Category: University

Why Is the Pro-Palestinian Encampment Craze Sweeping Our Colleges?

Robert Spencer | 6:11 PM on May 01, 2024
SEE: https://pjmedia.com/robert-spencer/2024/05/01/why-is-the-pro-palestinian-encampment-craze-sweeping-our-colleges-n4928689; republished below in full, unedited, for informational, educational, & research purposes:
AP Photo/Stefan Jeremiah
Campus fads come and go, but we’ve come a long way from swallowing goldfish, stuffing as many people as possible into phone booths, and the ever-popular drinking until you pass out. The latest craze among college kids is, as Sen. John Fetterman (D-Penn.) indelibly put it, “living in a pup tent for Hamas.” No sooner do cops clear out one encampment than another one springs up, and it looks as if they’re going to be with us for the rest of this semester and may even be revived once the universities reconvene next fall. This is, however, not even close to being a spontaneous phenomenon. The groundwork for what we’re seeing now has been laid for years.

Not only is it not spontaneous, it’s clearly orchestrated from outside the colleges and universities where the encampments have sprung up. New York City Mayor Eric Adams has acknowledged that “professionals” were involved in the Columbia University encampment. Another sign that this isn’t exactly a grass-roots movement is the fact that a large number of the pro-Hamas protesters have identical tents. Which well-heeled leftist bought them? We don’t know and may never know, but someone certainly appears to have done some buying in bulk. 

Still, the movement needed foot soldiers. The cadres had to be recruited and indoctrinated. That has been the work of the Middle East Studies Association (MESA), the professional organization of Middle East Studies professors at colleges and universities nationwide.

MESA, whose members dominate the Middle East Studies faculties of most colleges and universities in the United States, says that it is “a non-profit association that fosters the study of the Middle East, promotes high standards of scholarship and teaching, and encourages public understanding of the region and its peoples through programs, publications and services that enhance education, further intellectual exchange, recognize professional distinction, and defend academic freedom.” That strikes all the right notes, but as you likely suspect, the reality is not so noble and high-minded. MESA is a far-left, pro-jihad activist organization that is dedicated to providing an academic sheen to Marxist agitprops and Palestinian jihad propaganda.

To see what MESA busies itself with doing, scan the 25 items that are currently on the front page of the news section of the MESA website. Two stories are pinned to the top of the page; one of them is on the side of genuine justice and human rights, decrying the Iranian Islamic regime’s dismissal of professors who supported the recent Woman, Life, Freedom protests in Iran.

The other pinned story, however, is entitled “Campus Climate Resources,” which gives the initial impression that it’s propaganda about the myth of human-caused climate change; it’s about the “climate” on campus regarding support for the Palestinian jihad against Israel. MESA here offers an assortment of links to this article, denouncing the alleged “repression of protest on campuses,” the alleged “targeting of Palestinian students in Israeli universities,” and the like.

One of these linked articles carries this headline: “MESA Board Joint Statement with CAF [MESA’s Committee on Academic Freedom] regarding the ongoing genocidal violence against the Palestinian people and their cultural heritage in Gaza.” That article asserts that “the ongoing attack on Gaza by the state of Israel…has now claimed more than 100,000 Palestinians dead and wounded according to the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs.”

Despite still being offered by MESA as if it contained current information, the article has not been revised to reflect Hamas’ admission that its casualty figures have been wildly inflated or any indication that the UN still carries on its list of journalists supposedly killed by the Israelis, the name of a man who is very much alive. In MESA’s world, only the Palestinian side of the story is told, and it is believed without question. That is what the self-righteous and ignorant students who are in the encampments have been told, and that’s all they know.

Many of the other articles on the first page of MESA’s news section are letters to or from various universities regarding MESA protesting against the dismissal of such professors or the disciplining of pro-Hamas students. There is nothing, however, about the pro-Israel professor Shai Davidai getting barred from the Columbia campus, but plenty about how the cosseted toy revolutionaries on the campus lawn are being oppressed and their rights denied.

     Related: I Got Invited to Speak at UCLA. Guess What Happened Next.

Given MESA’s relentless anti-Israel stance, it is easy to see how university students all over the nation have gotten the idea that supporting Hamas’ genocidal jihad is righteous. Yet MESA, like the universities where these students are posturing and screaming today, was not always this bad. Its Founding Fellows include genuine scholars such as S. D. Goitein, Majid Khadduri, and Franz Rosenthal. Among its Honorary Fellows were some of the most consequential figures in the study of Islam, Arabs, and the Middle East, including Sir Hamilton Gibb, Philip K. Hitti, W. Montgomery Watt, Maxime Rodinson, and Annemarie Schimmel.

These actual scholars have been followed, however, by today’s crop, which is a rogue gallery of academic hacks and propagandists. Yet their effectiveness cannot be denied: the pro-Hamas encampments on college campuses are their handiwork.

NYPD Head Slams AOC For Her Criticism of the Police at Columbia

At what point would AOC think calling in the NYPD is justified?

