Opinion: Amherst College Silences Criticism of Gaza Genocide
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After Amherst College hosted Israeli apologists Noa Tishby (Nov. 17, 2025) and Michael Oren (April 30, 2026) — both of whom deny the ongoing genocide in Gaza — and after an Amherst College dean and campus police threatened us with arrest for distributing a newspaper on campus opposing genocide, my colleagues and I at River Valley for Palestine, a Northampton-based community organization, are concerned about the moral well-being of Amherst College.
Amherst’s president, Michael Elliott, has expressed his opposition to divestment of the college’s holdings in entities collaborating with Israel in starkly amoral terms:
“Divestment,” Elliott says, “would amount to the College endorsing the moral and political position of some members of the Amherst College community and rejecting the moral and political position of other members of the community.”
This “both-sidesism” reduces the genocide to a mere conflict, erasing decades of slow -and fast-moving ethnic cleansing and genocide of the Palestinian people by successive Israeli governments, partnered by the United States.
Elliott apparently feels no compunction, however, in hosting pro-Israel propagandists who tell his community that “Israel cares more about the lives of Palestinians than Hamas does” (Tishby) and “Palestinians are the luckiest victims on earth” (Oren). Both speakers adamantly maintained that anyone disagreeing with Israel’s treatment of Palestinians is ipso facto antisemitic.
On May 7, another member of River Valley for Palestine and I distributed copies of our two-page newspaper, the Alt-Hampshire Gazette, on campus for 10 to 15 minutes to about 20 people, before Dean Megan Lennon and two campus police officers appeared and threatened to arrest us for trespassing. They issued us tickets banning us from campus for an indefinite period under penalty of jail or fines. Our paper contained a letter I had written to Dean Crystal Norwood, who had presided over the event hosting Michael Oren — former Israeli diplomat and IDF officer — an event at which I had briefly interrupted Oren. Had Dean Lennon simply asked us to leave campus, we would have complied.
As a community organization working to end the Gaza genocide, as neighbors of the Five Colleges, and as taxpayers, we know that we are stakeholders in the ethical choices made by the administrations and boards of trustees of the colleges. Our recent experiences at Amherst College alarm us on several fronts. Despite President Elliott’s protestation of neutrality, we question whether neutrality is possible where a present-day genocide is concerned — knowing, as we do, that at least eight of 24 Amherst trustees have business ties to Israel. We question the college’s attitudes toward and treatment of students, faculty, and staff who actively oppose the genocide and Amherst’s role in it. And we question whether the college is, in fact, a free-speech zone encouraging open and honest discourse, or whether it is instead a zone that welcomes and protects Zionist speakers while punishing those who express opposition to genocide.
On Friday, May 22, and Saturday, May 23, in the lead-up to Commencement 2026, River Valley for Palestine members stood at the edge of the Amherst Town Common, across College Street from campus. We distributed hundreds of copies of a new edition of the Alt-Hampshire Gazette — devoted entirely to our concerns about Amherst College — to families, trustees, students, and local residents.
We will not stop talking about Gaza and all of Palestine. Our fervent hope is that graduating students will take to heart the banner headline of our paper:
Congratulations, Class Of ’26
Your First Real-World Ethics Assignment:
Withhold All donations To Amherst College Until
Trustees Divest From Israeli Genocide & Occupation
Jennifer Scarlott is a member of River Valley for Palestine, a community organization in western MA.
