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Editor’s note: American campuses are awash in a crisis of Jew hatred. Ineffectual college administrators have taken tentative steps to try and rein in the proponents of terror on their campuses, but they have yet to confront the most obvious source of this poisonous Jew hatred—their own radical faculty who have not only called for an end to Israel but have outright celebrated the barbaric bloodshed of the terror group Hamas.
The Freedom Center is exposing these radical, pro-terror faculty as the Top Ten Hamas Loyalist Professors. We will be publishing one school per day as a series on Frontpage. Russell Rickford, an associate professor of history at Cornell University, is #3 on our list.
#3: Russell Rickford, Cornell University
Cornell associate professor of history Russell Rickford made national headlines for his enthusiastic and boisterous approbation of Hamas’s barbaric October 7th massacre of Israeli civilians during which over 1200 were maimed, mutilated, and slaughtered, and hundreds more taken hostage.
At a rally hosted by the ironically-named group, Jewish Voice for Peace, in Ithaca, New York on October 15, 2023, barely a week after Hamas’s attack, Rickford lauded Hamas in the highest terms and celebrated the outright slaughter of Israel’s Jews.
“What has Hamas done?,” Rickford asked. “Hamas has shifted the balance of power. Hamas has punctured the illusion of [Israeli] invincibility. That’s what they’ve done…Hamas has changed the terms of debate.”
Rickford continued extolling the virtues of the terrorist group, saying that “Hamas has challenged the monopoly of violence” and that the Palestinians “were able to breathe for the first time in years” thanks to the bloody October 7th massacre.
“[I]t was exhilarating! It was exhilarating! It was energizing! And if they [Palestinians] 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!” Rickford concluded, expressing sheer joy at the extent of Hamas’s slaughter.
Even in the highly anti-Semitic world of higher education, Rickford’s remarks praising the massacre were considered a step too far. The professor requested and was granted a leave of absence from the university but remained an employee and is still listed as a professor on the university’s website.
Unsurprisingly, Professor Rickford has a long history of praising terrorist violence against Israel. At a September 2021 lecture held by anti-Semitic Rutgers Professor Noura Erakat on “Palestine: Settler Colonialism, Sovereignty and Apartheid,” Rickford celebrated the recent escape of several convicted terrorists from the maximum security Gilboa Prison in Israel, citing the incident as “a marvelous example of tenacity and defiance that would live on in the imaginations of people around the world.” The escapees were members of the terror groups Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) and the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade who had been convicted of criminal attacks on Israelis during the bloody Second Intifada.
Rickford also penned an article for Vox.com describing “How Black Lives Matter reenergized Black-Palestinian solidarity.” In the piece, Rickford described his experience marching at a Cornell rally in support of acts of terrorism from the terrorist organizations Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) as “one of the truly gratifying moments of my life as an internationalist.”
The professor has a long record of demonizing Israel and promoting anti-Semitic tropes. In a 2018 article published by the African American Intellectual History Society, Rickford stated that “Israel and the U.S. are leading propagators of racist belief systems” and claimed that “Israel is especially useful because it serves as a laboratory for the development, testing and dissemination of techniques of surveillance and control… that enable the targeting of Black and brown people within the U.S.”
In an interview with the Cornell Sun from 2017, Rickford argued that “[the] colonial occupation of Palestine remains one of the world’s most visible campaigns of white supremacist violence”—an absurd accusation given that the majority of Jewish citizens of Israel are of Middle Eastern or North African descent.
Professor Rickford has half-heartedly attempted to apologize for his most heinous comments—those describing Hamas’s October 7 massacre as “exhilarating” and “energizing”—but one can be excused for doubting his sincerity. In the immediate backlash that followed these remarks, Rickford doubled down on his enthusiasm for Hamas’s brutality, only to later apologize “for the horrible choice of words,” which he described as “reprehensible.” It remains unclear whether the professor regrets not only his choice of words, but also his pro-Hamas sentiments and celebration of Israel’s potential annihilation.
As of the Fall 2024 semester, Rickford is back teaching at Cornell again, and the university has clarified that no disciplinary action was taken against him for his comments celebrating Hamas’s massacre of Israel’s Jews. Given Rickford’s long history of celebrating terrorism against the world’s only Jewish state and repetition of Hamas’s propaganda lies, a true change of heart seems unlikely.
Previous Articles in the Series:
#4: Hamas Loyalist Professor: Huda Fakhreddine at the University of Pennsylvania.
#5: Hamas Loyalist Professor: Joseph Massad at Columbia University.
#6: Hamas Loyalist Professor: Samer Alatout at UW-Madison.
#7: Hamas Loyalist Professor: Steven Thrasher at Northwestern University.
#8: Hamas Loyalist Professor: Noura Erakat at Rutgers University.
#9: Hamas Loyalist Professor: Jairo Fúnez-Flores at Texas Tech University.
#10: Hamas Loyalist Professor: Jeffrey McCully at Moraine Valley Community College.
Spurwing Plover says
I think maybe Cornell should stick with its Lab of Ornithology and stick to Birds not Hate Mongers
Allan Goldstein says
Put his ass in prison.
Send him to Cornhole University.
Spurwing Plover says
And throw away the key
Intrepid says
What!?! Another black jew hating faux professor stealing tax dollars from Americans
The only way to get rid of these jihadi traitors posing as “professors” is for the alumni to make it very clear that the endowment contributions are over as long as these Jew-hating scumbags aren’t fired out right, tenure or no tenure. And then deport them if they are not U.S. Citizens.
Parents, pull your kids out of these crap hole universities or tell them they have to come up with their own money to go there. And do not co-sign their loans. There have got to better universities than Corn(hole) U. Maybe the local air conditioning training center. At least the kids will earn some money and get an actual skill.
This is a Hamas play to infect universities in this country and turn them into Jihadi indoctrination centers.
Fire them now. And fire the idiots who hire them as well.
Steve Chavez says
WHEN, NOT IF, Jihadists and the Sleeper Cells awaken, whose side with these people be on? As they are kneeling and begging to live, they’ll claim that they were for Jihad… “Look, I was a focus of an article on FPM, in my university paper, I’m, I’m… and then…. ! ”
IMAGINE if there were college groups that did the same against Muslims??? OH MY!
AGAIN, look up their own University CODE OF CONDUCT RULES and see how many they are breaking and then demand that the Administration take action!
(I have here at UNM and demand the President takes action. There were SIX RULES broken last spring during the encampment and then a mob takeover of the Student Union causing $40,000 in damages and sixteen arrests! Ahmad Assed, the President of the Islamic Center NM, also an attorney and legal advisor for our local NBC affiliate who also uses the head of the NM Marxist Educators for their ECONOMIC ADVISOR and not a Capitalist, represented the sixteen, all charges dismissed! THEY’RE ALL PART OF IT! UNIVERSITY takes no action against any of the students and outsiders due to their dismissed charges! SOS!
John says
Hopefully, someone will take him out.
BANAFFIRMATIVEACTION says
THIS scumbag gets away with it because dumb, cowardly Jews in America either tolerate or support him. The only Jews who are worth a damn are the ones in Israel.