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Comment by lupusreal | Hacker News Reader

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The stated reasons are not the real reasons. None of this is above-board. If you pay too much attention to what phony reasons are stated you will just be lead around by your nose.

The part of the real reason that is made very obvious is that Harvard is not rolling over and doing whatever the regime asks of it, and attacks of the administration on Harvard will continue until that capitulation occurs.

>Harvard is not rolling over and doing whatever the regime asks of it

The regime only started asking such things after large Pro-Palestinian protests took place at Harvard. That's absolutely the root cause, especially since Trump took hundreds of millions of dollars in funding from committed Zionists.

Check out Project Esther (e.g. https://www.nytimes.com/2025/05/18/us/project-esther-heritag...). Fighting "antisemitism" is merely a pretense for seizing unchecked power.

I was recently banned from r/worldnews over a comment which I thought was relatively innocuous. Anyway, that made me start investigating and smelling things and suddenly when you see it, it's hard to ignore. r/worldnews is completely, unmistakably compromised. It's the third largest subreddit with about 50 million subscribers. The situation is so vivid and clear that it's unthinkable that owners are unaware that it is compromised, from moderations to the dominant commenting user base. So what in the world is happening and how did it come to be this way? Spez et al were compromised? How?

The most charitable and perhaps the most rational explanation is that the 'propaganda' effort is impressively, surprisingly, exhaustively grassroots [1] and that's why reddit's overlords cannot simply contain it -- after all, it's real people, very committed and very real indeed. Although I would think that even if this were true, were reddit's operators uncompromised, they'd at least feel compelled to investigate the moderators of the subreddit which has a readership of 50 million, because even if the activity is organic, what's going on crosses a certain threshold of what should be permissible, if only for the richness of debate and discussion. I won't approach the complex topic of whether grassroots led propaganda effort constitutes something that is illegitimate and whether it warrants management, moderation, or some sort of penalty.

I'm not extremely educated about the complex history of Israel and jewish people, though I'm trying to learn more these days. Knowing what I know so far: It is a unique group of people for sure, and 2000 years of oppression, I think, has resulted in a special kind of cohesion that even when scattered throughout the world, they partake in strong self-advocacy. In my experience, this kind of self-advocacy doesn't exist with any other group.

I apologize if my comment reads prejudiced or inappropriate, please tell me if it does, certainly and obviously it is not meant to be.

[1] https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2024/01/24/gaza-is...

> The regime only started asking such things after large Pro-Palestinian protests took place at Harvard.

The regime didn't even exist until after those protests, so let's not go too post hoc here.

Trump is also an authoritarian and so is committed to strengthening existing regimes he sees as "strong". Presumably on the assumption that they will be "allies" or at least give him something back. Pro-Palestinian protests are very anti-authoritarian (next thing you know, those same protesters will be against mass U.S. deportations) and so a priority target for suppression.

Though I would not have guessed, it seems more about China:

"Harvard’s leadership has created an unsafe campus environment by permitting anti-American, pro-terrorist agitators to harass and physically assault individuals, including many Jewish students, and otherwise obstruct its once-venerable learning environment. Many of these agitators are foreign students. Harvard’s leadership further facilitated, and engaged in coordinated activity with the CCP, including hosting and training members of a CCP paramilitary group complicit in the Uyghur genocide."

https://www.dhs.gov/news/2025/05/22/harvard-university-loses...

Trump cares less about the Uyghar's than the Jews.

Though I doubt he could find either Israel or China on a map.

Precisely. This administration's concern for the Uyghurs is skin-deep; it's essentially just a justification to punish any unauthorized connections to China. The actual details of the conflict (for instance, that the Uyghurs are ethnically Muslim) aren't relevant to them.

I don't think the Trump admin gives a rat's ass about Jews. It's an excuse for legal action, in the same way that "fentanyl" was the excuse for tariffs on Canada.

You're probably right, they seem to care more about Israel and not Jews (or Palestinians), and especially care about "Israel as a concept" and to use it as a means to an end.

You're correct that Christian Zionists only care about Jews to the extent that the right number of them will be in Israel to be killed as part of the End Times prophecies based off of Revelations. But they are fanatical supporters of the state of Israel because they see it as necessary to bring about the rapture.

This is one part of a large pattern of Republicans trying to end-run around the First Ammendment specifically to defend Israel from criticism. For instance, in Texas they make school teachers sign contracts that include terms forbidding criticism of Israel. Republicans have also been extremely reliable supporters of unconstitutional Anti-BDS laws.

Make no mistake, the Republican party (and half the Democratic Party FWIW) is fully captured by the Israel lobby.

>For instance, in Texas they make school teachers sign contracts that include terms forbidding criticism of Israel

The ability to criticise authority is a defining right of America. How are these teachers supposed to teach the First Amendment?

Top donor in the last 3 elections (combined) to Trump is Adelson Clinic/Miriam Adelson. She didn't spend all that money for nothing.

That's part of it, but another large part is that Republicans are hostile to higher education in general, and this serves as a convenient excuse.

>The DHS letter to Harvard specifically says that this is because Harvard's campus has been "hostile to Jews" and "promotes pro-Hamas sympathies".

I've seen no evidence that they are not. So much for inclusion and acceptance from one of the nations leading progressive institutions.

far be it from me to defend harvard but it's on the accuser to provide positive evidence for their claim, not the defendant to provide negative evidence against the claim.

Yes, and it's because they wrote big checks: https://www.opensecrets.org/elections-overview/top-organizat...

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