Cornell’s student newspaper sparked furious backlash after it published a professor’s incendiary artwork depicting a bloodied Star of David and Nazi “SS” symbol scrawled on the back of a Palestinian person.
The Cornell Daily Sun later took down the disturbing graphic after it was widely blasted as antisemitic, but the ordeal is raising concerns about a deeper cultural problem on campus.
“To me, it reflects the normalization of Holocaust inversion, both on the internet and now on Cornell’s campus,” William Jacobson, a law professor who founded Legal Insurrection, a conservative publication, told The Post.
“This [SS lighting bolt] graphic is specifically inside a bloody Jewish star. No reflection of it being even related to Israel. And it clearly is pursuing the idea that Jews are the new Nazis. And so I think it’s obviously highly offensive.”
The “SS” insignia was used by the Schutzstaffeln, Adolf Hitler’s secret police, an evil organization that carried out atrocities against the Jews during the Holocaust.
Jacobson’s colleague, Professor Karim-Aly Kassam, who teaches courses on natural resources and indigenous studies, had published a piece titled, “Thousand & One Eyes for An Eye,” effectively accusing Israel of pursuing revenge in the Gaza Strip.
The op-ed dropped days after the second anniversary of the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas attack on Israel that sparked the war in Gaza.
In the piece, he argued that the Israeli government and its allies explained away the carnage in Gaza by characterizing the Palestinians as “animals” who are unworthy of “human rights and protection under international law.”
Kassam also underscored that it was “not unlike what the Nazi’s said about another peoples living in Europe to justify their genocide.”
Backlash quickly ensued, including from the anonymous “Cornellians Only” social media account.
“I am deeply saddened to learn that this portion of the artwork has been interpreted by some as antisemitic,” Kassam told The Post about the debacle.
“That was not my intention, and I have learned from this experience.”
The Cornell Daily Sun retracted the piece hours after it was published and republished it without the offensive drawing.
An editor at the publication later defended Kassam in a column, arguing that the professor did “not imply that the state of Israel is equal to Nazi Germany.” That editor also apologized for the newspaper publishing the graphic, but noted he is speaking on behalf of himself, not the publication.
“If a professor feels comfortable sharing a graphic like this, and the [Cornell] Daily Sun, at least initially felt comfortable running it, I think that reflects a very toxic campus culture,” Jacobson, who does not know Kassam personally, argued.
“The lesson of this is not to censor people, but to understand what has happened with the campus culture,” he added. “It shines a light on a profound problem on the campus.”
The Post reached out to Cornell University for comment.
Jacobson, the Equal Protection Project, a legal watchdog that scrutinizes colleges and universities for discrimination, told The Post earlier this month that he’s planning to file a civil rights complaint over the outing of an Israeli student whistleblower.
That student, Oren Renard, had come forward with complaints against a since-retired Cornell professor, alleging he was pushed out of class due to his national origin.
The Cornell Office of Civil Rights later issued a “finding of discrimination,” and the campus administration backed up Renard’s accusations.
