John Strauss is a tenured professor of economics at the University of Southern California. Crossing the campus in late November, he came across a pro-Hamas demonstration. Being pro-Israel, he proclaimed aloud his hatred for Hamas, the group whose operatives on October 7 beheaded babies, burned children alive, tortured and raped young girls, gouged out eyes, sliced off breasts, and cut off the genitalia of Israelis, both before and after death, murdered children in front of their parents and parents in front of their children. Robert Spencer wrote about this briefly here, and more on what happened to Professor Strauss after he made his remarks, can be found here: “Jewish USC professor barred from campus after criticizing Hamas,” Israel National News, November 22, 2023:
The University of Southern California has banned a Jewish professor with tenure from teaching on campus for the rest of the semester for criticizing the Hamas terrorist organization.
Economics Professor John Strauss confronted anti-Israel demonstrators during a “Shut it Down for Palestine” protest on the USC campus on November 9.
The demonstrators accused Strauss of stepping on a list of people killed in Israeli airstrikes in Gaza and yelled “shame on you, Professor Strauss, shame on you.”
The professor responded: “No, shame on you. You people are ignorant. Really ignorant. Hamas are murderers. That’s all they are. Every one should be killed, and I hope they all are.”
The pro-Hamas students, determined to get Professor Strauss in trouble, posted a misleading clip that left out Strauss’ denunciation of Hamas, making it appear that he was calling for the death of all the Palestinians. So he was made to say “Everyone [of you] should be killed, and I hope they all are.”
About a dozen students complained to the university administration and claimed that Strauss threatened them. The next day, the associate dean called Strauss and told him he was being placed on administrative leave would only be allowed to teach his courses remotely for the rest of the semester.
Do you think a lone professor would have “threatened” dozens of angry pro-Palestinian students physically? How likely is that? What was the nature of that supposed threat made by Professor Strauss? And after a dozen of those students made their claim to the administration, why was it that the very next day, without even talking to Professor Strauss to hear his version of events — whatever happened to due process? — he was placed on administrative leave for the rest of the semester? Shouldn’t there have been an investigation into what Strauss said, rather than immediate acceptance of what those students claimed?
Strauss said in an interview with USC Annenberg Media that his comments were misrepresented to portray him as calling for the murder of Palestinian Arabs. “I’m Jewish, I’m very pro-Israel,” he said. “And so I yelled out ‘Israel forever. Hamas are murderers.’”
A petition calling on the university to fire Strauss has garnered over 6,700 signatures. A competing petition demanding the university allow Strauss to teach on campus has garnered over 9,200 signatures.
Well, so far, so outrageous. The administration has placed Strauss on administrative leave, requiring him to teach his courses remotely for the rest of the semester (fortunately, the semester has only a few more weeks to run). This decision was taken without allowing him to present his version of events. And the pro-Hamas students have done still worse: they have deliberately misrepresented what he said, so that it appears that he was denouncing, and wishing death upon, all Palestinians and not Hamas alone. But he was quite clear in his condemnation: “No, shame on you. You people are ignorant. Really ignorant. Hamas are murderers. That’s all they are. Every one [of them] should be killed, and I hope they all are.”
As one more example of the madness of anti-Israel crowds, some have called for this tenured professor to be fired, all because he expressed his hatred for torturers, rapists, sadistic mass murderers. We live in a world where the pathological condition known as antisemitism is twisting everything. Mass murderers are praised, while those who try to defend their people against those mass murderers are denounced. A fine world, my masters!
Wellington says
The least free places in America today are found in various educational institutions, from pre-K through graduate school. Most education in America has become an enemy of America—and the truth.
By now, one knows this or should know it. I have little to zero patience with those who, for whatever stupid or vile reason (and yes, it is either stupid or vile) refuse to know this. All are deficient human beings, only the extent of such being a variable.
Bexarkat says
It’s really quite disgusting the lar left (and probably the not so far left) conflate Hamas with all of Palestinians. Of course, I can understand their confusion since 75% of Palestinians support Hamas and the othert 25% are human shields.
Ian Carruthers says
Accept, every person has an opinion, and respect this fact, ignorance of this fact is how wars are started
Walter Sieruk says
The reason this professor was put on administrative leave for speaking out about that dangerous and deadly Hamas is because some people can’t tolerate the truth becoming known.
That also reveals the stealth jihadist influences in the institutions of “higher educations.”
Lisel Sipes says
California is a sewer of walking garbage that would support a pile of shit like Hamas. Birds of a feather.
James Lincoln says
Lisel,
To your point, back in 2018 a very large medical group canceled a convention in San Francisco due to safety and hygiene concerns.