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SEE: https://www.frontpagemag.com/nypd-head-slams-aoc-for-her-criticism-of-the-police-at-columbia/; republished below in full, unedited, for informational, educational, & research purposes:

[Pre-order a copy of David Horowitz’s next book, America Betrayed, by clicking here. Orders will begin shipping on May 7th.]

When pro-Hamas antisemitic students refused to leave their tent encampments on the Columbia campus after repeatedly being implored to do so by Columbia administrators, the NYPD was called in to remove them, and did so with dispatch and determined efficiency. The police never lost their cool, despite being repeatedly cursed by those students who tried to resist, kicking and screaming, being picked up and moved off-campus to waiting police wagons. Most observers were deeply impressed with the calm of the police officers that was quite a contrast to the hysteria exhibited by the students (and by some non-student protesters, mostly Muslim Arabs, who had decided to take part in the anti-Israel fun). Not everyone was impressed, however. The former mixologist and current Congresswoman and Squadroon, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, was outraged at the behavior of the police. And the head of the NYPD decided to answer her back. More on this contretemps, with the NYPD chief showing his mettle more attractive, can be found here: “Top NYPD cop schools AOC after she rants about Columbia campus chaos and ‘violent’ police units,” by Olivia Land, New York Post, April 25, 2024:

A top NYPD official schooled Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and slammed Columbia University’s “entitled” demonstrators after the congresswoman railed against the school’s decision to call in cops amid ongoing campus chaos.

“Not only did Columbia make the horrific decision to mobilize NYPD on its own students, but the units called in have some of the most violent reviews on the force,” Ocasio-Cortez wrote late Wednesday in response to a video of NYPD counterterrorism officers outside the Morningside Heights campus.

“NYPD had promised the city they wouldn’t deploy SRG to protests. "So why are these counterterror units here?” she asked.

But NYPD Chief of Patrol John Chell was having none of the left-wing Democrat’s critique, and wrote in a reply, “Columbia decided to hold its students accountable to the laws of the school.”…

The protesters have missed several deadlines to evacuate the space — including a midnight Wednesday cutoff that under-pressure officials extended by 48 hours.

The NYPD also arrested more than 100 demonstrators at NYU on Monday night — and shocking video showed Assistant Chief James McCarthy and his officers surrounded as they went into a building after cuffing one of the protesters.

“F–k you! F–k you, pigs,” the crowd could be heard shouting at police as they [the protesters] descended on the scene.

NYPD Assistant Chief James McCarthy and a few officers were chased by protestors after they made a single arrest at NYU. McCarthy and his men tried to get inside the NYU Catholic Center, but couldn’t open the door. They eventually found an unlocked door around the corner. Security guards had to hold the doors closed as students tried but failed to push their way in. And once inside, McCarthy called for backup. The students, meanwhile, alternated cries of “Shame” with “Free Palestine.” And they continued to do so until that backup unit arrived, and started to make more arrests, at which point the crowd dissipated.

After many attempts to persuade the students to leave peacefully, all of which were rejected, the administration at Columbia called on the NYPD to remove them forcibly. This came two days after the NYPD arrested more than 100 demonstrators at NYU, who had taken over a campus building; Columbia students spewed obscenities at the police when they arrived, and continued in that vein as they resisted being picked up and taken in police wagons to local stations to be booked.

At Columbia, the administration had repeatedly set deadlines for the students — at least three — all of which were ignored by the students. Their presence — that tent encampment — smack in the middle of the campus had disrupted university life, with noise of their chanting making it hard to be heard inside lecture halls, classrooms, and libraries. Entry into some buildings was blocked by the protesters. Jewish students, fearing the worst, did not dare to cross the campus to get to classes or to their dorm rooms. Many have now followed the advice of Columbia’s rabbi and left their dorms to live at home as commuting students.

AOC was outraged by the NYPD being called in by Columbia to remove protesters after days of warnings went unheeded. She specifically objected to police belonging to anti-terror units being among those sent to Columbia. What did she expect the Columbia administrators to do — simply turn over the campus to the protesters who continued to spew forth their anti-Israel and antisemitic venom, calling for the eradication of the Jewish state and its replacement by a 23rd Arab one, and cheering on the terrorists of Hamas for what they did on October 7? Should that have been allowed to go on for weeks? At what point would AOC think calling in the NYPD was justified? After a Jewish student is pummeled by a crowd into a bloody mess? In fact, there have been physical threats to Jewish students on the Columbia campus, many of whom now say they are afraid to appear on the campus because of the demonstrators. There have been a few cases of Jewish students being attacked, though so far no serious injuries have been reported. Does that “horrify” you just as much as the police from the anti-terror unit, AOC?

Video: Jewish UCLA Student Blockaded From Class by Masked Protesters

"This is our school and they are not letting me walk in.”

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SEE: https://www.frontpagemag.com/video-jewish-ucla-student-blockaded-from-class-by-masked-protesters/; republished below in full, unedited, for informational, educational, & research purposes:

[Pre-order a copy of David Horowitz’s next book, America Betrayed, by clicking here. Orders will begin shipping on May 7th.]

