WASHINGTON: At least eight of the 34 organisations that originally signed a letter blaming Israel for the current situation in the Middle East have withdrawn their endorsements, the US media reported on Thursday.

Amnesty International at Harvard, Harvard College Act on a Dream, the Harvard Undergraduate Nepali Student Association, the Harvard Islamic Society, and the Harvard Undergraduate Ghungroo have pulled back their original endorsement of the letter.

All the signatories of the letter, which was released this weekend, are facing tremendous pressure to withdraw their signatures.

On Wednesday, a billboard truck drove near Harvard’s campus displaying the names and photos of some of those students who signed the statement blaming Israel.

Harvard bodies which blamed Israel pressured to retract their statements

And on Thursday, CNN and other media outlets published the statement of a billionaire hedge fund CEO Bill Ackman and several other business leaders, demanding Harvard University release the names of students whose organisations signed on to the letter.

The CEOs want the students blacklisted.

“One should not be able to hide behind a corporate shield when issuing statements supporting the actions of terrorists,” Mr Ackman said in a post on X, formerly known as Twitter.

“I would like to know (the names) so I … never hire these people,” Jonathan Neman, CEO of restaurant chain Sweetgreen, said on X.

A New York University Student Bar Association President Ryna Workman lost a promised job with law firm Winston & Strawn after putting a statement in the group’s student newsletter that blamed Israel for creating a situation that led to Hamas’ attacks on Israel this weekend.

The University of Virginia’s Students for Justice in Palestine also drew sharp criticism for its statement that the violent attack on Israel was “a step towards a free Palestine”.

Hundreds of Israelis were killed by Hamas’ rockets fired into Israel this weekend while a larger number of people were killed by relentless Israeli bombings that followed the rockets.

Published in Dawn, October 13th, 2023