Harvard president responds to backlash over Israel war response by university-affiliated groups

Harvard University and dozens of its student groups are being widely denounced for a controversial letter that blames Israelis for the Hamas-led violence in Israel and the university's new president is now weighing in.

The letter from the Harvard College Palestine Solidarity Committee, signed by dozens of student groups at Harvard, blames Saturday's attacks on the Israeli people, calling them the “apartheid regime” forcing Palestinians to live in an “open-air prison” in Gaza.

"Today's events did not occur in a vacuum. For the last two decades, millions of Palestinians in Gaza have been forced to live in an open-air prison," the statement continued, noting that "Israeli violence has structured every aspect of Palestinian existence for 75 years" through the systematic seizure of land, airstrikes and more, and referred to the current political situation as "apartheid."

The statement also called on Harvard's community to stop the "annihilation of Palestinians."

Later Tuesday, the Palestine Solidarity Committee said a planned vigil had been postponed "due to credible safety concerns and threats against student security."

Following criticism that the university did not offer a response quickly enough, Harvard University President Claudine Gay released a statement on Tuesday addressing the controversy it provoked.

"As the events of recent days continue to reverberate, let there be no doubt that I condemn the terrorist atrocities perpetrated by Hamas. Such inhumanity is abhorrent, whatever one’s individual views of the origins of longstanding conflicts in the region," she wrote in part.

Gay added that while students have the right to speak out, no student group speaks for Harvard or its leadership.

“The letter from the Harvard student groups is depraved, it represents a complete lack of not just understanding but of empathy,” Congressman Jake Auchincloss said.

He said he’s ashamed of his alma mater for not condemning the letter.

“Harvard’s leadership has failed,” Auchincloss said. "Jews are being dragged from their homes and shot. It should not be a hard decision to condemn that and to condemn the student groups who celebrate and support those atrocities.”

Harvard’s administration did issue a statement late Monday saying in part, “We have no illusion that Harvard alone can readily bridge the widely different views of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, but we are hopeful that, as a community devoted to learning, we can take steps that will draw on our common humanity and shared values in order to modulate rather than amplify the deep-seated divisions and animosities so distressingly evident in the wider world.”

“This is an atrocity at an extraordinary level, and yet it has not been condemned,” former Harvard University President Lawrence Summers said.

He said he is “sickened” by both the letter and university leadership’s apparent refusal to denounce it.

“It’s not complicated, it’s not intellectual, it’s not subtle, it is wrong,” he said, “and that should be something that can be understood on our leading campuses.”

NBC10 Boston reached out to Harvard for a response to continued calls for its administration to condemn the letter but has not yet heard back.