Ivory Tower Hypocrite: Columbia University Israeli professor banned from campus as pro-Hamas riots rage. by Sara Dogan
https://www.frontpagemag.com/ivory-tower-hypocrite-columbia-university/
#2: Columbia University
More than any other university across the nation, Columbia has become a symbol for the lawless riot of Jew hatred and pro-terrorist sentiment that has overtaken our college campuses. And deservedly so.
During the spring of 2024, the Columbia campus became engulfed in chaos, as pro-Hamas students, aided by radical faculty and outside organizers, established an illegal encampment on the South East Lawn, calling it a “Gaza solidarity encampment” and a “liberated zone” and using violence and physical force to deny entry to anyone deemed a Zionist.
As the anti-Semitism watchdog organization, the Amcha Initiative, reports:
The protestors had defended their encampment by encircling it and chanting, “we don’t want no Zionists here,” called for an intifada, and physically intimidated Jewish students that were observing or recording. Professors spoke at a “faculty solidarity teach in,” where Professor Mahmood Mamdani stated, “The response to Zionist power is to criminalize anti-Zionism as antisemitism”… The Faculty and Staff for Justice in Palestine group praised and promoted support for the encampment online, even going so far as to illicit donations for the protestors violating university policy.
As Amcha has documented, “multiple Jewish students were assaulted” in the so-called “liberated zone” and elsewhere on campus: “Protestors off campus threw fake blood at Jewish students. According to the House of Representatives Committee on Education and Workforce, a photographer wearing a ‘bring them home necklace’ had coffee thrown at him by a protester while simply standing nearby. A Jewish student was accosted when walking home wearing a Star of David necklace, and a hostage tag when a woman began screaming at the student, calling the Jewish student a Zionist and a murderer while banging what appeared to be a pot on the barricade, and after being told by a police officer to stop, accused Jewish students of ‘killing her people’ and said ‘We are Hamas’ which was caught on video. A Jewish Columbia student reported to the Committee that many Jewish students ‘who [live] right next to the campus couldn’t sleep due to screams of Intifada until 1AM.’”
The university response to these blatant acts of anti-Semitism and disruption was abysmal. Administrators pleaded and negotiated with the pro-Hamas agitators to disperse the encampment but refrained from taking hard line disciplinary tactics or banning the organizers from campus. As a result, the illegal demonstration persisted, eventually shutting down campus life entirely, forcing the cancellation of graduation ceremonies, and creating a rabidly hostile climate for Jewish and pro-Israel students at the university.
An incomplete list of offenses committed by the pro-Hamas rioters compiled by the Amcha Initiative includes:
- A protestor holding a sign saying “Al-Qasam’s [sic] next target” who stood in front of a group of Jewish students holding Israeli flags and singing.
- A Jewish student wearing a yarmulke being shoved and screamed at by protestors, “you’ve got blood on your hands!” when he attempted to recover an Israeli flag stolen by a protestor, who then ran to a cheering crowd of anti-Israel protestors that attempted to burn the flag. (The student additionally claims a rock was thrown at his face and protestors screamed, “Kill the Zionist”).
- Protestors screaming “go back to Poland!” and “yehudim, yehudim [which translates to Jews, Jews]” at Jewish Columbia students trying to leave campus.
- Protestors circling around the main gates and entrance to campus, with one stating, “I am Hamas,” which was documented in video.
- Crowds screaming “tear down the gates” and various hateful chants in English and Arabic as individuals unaffiliated with the university climbed the University’s gates.
- A Jewish Columbia student being splashed with water by a protestor.
- Protestors chanting, “Al-Qassam you make us proud! Take another soldier out!,” “We say justice, you say how? Burn Tel Aviv to the ground!,” and “Hamas we love you. We support your rockets too!”
- A protestor delivering a speech on campus that exclaimed, “We are here today because on October 7 the Palestinian resistance in Gaza broke through the walls of their open air prison, shattering the illusion of the invincibility of their occupiers. [Cheers from the crowd.] By setting up this encampment in the heart of the Zionist stronghold of Columbia University, we intend to do the same.”
- A protestor standing immediately outside Columbia’s gates leading a crowd in Arabic chants glorifying terrorism and encouraging students to become terrorist “martyrs” after which he explained in English that the chant translated to “mother of the shahid, mother of the martyr, I wish my mother was in your place.”
Witnessing these acts, Columbia’s Orthodox rabbi, Elie Beuchler, emailed Jewish students on campus to say that though it “deeply pains” him, he recommended that Jewish students remain at home and not attend class on campus “until the reality in and around campus has dramatically improved.” Columbia University initially permitted just Jewish and pro-Israel students to attend classes online, but instituted remote learning for the entire campus on April 22nd.
