I just noticed a pretty interesting topic being discussed. Recently, the conflict between Israel and Palestine has escalated again, and 34 Harvard student organizations issued a joint statement demanding that Israel take full responsibility for the attacks by Hamas. The statement immediately sparked huge controversy.

Interestingly, some Harvard alumni expressed strong dissatisfaction with this. The most outspoken was Bill Ackman, an American billionaire and founder of hedge fund Pershing Square, who directly called for Harvard University to publicly release the list of students who signed the petition. His reasoning was that if you publicly support a stance, you should be responsible for your words and not hide behind anonymity. Under his influence, CEOs of about 10 companies, including Sweetgreen, also expressed agreement and said they would distance themselves from these students.

What was the result? Under this pressure, at least five of the originally signing student organizations, including Harvard College Act on a Dream and Harvard Islamic Society, chose to withdraw their statements.

Why did this happen? I saw someone analyze a very interesting phenomenon. Many founders of well-known American companies actually have Jewish backgrounds. For example, Jeff Bezos of Amazon, the founders of Google, Mark Zuckerberg of Meta, Larry Ellison of Oracle, Steve Jobs’ adoptive father, and Bill Gates’ mother are all Jewish. In the financial sector, founders of Goldman Sachs, J.P. Morgan Chase, and Citigroup also have Jewish roots. These individuals indeed have a significant influence in American business.

U.S. Secretary of State Blinken recently met with Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu and reiterated the United States’ firm support for Israel, even mentioning his own Jewish heritage. From this perspective, America’s stance on Middle East policy is quite clear. For Harvard students, if they continue to publicly support positions unfavorable to Israel, it could indeed impact their career prospects. That might also be why those student organizations ultimately chose to withdraw their statements.