Amid the ongoing harassment and bigotry displayed by pro-Hamas protesters on college campuses across the United States, a short video has gone viral featuring a Jewish student at UCLA, wearing a Star of David necklace, being denied passage to his classes by masked activists.

“I’m a UCLA student. I deserve to go here. We pay tuition. "This is our school and they are not letting me walk in,” the student states.

As commentator Dave Rubin noted on X, “Imagine if a black kid was being denied entry to UCLA by white students… We’d all know his name, the NBA season would be cancelled, cities would be burning and dementia man would’ve sent in the national guard.”

Check out the short clip below:

U. Minnesota Dept. of Gender, Women, and Sexuality Studies: A Vile Font of Jew Hatred

Oct. 7 was about “Hamas fighters” who “brought down border fences.”

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SEE: https://www.frontpagemag.com/u-minnesota-dept-of-gender-women-and-sexuality-studies-a-vile-font-of-jew-hatred/; republished below in full, unedited, for informational, educational, & research purposes:

[Pre-order a copy of David Horowitz’s next book, America Betrayed, by clicking here. Orders will begin shipping on May 7th.]

Editor’s note: Since the barbaric Hamas attacks against Israel on October 7th, American universities have become an undeniable locus of Jewish hatred within our nation. Much attention has deservedly been paid to radical campus groups like Students for Justice in Palestine who call for the genocide of the Jews and cheer the terrorists of Hamas. What has received less attention—but should in fact rank as the universities’ worst offense—is the Jew hatred promoted by official departments and institutes of the universities themselves. In the case of our campuses, Jewish hatred is “the call coming from inside the house.”

The Freedom Center is exposing these academic institutes and programs as “The Top Ten Jew-Hating Academic Departments” in a new report. We will be publishing one school per day as a series on Frontpage. The Department of Gender, Women, and Sexuality Studies at the University of Minnesota is #5 on our list.  

Just a glance at the website for the University of Minnesota Department of Gender, Women, and Sexuality Studies reveals it to be a highly politicized unit of the wider university, dedicated to progressive activism. The site declares that “As a place where research, education, and social change go hand in hand, GWSS identifies, analyzes, and challenges structural inequalities, while imagining and creating just and transformative futures for all.” Instead of searching for truth and knowledge, the Department openly acknowledges that its vision includes “social change,” “challeng[ing] structural inequalities,” and “creating just and transformative futures for all.”

So it should come as no surprise that, like much of the progressive left, the Department of Gender, Women, and Sexuality Studies (DGWSS) is a vile font of Jewish hatred on the University of Minnesota campus.

Just six days after the brutal and barbaric Hamas attack on Israel, in which innocent civilians were brutalized and raped, parents killed in front of children, children killed in front of parents, bodies gleefully mutilated by terrorists on camera, DGWSS released a “Faculty Statement on Palestine” in which they described the massacre as “Hamas fighters” (not terrorists) who “brought down border fences.” The statement went on to demonize Israel and its defensive response to the worst attack in its history as “not self-defense but the continuation of a genocidal war against Gaza and against Palestinian freedom, self-determination, and life.”  The statement declared “We stand in solidarity with the Palestinian people and with Palestinian scholars and organizers.” DGWSS might as well have said, “We stand with Hamas.”

The statement goes on to make clear that the Department stands for Palestine, and only Palestine. “We strongly reject media coverage that condemns either side or seeks to tell a one-sided story of an unprovoked terrorist attack,” it states. “Israeli leaders are wielding a violent power that subjugates the Palestinian people and constructs them as dehumanized terrorists, upon whom any bloodshed can be meted out.”

Ironically, the Department even claims that its glorification of Hamas “fighters,” who raped and brutalized innocent Israeli women en masse is a stance for feminism. “As scholars and solidarity workers who seek justice everywhere, we respond to the call of Palestinian feminists and Palestinian freedom fighters for transnational solidarity and assert that Palestine is a feminist issue,” claims the statement. “None of us will be free unless the Palestinian people are free and Palestinian land is liberated.”

Unsurprisingly, the statement goes on to “reaffirm support for the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions Movement,” a genocidal attempt to isolate and destroy the world’s only Jewish state.

At the very end of the lengthy diatribe against Israel, one sentence appears to apparently mediate the clear tension created by an academic department putting forth such a horrific and anti-Semitic tirade: “This statement reflects our individual views and we do not purport to speak for the University.”  This caveat is obviously a lie. Individual professors in the department could have put out a statement under their own auspices and promoted it on their personal social media accounts. Instead, DGWSS chose to place it prominently on the official department webpage of the University of Minnesota website, where it remains several months later, amended only by a brief note, added on November 20th, 2023, which states, in part, “This statement was written collectively by the tenured core faculty of the Department of Gender Women and Sexuality Studies." This statement does not reflect the position of the University of Minnesota.”  That legalistic note seems unlikely to reassure Jewish and Israeli students who are forced to take classes within the Department.

