Cornell hate prof is a stain on the academy and there are hundreds just like him

The remarkable thing about Russell Rickford is that there is nothing extraordinary about him. The Cornell University prof gained notoriety in the immediate aftermath of Oct.7 by declaring that he found the terror attack “exhilarating.”He wasn’t specific about what was more exciting to him — the slaughter of hundreds of people at a music festival, including wounded people at point-blank range, the mass hostage-taking, the burning of people alive or the horrific sexual violence.For the committed anti-Zionist, there must be so many thrilling moments to choose from. Afterward, Rickford apologized for his “horrible choice of words.”But his remarks at a pro-Palestinian rally at the Ithaca Commons on Oct.

15 weren’t a matter of mere vocabulary.He didn’t say “exhilarating” when he meant to use a word that means the opposite, or something less positive. He was affirming throughout about a cruel massacre.

He said that “Hamas has challenged the monopoly of violence,” that “Hamas has shifted the balance of power,” that “Hamas has punctured the illusion of invincibility” and that “Hamas has changed the terms of the debate.”All of this was praise.Then Rickford added to his toxic brew the contention that Palestinians and Gazans on that day “were able to breathe, they were able to breathe for the first time in years.It was exhilarating.

It was energizing.And if they weren’t exhilarated by this challenge to the monopoly of violence, by this shifting of the balance of power, then they would not be human.

I was exhilarated.” The problem with this passage isn’t that the sentiment is expressed imprecisely — it’s the sentiment itself.Sadly, Rickford was correct that many Palestinians exulted in innocent Israeli civilians getting gunned down in cold blood, but this was the perverse reaction of a people twisted by hatred that no one with an ounce of humanity could excuse, let alone share in. Rickford stipulated that he “abhors�...