The College Fix

Just like calling a black person a ‘thug,’ professor says

It is “racist” to call Hamas a “terrorist” group, according to City University of New York Professor Peter Beinart.

He “teaches national reporting and opinion writing at the Newmark J-School and political science at the CUNY Graduate Center,” according to his faculty bio. Beinart, a CNN commentator, debated Jeffrey Lax, a pro-Israel professor who is active fighting against antisemitism within the city university system.

Lax and Beinart (pictured) debated the controversial Hunter College “Palestinian Studies” job opening that explicitly looked for an activist. Democratic Governor Kathy Hochul ordered the posting taken down and it is currently being revised, as The College Fix recently reported.

During the debate, posted yesterday on X, Lax asked Beinart if the two could agree that Hamas is a terrorist group.

Beinart criticized Hamas for committing war crimes, but said he did not want to use the term “terrorist” because it is only applied to “Palestinians,” when it should also be applied to America and Israel. Furthermore, the term is “racist,” Beinart said.

“I think that Hamas committed war crimes,” the professor said. “I think Hamas’ history of targeting civilians is immoral and a violation of international law, and I oppose it with all of my being.”

“The reason that I don’t like the word terrorist is it only gets applied to what Palestinians do, and I’ve seen so many Palestinians who’ve experienced terror, right,” he said.

He stated further:

I don’t want to use a term that I think has become racist because it’s only applied to Palestinians and Muslims. It’s never applied to America, what America does. It’s never applied to Israel or our allies.

That’s why I want to talk in terms of war crimes.

Lax again pressed Beinart on why he wouldn’t use the term terrorism, even if he was willing to condemn Hamas for what happened on October 7, 2023.

He stated:

Just like I wouldn’t want to call a black person a thug, even if they did something terrible because I think it has a racially loaded… I wouldn’t want to call a Jew a shyster, even if they were a crook, because there are certain terms that only get applied to one group.

That’s why I like to use more neutral language about war crimes, about immorality, about violations of international law.

Lax called the comments “shocking” and said he hopes Beinart “rethinks” this view, saying the journalist had changed his mind on other issues.

“Terrorism has nothing to do with your race, your ethnicity, your religion, or nationality, anything like that. It has to do with the things you do.”

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IMAGE CAPTION AND CREDIT: Professor Peter Beinart debates Professor Jeffrey Lax; CUNY_Prof/X

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