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“Refuse to Accept Hell as Normal”: Amira Hass Delivers Graduation Speech as Students Keep Up Protests

HeadlineMay 16, 2024

Student-led protests across the U.S. are continuing. Graduating students have highlighted the plight of students in Gaza as they deliver end-of-year speeches, while many have waved Palestinian flags and displayed messages of solidarity as they took to the stage to receive their diplomas. At Barnard College here in New York, students wore red poppies on their gowns, each with the name of a slain Palestinian child, and refused to shake the hand of President Laura Rosenbury.

Meanwhile, prominent Israeli journalist Amira Hass addressed Columbia Journalism School graduates on Wednesday.

Amira Hass: “The journalism that I chose to practice is based on the refusal to see injustice as normal, the refusal to normalize it to a point that we do not see it. This is exactly what the students here in Columbia and in so many other campuses in the U.S. and now in Europe have been doing. Refuse to accept hell as normal.”

New School students on Wednesday took over their university’s welcome center, renaming it the Lama Center in honor of Lama Jamous, a 9-year-old aspiring journalist from Gaza.

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