ALBANY — Last Saturday, as Hamas terrorists were slaughtering, kidnapping, and mutilating Israeli civilians, Albany Law School professor Nina Farnia took to social media in apparent praise of what was happening.
“Long live the Palestinian resistance & people of Gaza, tearing down the walls of colonialism and apartheid,” Farnia wrote on X in a post illustrated by a photo of a breached border fence. “As the Biden admin builds more walls at US borders, the people of the world are rising up and tearing walls down. The Palestinians are a beacon to us all.”
While anyone familiar with Farnia’s left-wing views might have predicted how she’d view the attack, many alumni of the law school were justifiably outraged. How could a law professor seemingly celebrate a massacre that so clearly violated standards of human decency — and also, it’s worth noting, international law? Was Farnia justifying war crimes and atrocities?
It is possible that Farnia’s post, which went up at midday Saturday (early evening in Israel), was written before she was aware of the scale and horror of what was happening. But as of this writing, the professor has said nothing to suggest she regrets what she wrote or to clarify that her support for the Palestinian people does not include support for pogroms against civilians.
Todd Kerner, a 1988 graduate of the school who lives in Clifton Park, conceded the intricacies of the intractable conflict between Palestinians and Israelis, which, as most everyone knows, includes a long history of pain, violence, thwarted peace talks, and injustice.
“It’s a complex issue,” Kerner told me. “But what happened there Saturday is not complex.”
Kerner is Jewish, and he has visited the kibbutz communities near Gaza that were all but erased by Hamas violence. He sees blatant antisemitism in Farnia’s apparent indifference to Jewish suffering — as do I, for what it’s worth — and he’s disgusted by Albany Law’s refusal to disavow it.
After prodding from Kerner and many others, the school issued a statement denouncing the attacks and the slaughter of innocent civilians. “These acts of unspeakable terror are an affront to humanity,” it said. “We express our unconditional support for all of those affected by the horrific violence.”
But when asked specifically about Farnia, described in her online biography as a scholar of critical race theory who focuses on imperialism, the school said it can’t comment on personnel matters.
That’s cowardly baloney, of course. If a person entrusted with teaching students seems to support “an affront to humanity,” Albany Law shouldn’t cower from an explanation or condemnation. If the school supports Farnia’s right to voice whatever ugliness she wishes, well, it should say that, too.
Farnia, meanwhile, deleted her original message but followed it with a tweet claiming she has received threats from “people revealing themselves as proponents of racist violence on my page, not to mention censorship and suppression of speech.” There’s no shortage of irony there, given that Farnia herself is being justifiably accused of supporting racist violence.
I repeatedly reached out to Farnia, who initially told me she would comment by email and subsequently said she would call Friday morning. I’ve yet to hear from her. If I had, I’d have tried to ask the following questions:
Given that she’s teaching, living, and tweeting on colonized lands, would she support violent attacks on her neighbors and colleagues here in upstate New York? Since she’s not Native American, isn’t Farnia also a colonizer?
If she supports free expression, as her second tweet suggests, does she acknowledge that Hamas is completely intolerant of dissent? Does she concede that the group’s slaughter was motivated, at least in part, by its vicious antisemitism? Does she believe, against available evidence, that Hamas acted with the best interests of the Palestinian people in mind?
And lastly, does Farnia believe that Israel should exist and that Jews, whose history on the land began several thousand years ago, should live there?
There should be no denying that Palestinians, including those who fled or were expelled from their homes by Israel’s creation in the wake of the Holocaust, have suffered injustice and mistreatment. The continued expansion of Israeli settlements into Palestinian territories is an unnecessary provocation.
Yet it is likewise undeniable that the refusal by Palestinian leaders to acknowledge Israel’s right to exist has scuttled peace talks and exacerbated suffering. The colonizer/apartheid jargon espoused by Farnia — and widely heard in recent days — is reductive to the point of stupidity, an ugly justification for an ancient hatred.
Kerner, long active in Saratoga County Democratic politics, acknowledges Farnia’s right to speak but believes she crossed an unforgivable moral line by seeming to welcome attacks on civilians. He isn’t alone.
Larry Schiffer, past president of the law school’s national alumni association, said there is “no excuse to support the intentional killing of innocent people” and called on Albany Law to hold the professor accountable. Megyn Kelly, the former Fox News commentator and 1996 graduate of the school, described Farnia as “a bigoted disgrace” and said Albany Law should fire her immediately.
“The law school needs to take action,” Kerner said. “They can’t just hide and hope that this will go away.”
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