Earlier this month, Townhall reported how a coalition of Columbia University student groups signed and published a statement blaming Israel and the U.S. for Hamas’ invasion and calling for “liberation.” In the statement, the students also referred to the Hamas terrorist organization as “Palestinian fighters.”
“We also affirm that there can be no future of safety and freedom for all Israelis and Palestinians without holding the Israeli occupation accountable for its actions and putting an end to the untenable status quo of Israel's apartheid and colonial system,” the statement read. “We cannot view the recent actions of Palestinian fighters in isolation. Gaza is an open-air prison that lacks the essential necessities such as food, clean water, medicine, and electricity.”
This week, more than 100 professors at Columbia signed a letter defending the students who supported Hamas’ attacks on Israel. In the letter, the professors called on the university to protect the students from “disturbing reverberations” for showing their support (via the New York Post):
As top donors vow to stop giving money to the university amid a swell of pro-Palestinian demonstrations, professors demanded that the administration protect demonstrators from doxxing efforts from trucks dubbing them “Columbia’s Leading Anti-Semites” and halt its educational outposts in Israel.
The Ivy League staffers also demanded that the administration “cease issuing statements that favor the suffering and death of Israelis or Jews over the suffering and deaths of Palestinians.”
“As scholars who are committed to robust inquiry about the most challenging matters of our time, we feel compelled to respond to those who label our students antisemitic if they express empathy for the lives and dignity of Palestinians and/or if they signed a student-written statement that situated the military action begun on Oct. 7 within the larger context of the occupation of Palestine by Israel,” the letter reads.
“In our view, the student statement aims to recontextualize the events of Oct. 7, 2023, pointing out that military operations and state violence did not begin that day, but rather it represented a military response by a people who had endured crushing and unrelenting state violence from an occupying power over many years,” they wrote of the brutal terror attack that killed more than 1,400 Israelis, most of them civillians.
Since Hamas’ attack on Israel began, pro-Palestinian groups at the school have also engaged in protests.
Massive turnout at protest at Columbia University in NYC pic.twitter.com/lM2Gn70Jlc
— Cernovich (@Cernovich) October 12, 2023
Over 100 Columbia professors sign letter defending students who supported Hamas’ ‘military action’ https://t.co/Bhfdhdn5je pic.twitter.com/x2WwPosctG
— New York Post (@nypost) October 30, 2023
In an interview with the Post, Rabbi Joseph Potasnik, executive vice president of New York Board of Rabbis, said: “I guess the Columbia professors wouldn’t have a problem with the Ku Klux Klan or the Nazis.”
“What we expect in college is that students at some point would be taught about moral clarity,” he added. “To describe Hamas as a legitimate group rather than as terrorists is beyond comprehension and beyond contempt.”
Since the student organizations came out in support of Hamas, a major New York City law firm, Davis Polk & Wardwell, rescinded job offers to students who were involved.
“These statements are simply contrary to our firm’s values and we thus concluded that rescinding these offers was appropriate in upholding our responsibility to provide a safe and inclusive work environment for all Davis Polk employees,” Davis Polk managing partner Neil Barr said.