Dear Amherst alumni,
You have a very important opportunity to help the College change course and stop supporting genocide. How does it support genocide? By investing in weapons-makers and entities that do business with Israel. Your power? Your donations. You can pledge to withhold all future donations to Amherst College until the Board of Trustees discloses their investments in weapons-makers and Israel and divests. Please go to this Alumni Pledge letter and take a quick moment to sign: https://tinyurl.com/5fyntb7b
Ms. Scarlott,
I have a question about River Valley for Palestine. In the organization’s use of the slogan “From the river to the sea,” is the implication as follows:
“[The slogan is] a call for equal rights and self-determination: Many Palestinians and their supporters view the phrase as an aspirational call for freedom, human rights, and an end to the military occupation of the West Bank and Gaza. Proponents argue it advocates for a democratic state where all individuals—Jews and Arabs—live as equals, free from systemic discrimination or displacement.” (Taken from a Google search on the meaning of “from the river to the sea”)
If this definition is consonant with the goals of River Valley for Palestine, then I agree. I wholeheartedly support the demand for Israel to end its violence against the Palestinian people and for ensuring the freedom, equal rights, dignity, and self-determination for all people within and beyond the borders of the State of Israel, including Jews and Palestinians. I call for truth and reconciliation, along the lines of post-apartheid South Africa (as imperfect as that process has been). I call for the U.S. to end its support for the evil things being perpetrated by the State of Israel. In practice, that means ending arms shipments and political support for the regime of Benjamin Netanyahu and his allies.
However, if the slogan implies the dismantling of the Israeli state and expulsion of Jewish Israelis, I must oppose. As an American Jew, I have never been a partisan of Israel and I have long opposed the decades-long violence visited upon the Palestinian people by the Israeli government. I am especially sickened by Israel’s genocidal violence against the people of Gaza and by state-supported settler violence against Palestinians in the West Bank. Opposing this violence is not antisemitic; to the contrary, it is fully in accord with Rabbi Hillel’s famous summary of the Talmud: “That which is hateful to you, do not do unto your fellow. That is the whole Torah; the rest is commentary.”
At the same time, while recognizing that there was great injustice associated with the creation of the State of Israel on what had been Palestinian lands, and while I oppose Zionism per se, I acknowledge the State of Israel as a reality in the here and now. I would go further to say that my reading of history suggests that every single state has been founded in violence, forced removal, and injustice. This violence is in the very nature of state-formation and, as such, perhaps no state is genuinely legitimate. In a more perfect world, humans would neither feel nor respond to any perceived need to combine themselves into political states.
If Amherst College or its board members’ investment activities in any way support or condone Israeli oppression of or violence against the Palestinian people, then I believe the College to be ethically and morally in the wrong. If that is the view of River Valley for Palestine, then I support the organization’s activities.
Alex Kent, thanks for your comments. You conclude: “If Amherst College or its board members’ investment activities in any way support or condone Israeli oppression of or violence against the Palestinian people, then I believe the College to be ethically and morally in the wrong.”
Precisely. Amherst College is invested in (at least) three companies that “support Israeli oppression and violence against the Palestinian people”: Oshkosh Defense, Terex Corporation, and General Motors. There can be little doubt that the College is invested in other companies doing business with Israel that aid its ethnic cleansing, apartheid, and genocide of the Palestinian people, but for the time being, it refuses to disclose its investments. If you are an alumnus or if you know alumni of the College, I hope that you will sign a pledge written by an Amherst alumni in 2024 stating that all signatories will withhold donations to the College until it divests: https://tinyurl.com/5fyntb7b
In response to Alex Kent, and as a member of River Valley for Palestine: I very much appreciate your support of divestment by Amherst College, and all institutions and corporations that in anyway enable Israel’s genocide against the Palestinian people.
At the same time, we must ask ourselves is Israel, given the behavior of its leadership and the apparent support for that behavior by most of its citizens, a viable governmental entity? Is there any indication whatsoever that the majority of Israelis are prepared to live as equals with Palestinians, equally sharing political power.
At this point, we must question, for the precisely the same reasons, whether the United States is a viable government entity. Can the shrinking, profoundly racist white U.S. majority become capable of facing up to the real necessity to deal fairly and honestly with people of color inside and outside U.S. borders?
The increasing dependency of both of these governments on human slaughter and repression and the increasing force of the resistance of people of color to these two governments, for me is an indicator of the answer to the above questions.
The survival of both political entities, in my opinion, depends on whether the masses of people demand an end to the slaughter, reverse militarization and repression, and stop allowing citizens to profit from it.
Thank you for your resistance to the unconditional support for the Israeli genocide of Palestinians.