NYU Student Loses Job Over Statement Blaming Israel And Excusing Hamas For Terrorist Attack
AP Photo/Stephan Savoia
New York University Student Bar Association President Ryna Workman has had their employment offer rescinded after they issued a statement blaming Israel for the terrorist attacks perpetrated against it over the weekend.
Hundreds of Israelis were kidnapped, raped, and slaughtered after Hamas broke across the southern Israeli border on Saturday. While much of the world recoiled in horror and expressed their support for the world’s only Jewish-majority state, some, particularly on college campuses, expressed solidarity with Hamas.
That included Workman, who identifies as non-binary.
“I want to express, first and foremost, my unwavering and absolute solidarity with Palestinians in their resistance against oppression towards liberation and self-determination,” wrote Workman in the organization’s newsletter.
They continued:
Israel bears full responsibility for this tremendous loss of life. This regime of state-sanctioned violence created the conditions that made resistance necessary. I will not condemn Palestinian resistance. Instead…
I condemn the violence of apartheid. I condemn the violence of settler colonialism. i condemn the violence of military occupation. I condemn the violence of dispossession and stolen homes. I condemn the violence of trapping thousands in an open-air prison. I condemn the violence of collective punishment. i condemn the violence of phosphorous bombs. I condemn the violence of the United States military-industrial complex. I condemn the violence of obfuscating genocide as a “complex issue.” I condemn the violence in labeling oppressed people as “animals.” I condemn the violence of silence.
“Palestine will be free,” concluded Workman.
The statement drew attention and condemnation online before the firm where Workman had worked as a summer associate and planned to join full-time after graduating, Winston & Strawn, decided to rescind its offer.
“Today, Winston & Strawn learned that a former summer associate published certain inflammatory comments regarding Hamas’ recent terrorist attack on Israel and distributed it to the NYU Student Bar Association,” said the firm in a statement. “These comments profoundly conflict with Winston & Strawn’s values as a firm. Accordingly, the Firm has rescinded the law student’s offer of employment.”
“We look forward to continuing to work together to eradicate anti-Semitism in all forms and to the day when hatred bigotry, and violence against all people have been eliminated,” they added.
