It’s not hard, if you watch anti-Israeli or pro-Palestinian demonstrations (which are pretty much the same thing), to realize that most demonstrators are really both antisemitic and pro-Hamas, seeing what happened on October 7 of last year as a good thing that produced “martyrs”, and explicitly calling for the elimination of the state of Israel. Yes, “Jews” have euphemistically morphed into “Zionists”, but up to now the demonstrators have pretty much avoided explicit worship of terrorism.
Times have changed. Now, after a year in which Hamas and now Hezbollah have taken a pounding, the demonstrators are getting more rabid, and one group at Columbia University, Ground Zero for antisemitism, is celebrating terrorism. Of course they’re celebrating it as justified “armed resistance”, but how reprehensible is it to justify “armed resistance” that involves rape, killing, and kidnapping of civilians, many of whom were working for peace? A dance rave is not a threat to Hamas, except insofar as it involves Jews!
The NYT reports on a Columbia group that no longer masks its sentiments like they mask their faces. Click headline to read, or find the article archived here.
An excerpt:
The pro-Palestinian group that sparked the student encampment movement at Columbia University in response to the Israel-Hamas war is becoming more hard-line in its rhetoric, openly supporting militant groups fighting Israel and rescinding an apology it made after one of its members said the school was lucky he wasn’t out killing Zionists.
“We support liberation by any means necessary, including armed resistance,” the group, Columbia University Apartheid Divest, [CUAD] said in its statement revoking the apology.
The group marked the anniversary of the Oct. 7 attack on Israel by distributing a newspaper with a headline that used Hamas’s name for it: “One Year Since Al-Aqsa Flood, Revolution Until Victory,” it read, over a picture of Hamas fighters breaching the security fence to Israel. And the group posted an essay calling the attack a “moral, military and political victory” and quoting Ismail Haniyeh, the assassinated former political leader of Hamas.
“The Palestinian resistance is moving their struggle to a new phase of escalation and it is our duty to meet them there,” the group wrote on Oct. 7 on Telegram. “It is our duty to fight for our freedom!”
The rhetoric poses a challenge to university administrators who must decide how to handle students and student groups that take such positions. Their statements are broadly protected under the First Amendment but could lead to federal investigations into campus antisemitism or on campus discipline if they are deemed to create a hostile environment for Jewish students.
There’s more.
The Columbia group’s increasingly radical statements are being mirrored by pro-Palestinian groups on other college campuses, including in a series of social media posts this week that praised the Oct. 7 attack. They also reflect the influence of more extreme protest groups off campus, like Within Our Lifetime, that support violent attacks against Israel.
“Long live October 7th,” Nerdeen Kiswani, the head of Within Our Lifetime, wrote on X on Tuesday.
Here’s Kiswani’s post in which she celebrates the brutal murder of civilians:
October 7th has always been a day against Nazism, and now it’s counterpart Zionism! Long live resistance against Nazism, Zionism, white supremacy, and all forms of genocide, settler colonialism, and fascism! Long live October 7th! https://t.co/LSd9dbki3H
— Nerdeen Kiswani (@NerdeenKiswani) October 8, 2024
And more:
Students for Justice in Palestine, a pro-Palestinian student group that has chapters at hundreds of colleges across the country, was among the groups whose members posted praise for the Oct. 7 attack.
“Al-Aqsa Flood was a historic act of resistance against decades of occupation, apartheid, and settler colonial violence,” the Brown chapter of Students for Justice in Palestine posted on Instagram.
The increasingly revolutionary tilt of the student movement reflects an internal push among many pro-Palestinian groups to align their goals with principles known as the Thawabet, crafted by the Palestine Liberation Organization in 1977. They include the right of Palestinians to armed resistance and to self-determination on all the land from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea.
Here’s that Brown SJP Instagram post, which celebrates October 7, 2023, as beginning an “accelerated phase” of opposition to Israeli genocide. Now that’s a good euphemism!
More about Columbia University Apartheid Divest:
Since [October 7], the group has praised a Tel Aviv attack by Palestinian militants that killed seven people at a light rail station on Oct. 1, including a mother who died while shielding her 9-month-old baby. It also praised Iran’s missile attack on the Jewish state that began that evening, calling it a “bold move.”
On Tuesday, the group said it rescinded an apology it made last spring about the behavior of Khymani James, a student who had said in a disciplinary hearing that “Zionists don’t deserve to live,” and, “Be grateful that I’m not just going out and murdering Zionists.”
“We let you down,” the group wrote in a statement, referring to Mr. James. No longer, the group vowed, would it “pander to liberal media to make the movement for liberation palatable.”
There’s really nothing to say except that a. this is still free speech until it reaches the point where the atmosphere at Columbia becomes such as to provide an intimidating atmosphere for Jewish students, impeding their learning, in which case it becomes a Title VI violation. (It may be there now.) But regardless of free speech considerations, CUAD is now an open exponent of butchering civilians, an antisemitic group that supports terrorism and rescinds an apology for someone who said that he was going to murder “Zionists”. This is not just support for the Palestinian people, but support for murder, rape, torture, and kidnapping. After all, Israel must be eliminated “by any means necessary.”
