories only remain visible for 24 hours, but others made screenshots of the posts. One post by the student group falsely claimed there is “ZERO evidence that Palestinians deliberately killed women and children. There is a great deal of video evidence that they deliberately *avoided* targeting women and children. There is nothing wrong with Palestinians taking prisoners of war in their struggle against the Zionist terror occupation. We cannot allow the Zionist false narrative (to) become the accepted history of what happened.”
Hamas gunmen murdered 1,400 people in surprise attacks Oct. 7, carrying out massacres at kibbutzim and a music festival. They also took 240 hostages, including a baby and seven more children under the age of 5. Israel is now waging a war on Gaza that Gaza health officials say has killed more than 10,000 people, including thousands of children.
Wu said the school’s Office of Compliance & Diversity was investigating the student group’s posts, and those responsible for them “may be subject to sanction and/or disciplinary action. We have contacted and will continue to cooperate with the NYPD regarding these incidents.”
He exhorted the college community to “respectfully engage in civil dialogue and factual discourse, consistent with college and university policies as well as governmental laws.”
The U.S. Department of Education issued a memo Tuesday reminding schools of their legal obligation under Title VI of the Civil Rights Act to provide an environment free from discrimination or harassment for all students, including those who “are or are perceived to be Jewish, Israeli, Muslim, Arab, or Palestinian.” Schools that fail to address such bias risk losing federal funding under Title VI of the Civil Rights Act.
Holocaust denial and now ‘massacre denial’
Many pro-Palestinian voices on social media and elsewhere have denied the veracity of the Hamas attacks. On Wednesday, Israeli police released eyewitness testimony of a gang rape and murder by Hamas terrorists carrying out the massacre at the music festival, and within minutes of a Haaretz police reporter posting a horrific excerpt from the report, trolls responded with comments like this: “The problem is that your propaganda isn’t working, and no one believes it.”
For decades, Jewish institutions, government agencies and other entities around the world have devoted considerable resources to fighting Holocaust denial, described by the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum as claims that “the Holocaust was invented or exaggerated by Jews as part of a plot to advance Jewish interests.” Those efforts fighting Holocaust denial have included publicizing detailed testimony by Holocaust survivors about their ordeals, opening concentration camp sites to the public and requiring Holocaust history in curricula.
Now the Israeli government has similarly started to fight “massacre denial.” Israeli officials have begun showing a 43-minute film documenting atrocities committed by Hamas on Oct. 7 to invitation-only events for journalists, Jewish organizations and Hollywood celebrities. While some of the footage came from Israeli security cameras, much of it was shot by Hamas gunmen themselves on cellphones, GoPros and bodycams as they carried out the attacks. Israel Defense Forces originally planned to withhold the footage out of respect for the victims and their families. But as propaganda began to crop up denying what had happened, officials decided to show the film to counter that misinformation.
“We all know about Holocaust denial,” Israel’s U.N. ambassador, Gilad Erdan, told journalists at a screening in New York. “We are starting to see a phenomenon of massacre denial.”
Senior political reporter Jacob Kornbluh contributed to this story.
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