Husam El-Qoolaq ID’d As Harvard Law Student Behind ‘Smelly’ Jew Attack on Former Israeli Foreign Minister
Harvard Law Refused to Disclose Name

BY: Adam Kredo

Harvard Law School is declining to disclose the identity of a student who repeatedly accused former Israeli foreign minister Tzipi Livni of being “smelly” during a public discussion, a description many have described as anti-Semitic.

The university also deleted a portion of the video of the public event in which Husam El-Coolaq, whose identity the Washington Free Beacon has confirmed with multiple sources, made the accusation. El-Coolaq was listed as a Harvard Law School representative on the website of the student-run organization Harvard Arab Students on Wednesday, but has since been removed.

The exchange between Livni and El-Coolaq, an activist in the Boycott, Divest, and Sanction (BDS) movement, was cut from the video, though portions of the conversation were leaked in transcript form.

El-Coolaq reportedly asked Livni, “How is it that you are so smelly?”

“Oh, it’s regarding your odor,” El-Coolaq said. “I’m question [sic] about the odor of Tzipi Livni, very smelly.”

The comments sparked accusations of anti-Semitism and prompted Harvard officials to condemn the incident.

However, El-Coolaq’s name has been withheld from the public and reporters attempting to write about the episode.

Attempts to reach El-Coolaq by email were unsuccessful. Inquiries sent to his university email address were subsequently returned by another Harvard student who identified himself as Jeremy Salinger.

In this correspondence, Salinger requested that the Washington Free Beacon withhold from publishing the student’s name to “minimize the damage.”

“It has come to my attention that you are writing a story about the topic,” Salinger wrote to the Free Beacon. “We are asking anyone writing an article to not use the name of the student.”

When asked to explain on whose behalf he was making this request, Salinger said that he is working on his own to protect the student from criticism.

“I was told you were writing a piece, and I’m making an effort to reach out to reporters to ask them not to use the name,” Salinger wrote. “The reason is because we felt our piece was about condemning the language that used, not the person who used it. The student is a classmate of ours, and he has publicly apologized. We feel the use of his name will distract from the message of the story and do additional unnecessary harm to this individual.”

A public apology typically involves someone identifying themselves by name.

When pressed to explain who forwarded him the information about the Free Beacon’s request for comment on the matter, Salinger said that he has “no further information” and must study for his upcoming finals.

“I do not mean to be rude, but I need to focus on my preparation for finals,” he wrote.

A spokesperson for Harvard law said that they are “not familiar” with Salinger’s efforts on behalf of El-Coolaq.

The spokesperson said the university could not name the student involved in the exchange with Livni due to “federal privacy laws.”

The Program on Negotiation at Harvard Law School, which sponsored the event and published the video, did not respond to multiple requests for comment about why video of the event was altered to conceal El-Coolaq’s identity.

A Harvard Law School spokesperson said the video was removed because it did not serve the school’s purpose to “share substantive ideas and intellectual content.”

“The highly offensive comment has been reported publicly in many places, verbatim,” said Michelle Deakin. “Harvard Law School publishes video of our academic events in order to share substantive ideas and intellectual content with communities and individuals beyond our campus. That purpose is not served by including an offensive remark that detracts from the educational and substantive contribution of our academic events.”

Some critics of the university’s effort to suppress details have pointed to a similar incident several years ago where a Harvard Law student came under media scrutiny for sending an email many described as racist against African-Americans.

During that incident, the student’s name was widely disseminated.

Martha Minow, the dean of Harvard’s law school, apologized to Livni and other members of the community who were offended by the exchange.

“The comment was offensive and it violated the trust and respect we expect in our community,” Minow wrote in a letter to students. “Many perceive it as anti-Semitic, and no one would see it as appropriate. It was an embarrassment to this institution and an assault upon the values we seek to uphold.”

A Facebook post by El-Coolaq that was recently published online shows that he opposed a speech last year at Harvard by former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak.

El-Coolaq asked in the post if “tomatoes will be allowed inside the venue.”

The name of the Harvard student who asked a visiting Israeli politician why she was “so smelly” has been revealed. The student is a leader in Harvard’s Arab community with a history of anti-Israeli activism. Not only that, but he’s also a man looking for a job, making his public stunt look like an incredibly bad idea.

