Chicago professor apologizes for calling Israelis 'pigs' and 'savages'
CHICAGO - An associate professor of climate science at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago apologized Wednesday for calling Israelis "pigs" and "savages."
In a shocking rant on her Instagram story posted Tuesday, Dr. Mika Tosca denounced the entire Jewish state.
"Israelis are pigs. Savages. Very very bad people. Irredeemable excrement," she wrote. "After the past week, if your eyes aren't open to the crimes against humanity that Israel is committing and has committed for decades, and will continue to commit, then I suggest you open them. It's disgusting and grotesque. May they all rot in hell."
Instagram stories automatically disappear after 24 hours. It's unclear if Tosca took down the post or it expired.
The Israel-Hamas war has triggered vile tirades on social media condemning both sides in the deadly conflict.
Hamas launched a surprise attack on Israel on Oct. 7, slaughtering more than 1,300 people – mostly civilians – and taking more than 200 hostages.
Israel has responded with a heavy bombardment of Gaza, which has killed nearly 3,000 people, according to the local health ministry.
After many on social media called for Tosca's firing, she posted an apology.
"I am deeply sorry for writing what I wrote, and for hurting many people with my words, and I am especially sorry to Israeli people that I broadly placed at fault for the war," she wrote. "You did not – and do not – deserve that, and I was wrong to post what I posted."
Bree Witt, a spokesperson for the school, directed Fox News Digital to Tosca's apology.
"One member of our community expressed hateful views, which SAIC repudiates," Witt said in a statement. "Those views are not reflective of the School or the values we as a community share."
Witt declined to comment on whether the tenure track professor is facing disciplinary action.
The disturbing post was first flagged by the nonprofit StopAntisemitism on X.
"@saic_news your Israeli and Jewish students deserve better than being taught by this hate-filled instructor," the organization wrote on X, referring to the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.
Tosca didn't immediately return a request for comment.
Tosca isn't the only professor under fire for her vitriolic commentary on the war. An associate professor of history at Cornell University, Russell Rickford, said he was "exhilarated" by Hamas' Oct. 7 ambush at a pro-Palestinian rally Sunday.
"It was exhilarating, it was energizing. If they [the Palestinians] weren't exhilarated by this challenge to the monopoly of violence, by the shifting of this balance of power, they would not be human. I was exhilarated," he told the crowd, who responded with cheers.
Joseph Massad, a professor of modern Arab politics at Columba University, praised Hamas' terrorist attack on Israel as "astounding" in an article and called the massacre the Palestinians' "battle against their cruel colonizers."
Washington University assistant professor of genetics Seth Crosby was criticized for writing on X that Israel's airstrikes on Gaza are a "much needed cleansing, yes, but not an ethnic one. Israel is not targeting humans."
He later clarified that he was referring to Hamas, not the Palestinian people, and apologized for his "clumsy words."