Largely in response to the DGWSS statement, the U.S. Department of Education is now conducting an investigation into whether the University of Minnesota has violated federal anti-discrimination law due to anti-Semitism on campus.

The investigation was prompted by a letter sent to federal officials by former University of Minnesota regent Michael Hsu and law professor Richard Painter who argued, according to MPR News, that the DGWSS statement “is antisemitic because it condemns Israel while justifying the terrorist attacks by Hamas.’”

“This is not about being pro-Palestinian,” Painter told MPR News. “This is about official statements of departments on websites paid for by the Minnesota taxpayers that justify the actions of Hamas.”

For its politicized use of official university resources to promote anti-Semitism and glorify Hamas, the University of Minnesota Department of Gender, Women, and Sexuality Studies belongs on the list of the worst Jewish-hating academic departments in America.

Previous articles in the series:

[1] ‘Jew-Hating’ Asian American Studies Program is Exposed at Northwestern University.

[2] UIUC’s Department of Latino Studies Endorses ‘Jew Hatred’.

[3] U. Maryland Department of Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies: A Case Study in ‘Jew Hatred’.

[4] University of Colorado-Boulder Ethnic Studies Department: Shilling for Hamas.

[5] UNC Center for Middle East and Islamic Studies: Celebrating October 7th.

Pro-Palestinian protesters at UCLA stand ground, refuse orders to disperse

Thousands of people took over the University of California, Los Angeles campus Wednesday night, just short of 24 hours after violence broke out between demonstrators in the pro-Palestinian encampment and pro-Israeli counter-protesters.   On Wednesday, Sky5 went overhead as a large law enforcement presence began to position itself on different sides of the encampment. Not long after police showed up, authorities ordered demonstrators to disperse, declaring the encampment an unlawful assembly over a loudspeaker.   Aerial footage showed hundreds of demonstrators locking arms in front of the path leading to the encampment and reinforcing barricades, as law enforcement surrounded the encampment.   Hours later, demonstrators were still occupying the encampment with police on the outskirts despite orders to disperse issued earlier in the afternoon. At around 11 p.m. Tuesday night, some 50 pro-Israeli counter-protesters, many of them dressed in black and wearing white masks, lobbed fireworks at those in the encampment and attempted to dismantle the barricades.

Anti-Israel Protesters Screaming ‘Intifada!’ Break Their Way Into Columbia University

Anti-Israel Protesters Screaming ‘Intifada!’ Break Their Way Into Columbia University

NEW YORK, NEW YORK - APRIL 29: A demonstrator breaks the windows of the front door of the building in order to secure a chain around it to prevent authorities from entering on Tuesday, April 30, 2024 in New York City. Demonstrators from the pro-Palestine encampment on Columbia's Campus barricade themselves inside Hamilton Hall, an academic building which has been occupied in past student movements,. Pro-Palestinian demonstrators marched around the "Gaza Solidarity Encampment" at Columbia University as a 2 P.M. deadline to clear the encampment given to students by the university passed. The students were given a suspension warning if they do not meet the deadline. Columbia students were the first to erect an encampment in support of Palestine, with students demanding that the school divest from Israel amid the Israel-Hamas war, where more than 34,000 Palestinians have been killed in the Gaza Strip. (Photo by Alex Kent/Getty Images)
A demonstrator breaks the windows of the front door of the building in order to secure a chain around it to prevent authorities from entering on Tuesday, April 30, 2024 in New York City. Demonstrators from the pro-Palestine encampment on Columbia’s Campus barricade themselves inside Hamilton Hall, an academic building that has been occupied in past student movements,. Pro-Palestinian demonstrators marched around the “Gaza Solidarity Encampment” at Columbia University as a 2 P.M. deadline to clear the encampment given to students by the university passed. Students were given a suspension warning if they did not meet the deadline. Columbia students were the first to erect an encampment in support of Palestine, with students demanding that the school divest from Israel amid the Israel-Hamas war, where more than 34,000 Palestinians have been killed in the Gaza Strip. (Photo by Alex Kent/Getty Images)

OAN’s James Meyers
9:54 AM – Tuesday, April 30, 2024

SEE: https://www.oann.com/newsroom/violent-anti-israel-protesters-screaming-intifada-break-their-way-into-columbia-university/; republished below in full, unedited, for informational, educational, & research purposes:

A large mob of anti-Israel protesters broke into an academic building at Columbia University and took control of it on Tuesday morning. 

The mob rebranded the well-known hall named after U.S. founding father Alexander Hamilton and displayed a giant flag that read “intifada.”

Footage of the incident showed dozens of anti-Israel protesters breaking into Hamilton Hall and barricading themselves just before 1 a.m., with many using metal barricades, chairs and tables.

One video shows a protester using a hammer to smash through a glass-paneled door. He is also seen locking himself in by wrapping a bike lock around the door handles.