Last week, Husam El-Qoulaq rudely disrupted a panel featuring Israeli politician Tzipi Livni to ask her why she was “so smelly.”

“I’m question (sic) about the odor of Tzipi Livni, very smelly, and I was just wondering,” El-Qoulaq said to a confused panel.

Despite his remarks being very public, it took nearly a week before El-Qoulaq’s statements attracted wider notice, with several Jewish media outlets expressing outrage at the stunt on Wednesday. Harvard Law School Dean Martha Minow strongly condemned the behavior in a school-wide email. El-Qoulaq issued an apology as well, claiming he was unaware that assigning a pungent odor to Jewish people has long been a part of anti-Semitic propaganda. El-Qoulaq suggested that he was just trying to make a rude personal attack on Livni rather than an attack on all Jews in general.

But despite the fact that the “smelly” question was made at a very public event with numerous eyewitnesses, Harvard and others have tried very hard to suppress El-Qoulaq’s identity. His name wasn’t included in Minow’s email condemnation, it wasn’t added to his apology in the Harvard Law Record (despite his invitation to have offended Harvard students reach out to him), and a video recording of the event was even censored to take out his question, thereby preventing it from aiding in his identification.

It wasn’t enough, though. On Wednesday night, Qoulaq’s identity was announced by writer and pro-Israel advocate Noah Pollak, who said he confirmed Qoulaq’s identity with multiple eyewitnesses.


El-Qoulaq (whose surname is also spelled El-Coolaq) is in his third year at Harvard Law (after getting into the school at just 20 years old) and is a leader with the group Harvard Law School Justice for Palestine.


Since news of his stunt began spreading, El-Qoulaq has been hastily scrubbing his online presence. His Twitter account has disappeared, as has his LinkedIn profile (though it still appears in Google searches), and he also deleted a profile on the business start-up website Angel. Not only that, but a profile of El-Qoulaq has been scrubbed from the page of the Harvard Arab Students Association (compare the current version with this recent screengrab).

El-Qoulaq’s online efforts may be related to a desire to avoid being toxic on the job market, since he is just days away from graduating.

“Husam would like the attendees of Harvard Arab Weekend to know that he is actively soliciting any and all offers of employment, with a slight preference for those that would keep him a safe distance away from the legal profession,” his now-vanished profile said.

Notably, Qoulaq’s Livni stunt isn’t the first time he’s been linked to the disruption of an Israeli speaker. In 2010, 11 students at the University of California, Irvine were arrested for disrupting a speech by Israeli ambassador Michael Oren. In 2011, Qoulaq took part in a protest at the University of California, Berkeley supporting them, saying their arrest was part of an effort to “quell the Palestinian narrative.”

El-Qoulaq did not respond to The Daily Caller News Foundation’s request for comment.

The most disturbing part of the Husam El-Qoulaq affair is how Harvard bent over backwards to cover for him,and to protect him.

$$$$$ talks.

Martha L. Minow, Dean, Harvard Law School
Griswold 200
1525 Massachusetts Avenue
Cambridge, MA 02138
Phone: 617-495-4601
@Harvard_Law

Dean Minow-

Greetings and Salutations from the Daily Freier, reporting in concert with Brian of London, live from the Zionist Entity Known as Israel!

We wish to express our concerns about a recent event at your institution, specifically, “The Israeli-Palestinian Conflict and the US Negotiation Lessons and Possibilities” held on Thursday, April 14, 7 pm, Austin Hall, Room 100 and featuring Israeli politician Tzipi Livni and former U.S. Envoy Dennis Ross. Specifically, we are concerned that people are going to find out that at this event, a Harvard Law student named Husam El-Qoulaq asked Ms. Livni “why she was so smelly.”

Dean Minow, our greatest fear is that Husam El-Qoulaq’s name somehow becomes attached to the antisemitic incident in question, where he told Israeli politician Tzipi Livni that she smelled bad in a public event. I mean, if his (Husam El-Qoulaq, Harvard Law. Sometimes spelled ‘Coolaq’) name was to be associated with this incident (antisemitic!), it may impact his Constitutional Right to make obscene amounts of money post-graduation in Corporate America. More importantly, associating Husam El-Qoulaq’s (Harvard Law) name with an Antisemitic (against Tzipi Livni) incident would send the dangerous message to your students that actions have consequences, and that words have meaning. And none of us want that.

