Sununu calls national college protests 'pure antisemitism'
- Oops!Something went wrong.Please try again later.
- Oops!Something went wrong.Please try again later.
May 1—CONCORD — Gov. Chris Sununu said numerous protests on college campuses against Israeli actions in the Gaza Strip are "pure antisemitism, pure hatred," driven by students who are informed about world events by what they see on social media rather than what they learn in the classroom.
"This is driven by antisemitism. One hundred percent this is pure antisemitism, this is pure hate and I am disgusted by it," Sununu said after Wednesday's Executive Council meeting.
Sununu praised public and private higher education administrators in New Hampshire for working to ensure that demonstrations at Dartmouth College, the University of New Hampshire in Durham and other campuses have been largely respectful and peaceful.
A representative of the Palestinian Solidarity Coalition at Dartmouth said the group planned to set up an encampment on the Hanover campus Wednesday night.
"My understanding is they are going to allow some encampment or sit-in," Sununu said. "We will make sure we are working with them to make sure their voices are heard and ... (protesters) do it in a peaceful way."
Later Sununu expressed optimism that Dartmouth officials can safely manage the event.
"I am hopeful that things are not going to go badly," Sununu said.
There have been smaller demonstrations at New Hampshire colleges by students and citizens objecting to the Israeli offensive in Gaza.
"They have all done a very, very good job to date" to make sure the discussions are peaceful and respect the rights of all, Sununu said.
According to published reports, a speaker at a recent UNH protest said the lives of Palestinians were "more important than that dirty rag," referring to the American flag.
On Tuesday, 215 human rights organizations including the Movement for Black Lives, Greenpeace USA and the Working Families Party issued a statement praising the campus protests and condemning university crackdowns against them.
Sununu's father, former Gov. and White House Chief of Staff John H. Sununu, has described himself as "a third-generation American, a Lebanese American and an Arab American" with family roots in Lebanon, Greece and El Salvador.
Larger protests at Columbia University and the University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA) have been fueled by the activism of non-students, he said.
"We know a lot of these folks aren't just students. There are a lot of outsider folks," Sununu said.
Restriction proposed
Last summer, Sununu signed an executive order that no state investments or contracts could be made with interests that have boycotted Israel.
The New Hampshire House of Representatives will vote Thursday on a Senate-passed bill (SB 439) to adopt that order into state law as it applies to state agencies.
The House Executive Departments and Administration Committee voted 14-6 to recommend the bill be killed by the full House Thursday.
"Political positions and statements are any organization's free-speech choices," said Rep. Carol McGuire, R-Epsom, who chairs the panel.
"If we were to add this restriction it could open the state procurement system to be controlled by the political winds of the day. State procurement and contracting choices should only be used to get the best deals possible for the New Hampshire taxpayers."
Sununu defended his position and signaled his hope the House would support the policy.
"It is not a political position," he said. "It is about antisemitism and hatred."
Even before the Hamas violent attacks against Israel that killed 1,200 last October, legislators had proposed bipartisan legislation to define the free-speech rights of protests conducted on public higher education campuses (HB 1305).
The state Senate is expected to approve the measure Thursday with some minor changes to the House bill.
The House Criminal Justice and Public Safety Committee on Wednesday also endorsed, 20-0, putting into state law a contemporary definition of antisemitism at the behest of Chairman and Rep. Terry Roy, R-Deerfield.
The International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance first took up the issue in May 2016; nearly three dozen other states have adopted it, as have the past four presidential administrations, Roy said.
The definition, when applied to an illegal act, can be used to charge an individual with a hate crime, he said. The language was added to an unrelated bill (SB 508) dealing with a screening of inmates in county jails who may suffer from a mental health or substance use disorder.
