Opinion: Amherst College Silences Criticism of Gaza Genocide

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.