In addition, we fear that Harvard Law may be unfairly tarred for hiding the name of the offending party (Husam El-Qoulaq, Harvard Law. Sometimes spelled Coolaq). Therefore, we implore you to continue to not release Husam El-Qoulaq’s name in association with the incident at Harvard Law on 14 April 2016 in which he used an antisemitic slur against Tzipi Livni. We applaud the fact that your organization has removed Mr. Husam El-Qoulaq’s anti-Jewish remarks from YouTube. Additionally, we applaud that you did not release the name of the offending party, you know, Husam El-Qoulaq…. Of Harvard Law. The one who publicly disrespected a visitor (Tzipi Livni!) in an Academic Setting.

We also want to provide honorable mention to Mr. Husam El-Qoulaq himself, who appears busy as a beaver (can we say that? Is that cultural appropriation against beavers?) scrubbing his online profiles of anything that could connect him (Husam El-Qoulaq, also spelled “Coolaq”) to an Antisemitic incident. Which is why we commend him for currently hiding online evidence of his (Husam El-Qoulaq!) BDS work when he was an undergrad at UC Berkeley. We also commend Mr. Husam El-Qoulaq for scrubbing the Internets and the Googles of any evidence of his Leadership position in Harvard’s BDS Movement…BTW, color us shocked (Shocked!) that Mr. El-Qoulaq was also a leader in Harvard’s BDS Movement. I mean, it’s just counter-intuitive that there would be, like, ANY overlap between the BDS Movement and Antisemitic speech! Who Knew????

We also wish to commend Mr. Husam El Qoulaq for his apology, where he did not provide his name, but informed the public that they should reach out to him (Reach out to whom you ask? Husam El-Qoulaq! For what? An Antisemitic incident at Harvard Law on April 14, 2016! Against Tzipi Livni!). Bonus points that he mentioned that he has Jewish friends! LOL! (Just to break character for a moment: We’ve seen more sincere mea culpas from O.J. Simpson.)

So in the spirit of moving on, we propose that maybe instead of naming Husam El-Qoulaq as the guy who made an Anti-Jewish comment to Tipi Livni on April 14 2016, that we instead replace his name (Husam El-Qoulaq!) with a symbol. Maybe we can brainstorm this. Perhaps something like this:Prince symbol

…. Except instead of a symbol imagining a magical human being and artist who made the world happy for 40 years, this symbol would signify a privileged (!) crybully who sounds like he’s about to spill the beans on matzoh’s special ingredient.

Now we all know how the Internets work, so we implore you and anybody reading this: DO NOT UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES FORWARD THIS LETTER! Not via email, not Facebook, Not Twitter, nor by Google Plus (OK OK, Google Plus doesn’t really matter). The worst-case scenario would be if it somehow went viral. That Husam El-Qoulaq. Harvard Law. Made an antisemitic Statement. Against Tzipi Livni. That she smelled bad. On 14 April 2016. At Harvard Law.

Very Truly Yours,

The Daily Freier & Brian of London

P.S:

Husam El-Qoulaq, Harvard Law, 14 April 2016, Tzipi Livni, Antisemitic, Coolaq

Husam El-Qoulaq apologized. Sorta

He wrote:

With regards to what I actually did say, I can see now, after speaking with the authors of this article and many other members of the Jewish community at HLS, how my words could have been interpreted as a reference to an anti-Semitic stereotype, one that I was entirely unaware of prior to the publication of this article. I want to be very clear that it was never my intention to invoke a hateful stereotype, but I recognize now that, regardless of my intention, words have power, and it troubles me deeply to know that I have caused some members of the Jewish community such pain with my words.

The young man's apology isn't "I'm sorry that Harvard Law School's Program on Negotiation, which attempts to increase discourse and awareness about how difficult problems can be resolved through discourse, invited a former foreign minister and I reacted by calling her smelly to signify what a bold revolutionary and deep thinker I am." It's more "sorry that you thought that my use of a classic anti-Semitic trope was anti-Semitic instead of just, you know, being a smirking dick."