When I posted a tweet that this article had appeared in the NYT, and calling out the protestors, I got this on my Twitter feed from an author.
Just be aware that this dude apparently supports CUAD and its aims. Things have come to a pretty pass when a Jew can be called a “Nazi” for opposing the killing of innocent Jews.
This is the benefit of free speech – you can hear and read exactly what people actually believe, and you can make your own judgments.
I can’t understand equating Nazis with Israel. Hamas’s actions of killing, raping, maiming, kidnapping, torturing, and burning of innocent Jews is much more in line with the Nazi philosophy than any action taken by Israel. It is the anti-Zionist Jew haters who are the modern Nazis.
That’s right, Darryl and I think in the eyes of many less-impassioned useful idiots, this kind of rhetoric jumps the shark. I suspect that students at these schools who before were ambivalent or even supportive, but not so nuts, will lose interest and turn hostile to the disruptions (if not the politics). These new Nazi/Islamists are so clearly wrapped up in Marxist bullshit, even the most historically (not to say morally) ignorant of students will get turned off. Like college communists, who have been ignored for decades.
Nerdeen Kiswani is not a student. She’s a professional agitator.
They’re very fond of equating Nazis with Israel over at FreeThoughtBlogs (especially Pharyngula). No surprise there. But Hamas and Hezbollah comparisons to “Nazis”….? Not so much.
They were also really, really eager to deny/dismiss any claims of antisemitism among the “protests” at Columbia.
One of the reasons for the modern explosion of Jew hate is the rage other minority groups feel toward Jews for being victims of the largest genocide in modern history and being the 20th-century’s most famously despised and hunted tribe—in their eyes, how could a group of people so seemingly accomplished and well-off portray themselves as oppressed victims? (I think Whoopi Goldberg was clumsily expressing this viewpoint when she claimed: “Let’s be truthful about it because Holocaust isn’t about race. It’s not about race. It’s not about race. It’s about man’s inhumanity to man.”)
I think this is why the opponents of Israel always quickly reach for the “Nazi” etc comparisons—Jews have to be knocked off the victim pedestal, because being the Most Oppressed Victim is a very coveted status in the modern West, and other groups want to rob Jews of any of their claims here, in their campaign to paint the Oppressed as the Oppressor.
There’s also been Arab oil money put into universities. Plus students from those countries.
Nerdeen Kiswani (not a student but clearly active on campus) is of Palestinian background.
So there’s some mood shift from that alone.
“It is our duty to fight for our freedom!” says CUAD.
Then they should go to Gaza. I imagine they could someone from Hamas who would be happy to put a gun in their hands.
With the battle between the parties in the U.S., people seem to be oblivious to the larger divide in this country. It used to be that folks were divided about certain policies within an overall framework upon which there was broad agreement. Now, though, there is a large minority that seems to no longer believe in pluralism. Convinced that they are on “the right side of History”, they are willing to jettison all the things that make civil society possible in the belief that their Utopia is imminent. We have major political figures calling for censorship. We have periodicals calling for a scraping of the Constitution. These are not arguments about taxes or welfare. These people are literally enemies of the United States.
Wow. Damn.
Good to know who these people are. Their names. So if they ever want a job in a respectable field… employers will know them. And I’m glad they’re now kind of famous.
Hopefully they’ve coralled themselves into darker quarters of the weirdo pariah genocide NGO world.
And they’ve shown us what exactly these “allies” of Pal are. They’ve always been the same but these heroes have told the world. And with their friends they have doomed a Pal state forever. Good, that.
D.A.
NYC
I only saw the name of ringleader Nerdeen Kiswani (not a student) and the article mentioned Khymani James, also known from an earlier escapade.
Both have been profiled by Canary Mission.
The others are covered up and incognito.
Khomeini would approve. In fact, he almost certainly did approve the rhetoric and provided funding for the anti-Israel protests.
According to Perplexity (an AI research tool that looks pretty solid in my limited experience – they provide references in every answer and are careful to provide context), Iranian actors are indeed using social media to agitate and are providing funding for these protests.
According to Perplexity:
“Based on recent intelligence reports and statements from U.S. officials, there is evidence that Iran is indeed funding and influencing anti-Israel protests on American college campuses:
Intelligence Community Findings
Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines released a statement in July 2024 warning that Iranian government actors are actively trying to influence and fund anti-Israel protests in the United States12. Specifically, Haines stated:
“We have observed actors tied to Iran’s government posing as activists online, seeking to encourage protests, and even providing financial support to protesters.”2
Methods of Influence
The Iranian regime is reportedly using several tactics to influence campus protests:
Posing as activists online to encourage protests2
Providing direct financial support to protesters12
Using intelligence assets and Iranian influencers to promote narratives2
Adapting cyber activities on social media platforms2”
“The Biden administration has acknowledged Iran’s role, with White House spokesman John Kirby stating that Iran has been “funding and encouraging some of the protest activity” in the U.S.4 However, some critics argue the administration has downplayed the threat3.
