Cornell Newspaper Publishes Nazi Symbol in Anti-Israel Essay

Cornell University took center stage in another campus antisemitism outrage on Thursday, as its student newspaper published an anti-Zionist opinion piece which promoted Holocaust inversion by melding a Nazi symbol with the Star of David.

The article, titled “Thousand & One Eyes for an Eye” and written by indigenous studies professor Karim-Aly Assam, argued that Israel’s military strategy for the Gaza war against Hamas prioritized revenge for the Oct. 7 massacre over security “under the pretext of obtaining justice.” The article further accused Israeli officials of describing Palestinians as “animals” to justify “ruthless destruction and killing” — a gross distortion of Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant’s describing the Hamas fighters who murdered, raped, and maimed women, children, and men on Oct. 7 “human animals” two days after the atrocities transpired.

Assam’s article implied an equivalence of Israel’s military objective to eradicate Hamas from Gaza with the Nazi genocide of Jews across Europe during World War II, a trope which anti-Israel activists and antisemites traffic to foster negative public opinion against Israel’s efforts to secure its borders and quell jihadist activity in the Palestinian territories that has sabotaged efforts to reach a two-state solution and achieve peace with Israel’s neighbors.

The tactic — Holocaust inversion — is one part of a triad of Holocaust-skepticism, the other two components of which are “denial” and “distortion” — used to defame Jews and deny that they are and have been victims of hatred. Once reserved to neo-Nazi media, Holocaust inversion, experts say, is being increasingly embraced by other more mainstream segments of society.

Assam’s attempt to erase Jewish suffering during the Holocaust is clear, Cornell University professor William Jacobson said in an interview with the New York Post.

“It reflects the normalization of Holocaust inversion, both on the internet and now on Cornell’s campus,” Jacobson said. “This [SS lightning bolt] graphic is specifically inside a bloody Jewish star. No reflection of it being even related to Israel. And it clearly is pursuing the idea that Jews are the new Nazis. And so I think it’s obviously highly offensive.”

Following the incident, Cornell unpublished and then re-published Assam’s essay. Later, Eric Han, a Daily Sun editor — claiming not to speak for the organization but as an individual — defended publishing the drawing, arguing that it “clearly depicts that the Palestinian subject has been violently (i.e. bloodily) branded with the SS symbol.”

He added, “I would find it very difficult to dispute the claim that that the Israeli government is similar to the Nazi regime” and claimed that criticism of Assam is evidence of rising “threats levied against academic freedom on campus.”

On Thursday, Kassam said that he regrets how “some” people “interpreted” the drawing.

“I am deeply saddened to learn that this portion of the artwork has been interpreted by some as antisemitic,” he told the New York Post. “That was not my intention and I have learned from this experience.”

Cornell University stands with other Ivy League campuses in being plagued by incidents which exhibit a severity of anti-Jewish hatred not seen in the Western world since the rise of the Nazis.

Just last week, a Cornell professor who according to the school violated federal anti-discrimination law when he expelled an Israeli student from class opted to retire rather than serve a two-semester suspension he received as punishment for the incident.

Follow Dion J. Pierre @DionJPierre.