Once anti-Israel protesters were able to gain entry into the building, they quickly covered the cameras with black trash bags and tape, according to the school’s Columbia Daily Spectator.

“We will not leave until Columbia meets every one of our demands,” one activist screamed from a balcony in the building. The group has demanded that the university divest from Israel.

The student-led outlet also reported that the building was locked down within five minutes, with protesters not allowing anyone to enter. 

Representative Elise Stefanik (R-N.Y.) said at a press conference: “The world is watching as the leadership of our so-called elite colleges and universities continue to fail to condemn antisemitism and protect Jewish students on campus.”

The rioters were reportedly still occupying the building on the South Lawn, which has been the location of the school’s anti-Israel encampment for over a week, according to the school paper. 

Meanwhile, the campus storming prompted Columbia officials to close the campus on Tuesday, restricting access to everyone except students who currently live there, as well as essential staff. 

Additionally, hundreds of protesters covered the outside of the campus building, linking arms to form a human chain, and stopping people from coming through the entrance. 

“Hey hey, ho ho, the occupation has got to go,” protesters outside the building could be heard chanting during the wild scenes, according to footage posted to X by an independent news blog.

“We will not leave until Columbia meets every one of our demands,” others raged.

The latest anti-Israel movement comes less than a day after Columbia finally announced they would begin suspending students who refused to leave their tent encampment by 2 p.m. on campus.

The school outlet also stated that when the mob entered the building, there were facilities workers still inside, with one of the workers yelling “They held me hostage!” as he left the building. 

“They swarmed the building,” one of the workers told Politico. “I got into a scuffle with a couple of them. "They finally let us out,” the staffer added, showing off a cut on their hand.

In the meantime, Columbia officials have not stated how they plan to address the latest actions by anti-Israel protesters. 

Meanwhile, the White House denounced the hostile takeover, saying it was “absolutely the wrong approach” that is “not an example of peaceful protest.”

A slew of anti-Israel protests have been happening at other campuses across the U.S. in the past two weeks. 

Stay informed! Receive breaking news blasts directly to your inbox for free. Subscribe here. https://www.oann.com/alerts

University of North Carolina Center for Middle East and Islamic Studies: Celebrating October 7th

“Oct. 7 for many of us from the region, it was a beautiful day.”

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SEE: https://www.frontpagemag.com/unc-center-for-middle-east-and-islamic-studies-celebrating-october-7th; republished below in full, unedited, for informational, educational, & research purposes:

[Pre-order a copy of David Horowitz’s next book, America Betrayed, by clicking here. Orders will begin shipping on May 7th.]

Editor’s note:Since the barbaric Hamas attacks against Israel on October 7th, American universities have become an undeniable locus of Jewish hatred within our nation. Much attention has deservedly been paid to radical campus groups like Students for Justice in Palestine who call for the genocide of the Jews and cheer the terrorists of Hamas. What has received less attention—but should in fact rank as the universities’ worst offense—is the Jew hatred promoted by official departments and institutes of the universities themselves. In the case of our campuses, Jewish hatred is “the call coming from inside the house.”

The Freedom Center is exposing these academic institutes and programs as “The Top Ten Jew-Hating Academic Departments” in a new report. We will be publishing one school per day as a series on Frontpage. The Center for Middle East and Islamic Studies at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill is #6 on our list.

The Center for Middle East and Islamic Studies at UNC-Chapel Hill has repeatedly abdicated its responsibility to conduct legitimate scholarships and the free exchange of ideas by inviting rabid Jewish-haters and Hamas propagandists to campus.

On November 28, 2023, less than two months after Hamas indiscriminately slaughtered and mutilated over 1200 Israeli civilians and took several hundred more hostage, the Center for Middle East and Islamic Studies co-hosted an event with other university departments titled  “No Peace Without Justice: A Round-Table Talk about Social Justice in Palestine.” Speakers at this official university-sponsored event had zero compunction about celebrating Hamas’s mass-slaughter and announcing their ultimate goal—to see Israel annihilated.

Dr. Rania Masri, an invited speaker at the event, declared: “Oct. 7 for many of us from the region, it was a beautiful day. It was the day in which we saw that, we saw our brothers, we saw our fathers, we saw men break out of a concentration camp.”

She went on to heap praise on Hamas and their paragliders who have become a symbol of terror for Jews and Israelis: “So for many of us, the question is, how did they learn that?" How did they develop those paratroopers? Where did they get those skills? How, how, after a hundred years of having a military boot on your neck, could you still develop the technique and the resilience to literally fly? That is what Oct. 7 means to many of us. And I just want to be very frank about it and not be in the least bit apologetic of the violence of the oppressed or the occupied.”

Instead of condemning Dr. Masri’s words, other speakers voiced their agreement with the Reverend Mark Davidson proclaiming, “I agree with everything my colleagues have said” and UNC doctoral student Kylie Broderick, who also served as a panelist, nodding along to Masri’s statements.