Thanks for that.

Young Smelly McListofDemands assures us that some of his best friends are (odor unspecified) Jews:

Many members of the Jewish community—some of whom hold strong differences of opinion with me—have reached out to me on their own to let me know that they did not interpret my words as anti-Semitic, because they know me well enough to know that that is not at all consistent with who I am as a person. I want to thank them and any others who have given me the benefit of the doubt, and I am writing this note in the hopes that more of you will do the same.

After all that meaningless praddle, Zionists are still nothing but murderous thieves who have no business being in Palestine at all.

But at least you were entertaining in your pathetic whining.

Harvard Law Record Abandons the First of the Five W’s of Journalism


The Harvard Law Record explains why it protected the identity of Husam El-Qoulaq, who hurled an anti-Semitic insult at Tzipi Livni, former Foreign Minister of Israel and current member of the Knesset. Livni appeared as a guest at the school earlier this month when El-Qoulaq insulted her.

Journalists are supposed to find out what happened and tell their readers what they have learned. Historically, there have been five questions that reporters are expected to answer, or at least try to answer, when writing about public events. The questions are:

1. Who?
2. What?
3. When?
4. Where?
5. Why?

Apparently, the student journalists at The Harvard Law Record did not get the memo.

When Husam El-Qoulaq, a student at Harvard Law School insulted Tzipi Livni, former Israeli Foreign Minister and current member of the Israeli Knesset, at a public event on Thursday April 14, 2016, (he called her “smelly”), the newspaper initially concealed the El-Qoulaq’s identity.

When, on April 18, 2016, Jewish students who attended the event condemned the statement as antisemitic in a letter to The Record, they did El-Qoulaq the undeserved and unwarranted courtesy of withholding his name from their complaint.

This is their right, but The Record to assist in the effort to protect Husam El-Qoulaq’s identity is simply disgraceful and runs counter to the demands of journalism. It’s a betrayal of the publication's loyalty to the reader.

It’s a decision that makes a mockery of The Harvard Law Record’s credibility as a journalistic enterprise. Rather than do their job and inform their readers who said what to whom, the staffers at the newspaper withheld this information from their readers. And when students identified El-Qoulaq in the comments section of the article, they deleted these comments. (Eventually, Noah Pollak confirmed El-Qoulaq’s identity and posted it on Twitter.)
The Record’s effort to conceal El-Qoulaq’s identity is disgraceful.

El-Qoulaq offered his antisemitic insult in front of dozens of students at a public event, which was being videotaped. Even more bizarrely, Harvard Law School deleted the section of the video that recorded Husam El-Qoulaq insulting Livni.

One of El-Qoulaq’s fellow students even pressured journalists not to use El-Qoulaq’s name in their articles about the antisemitic insult, The Washington Free Beacon reported. And the school itself said it could not reveal El-Qoulaq's identity because of "federal privacy laws."

It gets even weirder. The Record even allowed El-Qoulaq to issue an anonymous apology for insulting Livni. But as The Washington Free Beacon concisely stated, “A public apology typically involves someone identifying themselves by name.”

Eventually, The Harvard Law Record did the right thing and published El-Qoulaq’s name when a group of Jewish students at the institution came to his defense, stating that he is a victim of “a vicious smear campaign.”

But when The Record did the right thing, it did so not because it was fulfilling its obligation to inform its readers about who did, or said, what. It did the right thing because El-Qoulaq’s name had been broadcast elsewhere in the Internet and because El-Qoulaq had given the paper permission. But no permission was necessary, for El-Qoulap made his comment at a public event. This is basic journalism.

Why did the paper withhold El-Qoulaq’s name from the story about his antisemitic insult directed at Tzipi Livni? To promote “respectful discourse” and “recognition of the fact that Husam is a member of this community.”

Apparently, holding people accountable for their public statements is not part of the Harvard Law School’s ethos. How else can we explain the efforts of both administrators and student journalists at the school to protect El-Qoulaq’s identity?

Annual Tuition at Harvard Law School is almost $60,000.

That’s a lot of money, but it still does not enough to protect students who attend the school from scrutiny and criticism, as The Record’s staff seems to believe.