Columbia Harasses Pro-Israel Professor Will sensitivity training be enough for his thought crimes? by Hugh Fitzgerald
https://www.frontpagemag.com/columbia-harasses-pro-israel-professor/
The university has spent more time monitoring, investigating, and punishing one pro-Israel Assistant Professor, Shai Davidai, for daring to deplore the treatment of Jewish students on campus, for trying to interrupt anti-Israel demonstrations, and for suggesting that Cas Holloway, the chief operating officer in Columbia’s administration, has “an antisemitism problem,” than they have spent on all the faculty members who have praised Hamas’ brutal attack on October 7, 2023, such as Joseph Massad, or who have been vocal in their support of anti-Israel students who have been harassing Jewish students as they tried to get to class, while they call loudly for the destruction of the Jewish state.
More on Davidai’s treatment by the Columbia administration can be found here: “Columbia Business School Assistant Professor Shai Davidai Temporarily Banned From Campus, Alleges Retaliation By University,” by Sahmaya Busby, Bwog, October 16, 2024:
…Davidai explicitly claimed his ban from campus was the result of retaliation, characterizing the choice as being due to the fact that during and after the October 8 protest, he was “not afraid to stand up to the hateful mob,” assumedly referring to protesters. He also stated that he was the victim of retaliation because he was “not afraid to stand up to [Holloway].” He purported that Holloway “allowed” students to invite Palestinian prisoner support organization Samidoun and one of its organizers, Khaled Barakat, who Davidai referred to as a “terrorist,” to campus last year and did not take action against the students.
Samidoun is an organization that was founded to support Palestinian prisoners in Israeli prisons. Recently, the US imposed sanctions on the group as Canada classified them as a terrorist entity, alleging that they funded the Popular Liberation Front of Palestine, which has been designated as a terrorist group by the US and Canada. Six students were suspended during the Spring 2024 semester due their involvement with an event titled “Resistance 101” that featured Samidoun organizer Khaled Barakat. The event and the following suspensions stirred controversy due to Columbia’s usage of private investigators to surveil students, leading to disciplinary action against them.
Davidai continued by claiming that Holloway, in addition to not taking action against students who claimed to “support the armed resistance,” sanctioned the Spring 2024 campus protest encampments and “allowed… students, for three weeks last year, to terrorize the entire campus, creating a so-called ‘liberated zone’ that was only liberated from Israelis and Jews who refused to renounce their identity.” Pro-Palestine student protesters were arrested twice in separate events on April 17 and April 30 after the University allowed NYPD presence and action on campus in response to the protests. “Cas Holloway thinks that if he pushes Shai away, his problems are over,” Davidai stated in the video. “Cas, this message is for you, I’m not going anywhere. And you, you can go fuck yourself until we meet in court,” seemingly threatening legal action in the conclusion of his video.
Davidai continued on X by announcing that he was banned from campus and encouraging his followers to email Cas Holloway, posting the Chief Operating Officer’s full Columbia email….
Davidai has been at the center of pro-Israel protests and action on campus since last year after he posted a video that subsequently went viral in which he denounces pro-Palestine protesters on campus. He has since grown a social media following across several platforms and done several interviews with media outlets, including CBS News’ 60 Minutes.
Shai Davidai has been a one-man defender of Israel and of Jews on Columbia’s campus since the spring of 2024, when the pro-Hamas protests began to take over the campus, making life difficult for Jewish students. He has thrust himself into the midst of those demonstrations. He has tried forcefully to make the administration take more aggressive action in protecting Jewish students from harassment.
I suspect this will end with those temporary sanctions lifted almost immediately. Columbia knows how it handles Shai Davidai will be of great interest to the House Committee on Education and the Workforce that is investigating Columbia and other schools for their failures to deal adequately with antisemitism on campus. He will be able to return to his office once he completes some version of sensitivity training that the university thinks he needs, though it sees no need for such training being required of Joseph Massad or Rashid Khalidi. He will again resume his teaching, his research, and his harassing of the harassers — those anti-Israel and pro-Hamas demonstrators still determined to make life difficult for Jewish students and faculty alike on Morningside Heights. Untenured, he’s making what John Lewis called “good trouble.” Stay tuned.
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