Lest celebrating October 7th wasn’t a clear enough signal of Jew-hatred, Masri labeled Zionism a “cancer,” and called President Biden a “racist Zionist.” “Let us demand the eradication of Zionism. "Let us have that be our goal,” Masri declared, promoting the destruction of the world’s only Jewish state.

A film screened at the event, titled “Gaza Concentration Camp,” backed up Masri’s narrative, stating that on Oct. 7, “Palestinians didn’t break through a border to enter Israel. They destroyed a fence separating them from the homes they were forced out of.” The film failed to mention the brutal slaughter, rape, and maiming of innocent civilians that followed.

According to The Algemeiner which covered the event, “There were seven panelists, two moderators, and UNC professors present. No one appeared concerned by what Masri said, or challenged her. Further, the absence of a question and answer period meant that nothing could be challenged by audience members.”

Other recent events hosted by the Center for Middle East and Islamic Studies have brought prominent anti-Semites to campus, including Princeton Professor Cornel West who spoke at the university on January 30, 2024 for a special event titled “Intertwined Histories of Social Justice within Middle Eastern American and African American Communities: A Conversation with Dr. Cornel West.” West has dismissed the Jews’ historic claim to the land of Israel, stating that “Jews jumped out of the burning buildings of Europe in a Jew-hating Europe led by a gangster named Hitler, right? They landed on the backs of some Arabs in 1948 when they founded their state.” West has also equated the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) with the terrorist group Hamas and claimed that Israel’s defensive actions during Operation Protective Edge in 2014 showed “Israeli state terrorism in action and its Jewish racism in motion.”

One of the center's most prominent voices is that of Dr. Nadia Yaqub, author of several books on Palestinian filmmaking. Yaqub is a supporter of the genocidal BDS movement against Israel and has repeatedly demonized and delegitimized Israel, claiming that the actions of the world’s only Jewish state are comparable to the Nazis during the Holocaust:  “Israel’s repeated and disproportional attacks on Palestinian and other Arab civilians are rooted in a worldview that is very similar to that which produced the genocide against European Jews.”

The Center’s failure to tell the truth and its Jewish students can also be seen in its message to students and faculty following Hamas’s October 7th massacre against Israeli civilians. Instead of condemning Hamas and its barbaric atrocities, the Center merely spouted platitudes about how

“The events in Israel/Palestine over the past few days have been terrifying” and how “we extend our sympathy to everyone in our community who is feeling grief and pain at this time.”  Rather than decry Hamas as the aggressor, the Center stated that “We also recognize that this is not an isolated incident and must be understood within the context of a history that stretches back 100 years” and “To that end, we will be holding listening sessions, roundtables, and/or teach-ins in the coming weeks for those interested.”

This statement is a complete moral and intellectual failure on the part of the Center. Instead of having the courage to call out Hamas’s barbarism, the Center attempts to put the rape and mutilation of women and the slaughter of children in “context.”  For its dismal record of truth-telling about Israel and promotion of Jew-hating speakers and events, the Center for Middle East and Islamic Studies at UNC-Chapel Hill is among the worst Jew-hating academic departments at American universities.

Previous articles in the series:

[1] ‘Jew-Hating’ Asian American Studies Program is Exposed at Northwestern University.

[2] UIUC’s Department of Latino Studies Endorses ‘Jew Hatred’.

[3] U. Maryland Department of Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies: A Case Study in ‘Jew Hatred’.

[4] University of Colorado-Boulder Ethnic Studies Department: Shilling for Hamas.

Sara Dogan

Sara Dogan

Sara Dogan is the National Campus Director for the David Horowitz Freedom Center. She has written extensively on issues including academic freedom and anti-Semitism on campus.

Columbia-Barnard rabbi to Jewish students: ‘Return home as soon as possible and remain home’

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SEE: https://www.jihadwatch.org/2024/04/columbia-barnard-rabbi-to-jewish-students-return-home-as-soon-as-possible-and-remain-home; republished below in full, unedited, for informational, educational, & research purposes:

Jewish students, like everyone else attending a university today, have paid their tuition fees and should have the same rights as all students. Or at least that’s the way it works in a functioning free society. But not anymore in Joe Biden’s America, where the rights of Jewish students are no longer being respected.

At Columbia University, pro-Hamas thugs have taken over:

Read more HERE.

Never again is happening all over again, as antisemites condemn Israel for defending its citizens and its state from obliteration, as any nation would do under similar circumstances.

Meanwhile, in a Passover message, the two-faced Joe Biden, who has been enabling Israel’s enemies, discussed October  7 and rising Jew-hatred, all while he sanctioned an IDF battalion and has called for Israel to lay down its weapons as it is attacked by Hamas and Iran.

“Columbia-Barnard rabbi tells Jewish students to stay home for safety,” by David Isaac, JNS, April 22, 2024:

Rabbi Elie Buechler, who co-directs the Orthodox Union’s Jewish Learning Initiative on Campus (JLIC) for Columbia University and Barnard College, told Jewish students on Sunday to stay home until the campus environment improves.

