She trapped those college presidents and they fell for it Michelle Goldberg has a very astute observation about this brouhaha over the Ivy League presidents allegedly failing to condemn antisemitism in a congressional hearing this week. As she points out, if you only see the highlights that have been circulating you would agree they they were expressing tolerance for hate speech against Jews but when you view the whole thing it’s obvious that there was more to it: In the questioning before the now infamous exchange, you can see the trap Stefanik laid. “You understand that the use of the term ‘intifada’ in the context of the Israeli-Arab conflict is indeed a call for violent armed resistance against the state of Israel, including violence against civilians and the genocide of Jews. Are you aware of that?” she asked Gay. Gay responded that such language was “abhorrent.” Stefanik then badgered her to admit that students chanting about intifada were calling for genocide, and asked angrily whether that was against Harvard’s code of conduct. “Will admissions offers be rescinded or any disciplinary action be taken against students or applicants who say, ‘From the river to the sea’ or ‘intifada,’ advocating for the murder of Jews?” Gay repeated that such “hateful, reckless, offensive speech is personally abhorrent to me,” but said action would be taken only “when speech crosses into conduct.” So later in the hearing, when Stefanik again started questioning Gay, Kornbluth and Magill about whether it was permissible for students to…