The University also failed entirely to prevent outside agitators and known terrorism supporters, as well as individuals previously banned from campus, from participating in the pro-Hamas riots. As Amcha reports, “numerous unauthorized individuals, including ones explicitly banned from campus, have been documented at the encampment, including: Within our Lifetime organizer Nerdeen Kiswani, who was banned from campus for speaking in support of terrorism at “Resistance 101,” was recorded as being on campus and leading chants of “there is only one solution, Intifada revolution”; Shellyne Rodriguez, who was fired from faculty positions at CUNY Hunter College and the School of Visual arts after threatening a New York Post reporter with a machete, was photographed on campus at the protests; a student that had been suspended for involvement with the terrorist-associated “Resistance 101” event and who also has defied an eviction order from Columbia; and visiting professor Mohamed Abdou, who President Shafik promised was being terminated, was also photographed at the encampment.”
It was only after the pro-Hamas demonstrators seized control of Hamilton Hall, briefly taking hostage members of the janitorial staff, and causing widespread damage to university property, that the university finally called in the New York City police to expel the agitators. Millions watched on live national television as police officers in riot gear entered the building through an upper story window, arresting the remaining protestors and surveying the devastation they left behind.
Throughout this entire, highly public, ordeal, Columbia’s top administrators, led by then-president Minouche Shafik, attempted to negotiate with the pro-Hamas radicals who had overrun the campus and made Jewish students abandon it in fear of their lives and safety. Despite the imminent danger to Jewish students and the direct calls for terrorism and genocide emanating from the campus quad, the administration repeatedly adopted a policy of appeasement toward the pro-Hamas rioters and insisted that allowing free expression was a core campus value.
In a letter to the campus community written during the ongoing protests, Shafik, pledged that the administration “are committed to academic freedom and to ensuring that all members of our community have the right to speak their minds,” while noting that students must also comply with time, place, and manner rules regarding protests.
Shafik also testified before the Committee on Education and the Workforce for the U.S. House of Representatives, stating that “We believe we can confront antisemitism and provide a safe campus environment for our community while simultaneously supporting rigorous academic exploration and freedom,” adding that “This is my highest priority right now at Columbia.”
While Columbia’s administration allowed the illegal pro-Hamas demonstrations on campus to fester for months before taking action against the rioters, the university adopted a sharply different tactic towards Israeli professor Shai Davidai, a vehement critic of the administration’s failure to rein in the Jew-haters on campus.
As pro-Hamas rhetoric and protests overtook Columbia’s campus, Davidai was one of the few faculty members courageous enough to take on the demonstrators firsthand, often heading to campus with a small band of Jewish students to counter-protest in support of Israel and meeting with threats and violence as a result. He also publicly confronted Columbia administrators, calling them out on their failure to protect Jewish students and shut down the illegal pro-terror demonstrations.
Davidai was recorded on video confronting Columbia COO Cas Holloway with strong words about his abnegation of responsibility for the Jewish students under his charge. “You are indifferent and you know what? Hatred happens when people like you are indifferent. You are the chief operating officer of Columbia. Do you realize that?” the Israeli professor asked.
Another video shows Davidai addressing Columbia’s assistant director of public safety Bobby Lau: “You are such a useless administrator. But you know what, there were so many useless administrators in Nazi Germany. And you know what, after the war, they said they did everything they could.”
“To every parent who sends their kids to Columbia,” Davidai shouted in a filmed counter-protest, “I want you to know one thing. We cannot protect your child.”
“I’m not saying this as a professor, I’m speaking to you as a dad,” Davidai continued. “We cannot protect your children from pro-terrorist student organizations, because the president of Columbia University, of Harvard University, of Stanford, of Berkeley, will not speak out against pro-terror student organizations.”
Davidai’s activism on behalf of Columbia’s Jewish population and his refusal to accept the administration’s anemic response to pro-terror demonstrators and vandals, made him an easy scapegoat for the administration. In October 2024, Davidai was temporarily suspended from the university and banned from campus by the Columbia administration for allegedly harassing and threatening university faculty members. He is not teaching any classes on campus this semester and as of this writing, his ban remains in effect.
“Threats of intimidation, harassment or other threatening behavior by University employees, including faculty members, will not be tolerated,” the school said in a letter outlining Davidai’s suspension.
“It’s hypocrisy to the nth degree,” Davidai said of his suspension by the university, also characterizing it as “nothing but retaliation” for outspoken comments on the failures of the university and its leadership.
Davidai also correctly noted that the university is enforcing a blatant double standard, punishing him for his provocative but legal speech calling out administrators but allowing the pro-terror demonstrators to rampage unchecked for months without consequence.
“There are professors who either participated in or taught in the encampment,” he told the New York Post. “Not a single professor has been fired or suspended since October 7 for antisemitism and support of terrorism.”
“He’s never been suspended from anything,” Davidai notes of Columbia Professor Joseph Massad who labeled Hamas’s October 7th massacre “awesome.”
More recently, and following the withdrawal of $400 million in federal funds by President Trump due to the university’s failure to address anti-Semitism on campus, Columbia has finally begun to hold some of the illegal agitators accountable for their actions. Several of the students responsible for the occupation of Hamilton Hall have been expelled or suspended. Still, these disciplinary consequences are much too little, much too late.
Columbia’s persecution of Professor Shai Davidai for taking the administration to task while coddling and appeasing pro-Hamas demonstrators for months earns the university its spot on the list of Ivory Tower Hypocrites.
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