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DelVal College Students Among Those Posting Pro-Hamas Messages

Students at area colleges are sending messages supporting the same Palestinian cause championed by the Hamas terrorists who killed more than 1,000 Israelis in Saturday’s horrific attack. It’s a sign, Republicans say, of the far-left extremism that makes up part of the progressive base of the Democratic Party.

While most Pennsylvania elected officials, including Democrats Gov. Josh Shapiro and progressive U.S. Sen. John Fetterman, loudly declared their support for Israel and denounced the violence from the Palestinian terrorists, liberal student groups sent a very different message.

“We…hold the Israeli government accountable for the ongoing violence,” announced student organizations at Philadelphia’s La Salle University. “The events occurring are not isolated; for the past two decades, millions of Palestinians in Gaza have been forced to live in open-air prisons. Israeli authorities have threatened to escalate the conflict, resulting in casualties in Gaza. In the days ahead, Palestinians will face the brunt of Israel’s aggression, and the blame solely lies with the apartheid regime.”

In Delaware County,  Swarthmore College’s Students for Justice in Palestine posted a statement that “honors the martyrs” who murdered Israelis, raped women, and took children hostage.

“Since early Saturday morning, Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank have valiantly confronted the imperial apparatus that has constricted their livelihoods for the past 75 years. In an unprecedented violation of Zionist intelligence and military rule, the resistance [Hamas terrorists] broke its people out of the open-air prison that is the Gaza Strip.

“Swarthmore Students for Justice in Palestine enshrines the right of the Palestinian people to resist the Zionist regime by any means necessary and honors the martyrs who have sacrificed their lives for liberation,” the Swarthmore students posted on social media.

That statement inspired a response from Dave McCormick, a Republican candidate for U.S. Senate.

“This is despicable. Glorifying Hamas terrorists who have slaughtered innocent women and children as ‘martyrs’ is unacceptable. @swarthmore: Step up, demonstrate leadership, and condemn these disgusting comments immediately,” McCormick tweeted.

Swarthmore officials did not respond to a request for comment.

The anti-Israel response appears to be part of the culture of elite, liberal universities. For example, local supporters of Israel quickly pointed out that UPenn hosted a Palestinian Writers Festival last month featuring several openly antisemitic participants. Among them, Roger Waters of Pink Floyd and Noura Erakat, a Rutgers University professor who called Zionism a “bedfellow” to Nazism.

Radio talk show host Dom Giordano said the leadership of those institutions is partially to blame for their students’ attitudes. “I think the position of the La Salle groups that supported this is indefensible. La Salle has a teachable moment to address this or support it with their silence. They should have a forum for faculty and students to discuss.”

La Salle University, a Catholic institution, posted a statement that conflated the violent attack committed by Hamas terrorists with Israel’s self-defensive actions in response.

“Over the weekend, the world witnessed the sudden violence taking place throughout Israel and Gaza. The reports, images, and videos we are seeing in the news and social media are disturbing and anguishing,” the university wrote. “We pray for peace in this part of the world and for those touched by this violence while we mourn the loss of life.”

Those views are hardly exclusive to Pennsylvania institutions.

When 35 Harvard student groups released a letter of solidarity with the Palestinians of Gaza (“We hold the Israeli regime entirely responsible for all unfolding violence”), several high-profile alums reacted in horror.

Former Harvard president Larry Summers, who previously served as U.S. treasury secretary, decried the university’s “neutral” stance in response to the student declaration. “I am sickened. I cannot fathom the administration’s failure to disassociate the university and condemn this statement,” Summers said.

At New York University Law School, the student bar association president released a statement standing with the terrorists.

“I will not condemn Palestinian resistance,” wrote Ryna Workman, who called the terrorist attacks “necessary.” Instead, “I condemn the violence of obfuscating genocide as a ‘complex issue.’”

At the University of Virginia, the Students for Justice in Palestine said, “The events that took place yesterday are a step toward a free Palestine. They reflect the power and resilience of the Palestinian people in the face of 75 years of continued brutal oppression…We stand in solidarity with Palestinian resistance fighters.”

Students at California State University at Long Beach made the most graphic statement with posters portraying a paraglider like the ones used by Hamas terrorists to attack an outdoor concert and kill hundreds.

“We will be rallying and marching in support of the Palestinian liberation and against Zionist occupation in Palestine,” the student group said.