“What we are witnessing in and around campus is tragic. "The events of the last few days, especially last night, have made it clear that Columbia University’s Public Safety and the NYPD [New York City Police Department] cannot guarantee Jewish students’ safety in the face of extreme antisemitism and anarchy,” the rabbi wrote to a group of 290-plus students on the WhatsApp messaging app.

“It deeply pains me to say that I strongly recommend you return home as soon as possible and remain home until the reality in and around campus has dramatically improved,” he wrote…..

Yale: Police storm campus with riot gear, arrest students at pro-Hamas protest encampment

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SEE: https://www.jihadwatch.org/2024/04/yale-police-storm-campus-with-riot-gear-arrest-students-at-pro-hamas-protest-encampment; republished below in full, unedited, for informational, educational, & research purposes:

“Yale does not tolerate actions, including remarks, that threaten, harass, or intimidate members of the university’s Jewish, Muslim, and other communities.”

No one is harassing, threatening or intimidating Muslim students; nor should they. But the university administration has to add “Muslim” in so as to try to avoid charges of “Islamophobia.”

“Police storm Yale University’s campus with riot gear and arrest students as hundreds stage anti-Israel protest,” by Emily Crane, New York Post, April 22, 2024:

Police clad in riot gear swarmed Yale University’s Connecticut campus early Monday and began arresting students who had been staging an anti-Israel protest encampment there for several days.

Footage posted online showed cops arriving at the Ivy League school and blocking off entrances to a plaza on the New Haven campus, where roughly 200 protesters had been gathered….

As police descended on the campus, a group of defiant students had locked arms around a flagpole and were singing “We shall not be moved” — as officers could be seen checking the dozens of tents erected in the plaza, according to a video posted on X.

While the arrests were underway, others could be heard taunting the Yale Police Department [sic] (YPD), “YPD or KKK, IDF they’re all the same” and chanting, “Arab blood is not cheap, for the martyrs we will speak.”…

“Yale does not tolerate actions, including remarks, that threaten, harass, or intimidate members of the university’s Jewish, Muslim, and other communities….

Columbia University Descends Into Pure Racist Hatred

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SEE: https://www.jihadwatch.org/2024/04/columbia-university-descends-into-pure-racist-hatred; republished below in full, unedited, for informational, educational, & research purposes:

Details on Columbia University’s descent into pure racist hatred can be found here: “‘Burn Tel Aviv to the ground: Calls for violence continue at Columbia,” by Michael Starr, Jerusalem Post, April 21, 2024:

In another Instagram video, in which a poster of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine secretary-general Ahmad Sa’adat can be seen in the background, anti-Israel activists sang, “Oh Hamas, our beloved, strike, strike Tel Aviv.”

These students on Instagram display a PFLP official on a poster in the background, while they sing about a different terror group, Hamas, calling on its operatives to engage in a genocidal attack on Tel Aviv: “Oh Hamas, our beloved, strike, strike Tel Aviv.” Either they couldn’t find a Hamas poster to use or, more likely, they can’t tell the difference between Hamas and the PFLP.

As the counter-protesters returned to their dormitories, Students Supporting Israel Columbia video showed that they were taunted with calls of “Jews” and told to “go back to Poland.”

The word “Jew” is now considered, in the antisemitic atmosphere in which we now live, an insult. And note the constant insinuation that Jews in America don’t belong, that they must leave and “go back to Poland” or “go back to Europe.” Jews don’t belong here, and they don’t belong in “Palestine.” So let them go to some place in eastern Europe with their bagels and lox, and leave us, real Americans such as Ilhan Omar and Rashida Tlaib and Professor Joseph Massad, alone. Oh, we almost forget — there is always the Jewish Republic of Birobidzhan, in the godforsaken middle of Siberia. It's just a place for Jews to settle and read their Talmud undisturbed.

A Jewish counter-protester tried to stop activists from setting an Israeli flag on fire, according to SSI. In another video, a Jewish student was splashed with water.

Within Our Lifetime leader Nerdeen Kiswani, after her wedding, managed to enter the campus despite it being allegedly locked down. Kiswani led the crowd in a chant in a video published by Students for Justice in Palestinian Columbia, saying “There is only one solution, Intifada revolution.”

In a video published by Palestinian Youth Movement NYC, they chanted, “Zionism will fall, brick by brick, wall by wall, Israel will fall” and called “US imperialists, number one terrorists".”

