MIT researcher offers blunt opinion on school encampment
MIT postdoctorate researcher Lior Alon told Fox News Digital it is ‘ridiculous’ that the school continues to allow the tents on campus lawn.
A Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) researcher is calling out his university leaders for allowing an encampment on school grounds to continue operations, suggesting that protesters are acting like "kids" and failing to understand the complexities of what is happening in Gaza.
Lior Alon, a postdoctorate mathematical physics researcher at MIT, told Fox News Digital that the legitimacy of Israel should not be questioned and said Jews deserve to have a country to call home—though it should be open to all people.
Describing himself as a Zionist, Alon said he does not feel ashamed of the label and is often very vocal against Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his government.
Alon first witnessed protesters at the MIT campus on Oct. 9. At the time, he was still learning that one of his good friends had been killed in the Hamas terrorist attacks two days earlier. His best friend's fiancé was also brutally murdered and possibly raped during the Nova Festival massacre.
MIT postdoctorate researcher Lior Alon criticized MIT for allowing an encampment to continue operating on campus. (Nikolas Lanum/Fox News Digital)
"I had to watch and listen how these kids that don't know anything about the Israel-Palestinian conflict marched throughout MIT's corridors, yelling, calling for Intifada, calling for the destruction of Israel," he said. "They may claim that it's not antisemitism, just anti-Zionist. I don't see the difference."
Alon, who previously served as an officer in the Israeli Navy, said he and other Jews on campus have called for dialogue with anti-Israel and pro-Palestinian protesters. Their offers, he claimed, have been met with silence.
"No one is willing to talk to us. We are being harassed. Our identity is being attacked on a daily basis," he said.
Standing at the edge of the "MIT Scientists Against Genocide Encampment" (MIT SAGE) outside of Kresge Auditorium, Alon criticized school administrators for allowing students to continue occupying tents on the lawn. He also suggested that MIT has provided the encampment with electricity and infrastructure to conduct their protests.
"It's ridiculous and I'm just, I'm just disappointed," Alon told Fox News Digital.
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A sign taped to a tent inside the MIT encampment states that anti-Zionism does not equal antisemitism. (Nikolas Lanum/Fox News Digital )
The MIT researcher said many activities on the lawn had been canceled because of the encampment despite calls by school officials to disband.
On Saturday, MIT President Sally Kornbluth said, referencing the encampment, that "this particular form of expression needs to end soon." She also claimed the protesters were violating school policies.
She acknowledged that the protests have been peaceful but some students perceived certain chants as being a call for the elimination of Israel. Kornbluth called the conduct "disturbing."
However, a slew of anonymous faculty members have sent letters asking Kornbluth to allow the encampment to stay on campus.
"I went there to this place, which is supposed to be a public space—I was asked to leave. An officer, an MIT officer asked me to leave this property, which is a public property, just because these kids decided they want to encamp here," Alon said.
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An American and Israeli flag wave in the breeze on either side of signs that discuss IDF soldiers and people kidnapped by Hamas. (Nikolas Lanum/Fox News Digital)
"We say it as a joke, but it's practically true that half of them could not even find Gaza on the map. Not to mention which river and which city are they talking about?" he added.
Alon urged students to stop acting like children and call for legitimate solutions beyond a cease-fire. He suggested that position raises more questions than answers. If a cease-fire happens, will it lead to another October 7? What will happen to the hostages? What about Hezbollah and the north of Israel that has been evacuated?
"Let's all agree that there's no room for terror, there's no room for Hamas, there's no room for Hezbollah," Alon said. "We all want to see the Middle East prosper. We all want to see Israelis and Palestinians live, each one in its own region. Each one with his own rights and with his security."
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"Let's try to think how to do that instead of sitting here in an illegal encampment yelling and calling for things that are irrelevant and just hoping, just saying I don't care about the long-term solution. All I care about is cease-fire now without understanding anything about the complexity of the problems," he continued.
MIT did not return Fox News Digital's request for comment.