A Kent State University associate professor of history is standing by his call for “jihad” and statement that Israel is “a regime that is the spiritual heir to Nazism.”
In an “open letter” to “academic friends of Israel,” Julio Pino accuses the pro-Israel academic community of being “directly responsible for the murder of over 1,400 Palestinian children, women and elderly civilians.”
In his statement that quotes former Cuban dictator Fidel Castro and compares the academics to alleged Nazi collaborator and philosopher Martin Heidegger, Pino writes “Your names are scrawled on every bullet fired, bomb dropped, body buried and burnt forehead in Gaza. May your names become a curse word on the lips of every justice-loving person on earth, along with “Obama” and “Netanyahu.”
On Tuesday, the Simon Wiesenthal Center sent a letter to Kent State University, a public university that benefits from more than $137 million in state appropriations, asking that they denounce the professor:
“We urge you to condemn the recent, highly offensive and blatantly anti-Semitic remarks of Julio Pino – an Associate Professor of History at your university,” the organization wrote to Kent State University President Beverly Warren.
“Kent State is known for its proud legacy of Jewish studies, scholarship, and life; yet, when the state of Israel defends herself against thousands of rockets targeting Israel’s heartland launched by terrorist Hamas and a newly discovered underground of terrorist tunnels, Pino victimizes other academics with his vile propaganda, espousing terror and tarnishing Kent State’s good name while targeting Jewish and pro-Israel members of the campus community.
The hottest stories ripped from the headlines, from crime to courts, legal and scandal.