Congress has also taken notice, with a bipartisan group of lawmakers requesting a classified briefing on the Iranian threat3.”
See:
https://www.perplexity.ai/search/is-iran-funding-anti-israel-pr-1ZFmea4qT_.zCnpUL2IRwA
The Anti-Defamation League (ADL) held an online seminar the other day and published the proceedings on YouTube. It’s about (not surprisingly) the massive rise in antisemitism in the U.S. and around the world—and what can be done about it. View that here: https://youtu.be/gRgDuEUbRD0?si=AR3rcTNSFOt8Bebc.
It seems to me that the solutions the ADL discussants recommend will not be robust enough to overcome the tide. The speakers also talked a fair amount about Jewish “resilience,” which really bothered me. Rather than imply that antisemitism is a battle that can be won, resilience seemed to imply that Jews will be able to tolerate the rising tide of adversity—as if we’ve tolerated it all before and will be able to do so again.
It feels like we are heading toward an abyss unless we can get a handle on this explosion of Jew-hate. The ADL speakers tried to highlight reasons for optimism, but the overall tenor of the conversation was dark.
What we are seeing at Columbia is symptomatic of what is happening more broadly.
Norman,
I agree. And I am deeply worried.
Arthur Hertzberg once said something in a lecture that I attended, and it has stuck with me. He said one of the ugliest aspects of the Nazi death camps was the way in which so many of the officers thought of themselves as the civilized ones, the ones who could do their stint at the ovens and go home and enjoy Bach, believing they have done well.
Today, the radical left seems to display a similar attitude. The people who celebrate terrorism by calling it a liberation movement want to view themselves as the civilized ones. This worries me. It is a secularized version of a holy war, and it will require more than just “resilience” to overcome.
The main piece described the role of Students for Justice in Palestine but I wonder whether there is also involvement by Faculty for Justice in Palestine, which is closely linked to Students for Justice in Palestine.
“October 7th has always been a day against Nazism, and now it’s counterpart Zionism!”
It’s impossible to overstate the amount of confusion in this young person’s tweet. The indiscriminate killing of Jews on October 7 was against Nazism? A thriving Jewish nation (Zionism) is pro-Nazi?
It’s like a form of brain damage…as in she doesn’t have the faintest understanding of what the words “Nazi” and “Zionist” actually mean, other than someone told her that these were bad words, and therefore they must mean the same thing??
I was equally taken aback by that tweet.
So now they expressly and unapologetically endorse the coldblooded murder of innocent noncombatants. Have we reached a new low, where people such as this feel emboldened enough to publicly take such a position and expect support? How can people not see these protesters for what they are?
Calling Jews “nazis” continues to shock me, as I’m sure they intend. This practice is absolutely disgusting, but that description doesn’t begin to cover it. If words can be violence, as the woke crowd likes to claim, then equating Jews with the very organization that attempted a real genocide against them is the very pinnacle of verbal violence. These people are either vicious lunatics or incredibly stupid children.
As the parents of two college students I can say that the time has already come when Jewish students learning is being impeded. This is in part because of the escalation in ‘free speech’ on campus by students now includes violence-admiring threats but even more so when the same words are coming from faculty. And how can Jewish students be expected to learn when taking a class in Women’s Studies, or Native American Studies, Social Work or even health care or any number of subjects in which the professor is not an expert in Middle East politics uses part of their class resources and time to expound on their ideology that Israel is a ‘genocidal ethno-state’ created on ‘white supremacy’ and apartheid. Students risk getting a poor grade if they try to dialogue on these ideas (presented as facts). At the same time, no one is actually learning the given subject. But these lectures are allowed and even encouraged by the administration. Also, it seems that the administration at many of these schools use “free speech” as a smoke screen to ignore Jewish students (and their parents) concerns. Administrators can acknowledge calling for a “student intifada” is free speech while still publicly chastising students and calling for better behavior. They certainly don’t have to ignore or encourage it.
“If words can be violence, as the woke crowd likes to claim, then equating Jews with the very organization that attempted a real genocide against them is the very pinnacle of verbal violence.”
One of the things that several posters here have helped me understand over the years is the “post-modern” character of wokism…which embraces contradictions. Or rather, views all human relations as power relations and rejects objectivity, principles-based reasoning and logical consistency.
So the apparent principle of “words can be violence” is just a tool to be selectively wielded against one’s enemies, not an ethical principal that is meant to guide behavior (including one’s own). Pointing out the hypocrisy of this will not compute with the woke because that is not how they think.
Listening to NPR this morning, only half-attentively – it was probably from the BBC stream. They were interviewing a Palestinian guy who seemed more sad than angry, and said that he had been moved five times to different camps over the past year. Occurred to me afterward that the reason he had been moved five times was that five times the Israelis had said that all needed to leave because that area was now going to be targeted.
Some genocidal maniacs, those Israelis.