The city lost millions.
Leonard Gearhardt says
Hmmm, where is Cry- Bully ADL now, and why aren’t they going to bat for Professor Strauss?
libertyORdeath says
Better speak up while you can!
https://johnfromjamestowne.substack.com/p/the-other-palestine
MICHAEL JAY MCCARTHY says
Despicable. USC should lose all federal funding.
Troybeam says
Saturday, September 15, 2007 / A great and honest read.
And Shariah For All?
By Diana West
The story of the week wasn’t Gen. David Petraeus’ testimony on Iraq, although it dominated the headlines. The story of the week wasn’t the sixth return of Sept. 11 since the jihad atrocity of 2001, although it inspired many public statements and ceremonies. The week’s biggest story garnered little press and few comments. But, in a significant way, this overlooked story — an outrageous display of police force in Brussels on Sept. 11, 2007 — symbolizes the missing link in our flawed comprehension of both Iraq and Sept. 11.
There, in the so-called capital of Europe, 200 people marked the day with a protest against the Islamization of Europe — a civilizational shift which, as Europe increasingly accommodates Shariah (Islamic law), is shockingly advanced. Indeed, Middle East expert Bernard Lewis has already predicted Europe will become Islamic by century’s end. Absent a reversal of Islamization (which remains possible) I’m guessing sooner than that.
The assembly, sponsored by Stop the Islamization of Europe (SIOE), was wholly peaceful — at least until Belgian police showed up. With a chopper above, water cannon nearby, they didn’t break heads, exactly — nothing so kind as that. In a photo that should be titled The New Face of Fascism (see it at http://www.brusselsjournal.com/node/2441), we see black-clad Belgian policemen brutalizing a man in a light-colored suit and tie. His hands are cuffed behind his back, his right elbow is clasped in what is known as an arm-bar hold, and he is also being subjected to a genital hold — a vicious grip that, a retired cop friend of mine tells me, would get any American policeman thrown off the force.
The man under arrest was Frank Vanhecke, president of the Flemish secessionist party Vlaams Belang and a member of European Parliament. Also arrested and beaten was Filip Dewinter, who, as the leading politician of Vlaams Belang, Belgium’s largest opposition party, has personally garnered 25 percent of the electorate. (You can find a picture of Belgian police forcing Dewinter to the ground online at kleinverzet.blogspot.com.)
These men are invariably described as “far-right” politicians, as though “far-right”-ness alone (whatever that means when totalitarian police tactics are considered tolerant left) is rationale enough for harsh treatment. I’ve met both men and know them as free-market, small-government conservatives who deeply believe Western civilization is worth defending against the Islamization that occurs with the entrenchment of Shariah. Indeed, they are bravely trying to prevent Europe’s Islamization, practically by themselves. I say “bravely” because in Europe these days, as we know from the Islam-motivated murders of Pim Fortuyn and Theo van Gogh, such beliefs can get you killed.
Maybe so, a reader might say. But what does protesting Shariah in Europe have to do with either American policy in Iraq or Sept. 11?
The answer is everything. What were the attacks of Sept. 11 all about? Al Qaeda’s terrorist plot was designed not only to strike at the United States, but also to advance the cause of establishing an Islamic caliphate — a world government ruled according to Shariah, which, among other things, forbids criticism of Islam. Polls indicate that sizable numbers of Muslims (solid majorities in key countries), regardless of their opinion of Al Qaeda, share this same goal of a Shariat-based, Islamic caliphate. This is a highly significant overlap between the goals of Islamic terrorism and what we think of as mainstream Islam.
Meanwhile, though, in our childish, PC wisdom (accepted across the political spectrum), we have let Islam off the hook when it comes to terrorism, sticking to the story that our whole problem is with a Tiny Band of Extremists That Hijacked Islam, not the jihadist teachings of Islam itself. To make the story stick, we also seem to ignore the impetus behind Islamic terrorism — the imposition of Shariah, what with its ultimate institutional denigrations of non-Muslims and women, and its denial of freedom of conscience and expression.
This blinkered view of Islam explains how even in our commemorations of Sept. 11 we ignore the ongoing threat to liberty posed by the spread of Shariah across the West, which the SIOE was trying to protest. It even helps explain our confusion over Iraq, where, ignoring the formative influence of Shariah on the native culture, we are stumped by our failures to remake Iraq in our own Western image.
There is another consequence of our blindness: a terrible indifference to cultural allies in Europe who are fighting its Islamization — a cataclysm for the liberty-based West.
We ignore them at our peril.
James Lincoln says
Maybe the leadership at crappy USC is doing this professor a favor.
Now he can find employment at a conservative college.