Houck Arrest ‘Just the Beginning,’ Pro-Life Protesters Warn

Supporters of anti-abortion activist Mark Houck, taken by FBI agents from his Bucks County home last month, turned out Friday outside the U.S. Attorney’s office to protest his arrest and warn the public:

Houck’s arrest was just the beginning of the Biden administration’s targeting of pro-life Americans.

Houck, 48, of Kinternsville, was charged with violating the federal Freedom of Access of Clinic Entrances Act (FACE) regarding an October 2021 incident outside a Planned Parenthood clinic in Philadelphia. Despite local authorities declining to prosecute, and a private legal action that was also rejected, the Department of Justice chose to arrest Houck and pursue the case.

On Sept. 23, numerous armed FBI agents stormed the Houck’s home, frightening his seven children and wife, Ryan-Marie, even though his lawyers had informed the Department of Justice he was willing to turn himself in, said Peter Breen with the Thomas More Society who represents Houck.

Ashley Garecht, who has prayed outside the clinic in the past, told the 100 or so people who gathered Friday, “Mark has stood in front of that facility for years. He has prayed and counseled often in the face of vile harassment…Sadly this storyline fits all too well in Philadelphia.”

And, she noted, they were just a block away from where President Joe Biden gave his controversial speech about American extremism. Bathed in blood-red lighting and with Marines behind him, Biden spoke ominously about “MAGA forces”  that he called a threat to “the very foundations of our republic” and who are actively working to “undermine democracy itself.” Garecht pointed out Biden included prof-lifers in his remarks as well.

“President Biden made his intentions toward the pro-life community crustal clear in his alarming and malevolent speech in front of Independence Hall,” Garecht said. “Shame on him.”

 

 

In a video message released by the Thomas More Society, Breen echoed the message that Houck’s arrest is part of a larger agenda.

“Right here, right now, this is the first big case from the [Biden administration] DOJ,” Breen said. “Let’s beat the DOJ, beat them soundly in a public case that everyone’s following. And then Lord willing, you’ll have Merrick Garland, the Attorney General of the United States, called in front of Congress, to answer those tough questions: Why did you put the health family in such danger? Why are you prosecuting this peaceful man for what is at worst, a local matter at best to local matter?

“And I hope that at that point we will be finished with our trial and we’ll have gotten a not guilty verdict.”

Prominent anti-abortion activist and Fox commentator Kathy Barnette, a candidate in the GOP U.S. Senate primary earlier this year, told the crowd she thought long and hard about whether she should speak because it might lead to the government targeting her.

“What does it say about a nation who would look at the most innocent people and say, ‘You don’t matter. You don’t count?’ And then weaponize the government to intimidate those who understand that that is a life,” Barnette said.

“It is going to cost us from this point forward to say there is such a thing as truth. And I am going to stand and not cower. Ten years ago it would not have cost us what it will cost now,” she added.

Speaker after speaker called on the crowd to pray and at the end of the hour-long protest, most of those present kneeled on the hard sidewalk and prayed the “Our Father.”  Some of the speakers also told the protesters to be sure to vote in November.

Houck’s mother-in-law, Kathleen McCarthy, who also lives in Bucks County, came to the protest, along with some of Ryan-Marie’s eleven siblings.

Asked by Delaware Valley Journal how the Houck family is handling events, McCarthy said, “I will tell you God’s grace is always sufficient. They are trying to bring back what they have built all their married life, a home filled with peace, strength, and grace. And one day at a time.”

Talk radio Host Dom Giordano reminded the crowd Houck is represented by Brian J. McMonagle, “the number one defense attorney in Philadelphia.” And while this case is about the Houck family, Giordano said he hopes the “FBI agents who don’t agree with this stuff do everything in their power to slow down this weaponization against average Americans exercising their rights.”

Giordano noted the irony of Houck’s home “being raided by the FBI with that amount of force while violence and criminal behavior in Philadelphia is out of control.

“In a way, Mark Houck is doing a service not just for those potential kids at the abortion clinic. He’s doing a service for every one of us here.”

Among the protesters was Terrisa Bukovinac carrying a sign that said she is atheist, progressive, and anti-abortion. A Washington, D.C. resident, she started the nonprofit Progressive Anti-Abortion Uprising after heading a similar group in San Francisco.

Many Democrats agree that some restrictions are needed on late-term abortion, she said. “There is a lot of common ground.”

And protester Liz Madden of Radnor said she felt compelled to protest after that township passed an ordinance forbidding police to investigate abortion providers, which could result in another Kermit Gosnell, she said, referring to the infamous Philadelphia abortion provider now serving 30 years in prison for serial murder.

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