Uptown 4 Palestine published videos of activists proclaiming in Arabic that “From the water to the water (a reference to the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea), Palestine is Arab.” (The chant is an alternate version of the chant “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free”)

As of now, Zionism will not “fall.” Israel goes from strength to strength. The Start-Up nation continues to produce unicorns, as Israeli scientists and entrepreneurs make advances in cybersecurity, solar energy, electric batteries, anti-missile defense systems, medicines, medical equipment, and much more. Israelis have more companies listed on our Stock Exchange than any other foreign country except China. Jews from Europe are making aliyah in ever-increasing numbers, undeterred by the current violence Israel’s military is ranked as the fourth most powerful in the world, after those of the United States, Russia, and China, and ahead of the UK, France, and Germany. It has made startling advances in military hardware, including the anti-missile defense systems David’s Sling, Iron Dome and, to be introduced into service next year, Iron Beam, a laser-based system that will cost only $2 for each lethal laser hit. And despite having had to fight, in its young life, four wars for its very survival (in 1948, 1967, 1973, and 2023-24), and many smaller campaigns against terror groups, including the PLO, Hamas, PIJ, PFLP, and Hezbollah, Israel has been ranked as the “fourth happiest nation,” after three Scandinavian countries, Finland, Sweden, and Denmark. Quite a list of achievements for such a young, small country with hardly any natural resources, that is surrounded by enemies. What will bring the next 75 years bring?

Protesters at Columbia, UNC-Chapel Hill, Berkeley, Harvard, Rutgers and a hundred sundry other colleges, will yip and yap and issue their bloodcurdling threats about burning down Tel Aviv and removing Jews from America, but they have had no discernible effect except, one hopes, of getting themselves expelled from the schools that heretofore have coddled them. As for the IDF, it must now end the dismantling of Hamas by attacking its four last intact battalions in Rafah. Once that is accomplished, it must then proceed to destroy Hezbollah’s stockpiles of rockets and missiles in Lebanon. The last, and most important task, for the IDF is to destroy Iranian nuclear facilities so that there is no chance that Iran will be able to build a nuclear weapon. It’s a formidable To-Do List, but when has Israel ever failed at the tasks it sets itself?

Columbia U: Pro-Hamas Protesters Call for Killing of Jewish Students, Praise Jihad Murderers~The fruit of indoctrination that passes for education.

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SEE: https://www.frontpagemag.com/columbia-u-pro-hamas-protesters-call-for-killing-of-jewish-students-praise-jihad-murderers; republished below in full, unedited, for informational, educational, & research purposes:

[Order a copy of Robert Spencer’s forthcoming book, "Muhammad: A Critical Biography, by clicking here.]

This is the fruit of the hard-left indoctrination that passes for university education today.

…Two days after more than 100 students were arrested when the NYPD raided a tent encampment on the Ivy League campus, roughly 200 demonstrators were still going strong on Saturday, chanting, holding signs and waving Palestinian flags.

At least three people were arrested, the NYPD confirmed. Two were cuffed for disorderly conduct and a third was slapped with a summonses for a sound reproduction device.

“Up, up with liberation." Down, down with occupation,” they yelled through the locked campus gate on W. 115th and Broadway….

“We want justice, you say how?" "Stop arming Israel now!” another group chanted.

The students are demanding the university divest from Israel.

“We demand that Columbia sever academic ties with Israeli universities and we demand that Columbia stop censoring and intimidating students who are standing up and advocating for Palestinian liberation,” one student yelled through the gate to the crowd that had gathered on the other side outside of campus.

Over 100 students were arrested at Columbia University on Thursday night.

A line of police officers in riot helmets watched on. A handful of Israeli supporters stood across Broadway — including one who was doused with fake blood for engaging with pro-Palestinian students.

Avi Lichtschein, 37, of Manhattan was walking his dog when the group surrounded him and shouted, “We don’t want no Zionists here!”…

Another pro-Israel bystander, Ross Glick, 50, told The Post his grandparents were Holocaust survivors. The Upper East Side resident grew up in the Midwest during the first intifada but said “this is more concerning.”

“There’s no doubt that there’s a lot of innocent people dying in Gaza but to call it a genocide….What about the 6,000 Muslims that were gassed by Assad?” Glick said.

“If you don’t like it go to Gaza,” he said about the protesters.

The protesters, he said, don’t want a peaceful solution.

Students continued to occupy the lawn area at the Ivy League school on Saturday..

“You don’t hear them talk about peace or co-existence. [It’s] death to Israel,” he said….

Columbia University and Barnard College faculty slammed Thursday’s arrests and demanded that their records be expunged.

The American Association of University Professors at the sister schools issued a statement following a “mass emergency meeting” of faculty on Friday.

“We condemn in the strongest possible terms the Administration’s suspension of students engaged in peaceful protest and their arrest by the New York City Police Department,” according to a statement provided to The Post.

They said Columbia has an “absolute obligation” to protect students’ freedom of speech….

Yeah, except the freedom of speech of those with whom they disagree. If these were Trump supporters or foes of jihad violence who were demonstrating, the American Association of University Professors would be silent, or cheering on their incarceration.

 

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Robert Spencer

Robert Spencer is the director of Jihad Watch and a Shillman Fellow at the David Horowitz Freedom Center. He is author of 28 books, including many bestsellers, such as The Politically Incorrect Guide to Islam (and the Crusades), The Truth About Muhammad, The History of Jihad, and The Critical Qur’an. His latest book is Muhammad: A Critical Biography. Follow him on Twitter here. Like him on Facebook here.

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