|
Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...
|
In August 2024, the Antisemitism Research Center (ARC) by CAM noted that mainstream news outlets failed to convey the radicalism, antisemitism, and support for terrorism that groups protesting the Democratic National Convention espoused, instead painting them as mere anti-war protesters.
A similar trend is at play now as outlets cover the American government’s efforts to deport U.S. green card holder Mahmoud Khalil, the self-described “spokesman” of the Columbia University Apartheid Divest (CUAD) coalition, and the Trump administration’s recent cancellation of $400 million in funds for Columbia University. Specifically, some news reports whitewash CUAD and its driving viewpoints, even though the group has expressed support for Hamas and other U.S.-designated terrorist organizations.
For example:
- A March 11 CNN article described CUAD as “a coalition of student organizations that demanded, among other things, the university to divest from its financial ties to Israel and a ceasefire in Gaza.”
- In a March 10 article purporting to outline “what to know” about Khalil and efforts to deport him, The New York Times described CUAD as merely “a pro-Palestinian group.”
- On March 9, The New York Times similarly described CUAD as “Columbia’s pro-Palestinian group.”
- In a March 8 article about the Trump administration’s funding cancellation affecting Columbia, Reuters said of CUAD:
[CUAD is] a coalition of student groups behind the [Columbia] pro-Palestinian protests, [which] includes Jewish students and groups among its organizers. They say that criticism of Israel is being wrongly conflated with antisemitism.
Contrast these descriptions, which are mostly uninformative and overly vague, to The New York Times’ own previous reporting in October 2024 under the headline Pro-Palestinian Group at Columbia Now Backs ‘Armed Resistance’ by Hamas. Then, the paper reported CUAD’s radicalism and support for U.S.-designated terrorist organizations and their activities (which included the rape, torture, murder, and kidnaping of more than a thousand civilians):
[CUAD] 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!”
…
Citing revolutionary thinkers, like Vladimir Lenin and Frantz Fanon, [CUAD] explained [on Substack] how solidarity was essential with members of the so-called Axis of Resistance — which includes Iran, Hezbollah, the Houthis and Hamas — because they oppose imperialism.
Since then, 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.”
Such details are integral to a complete understanding of CUAD, yet the Times did not recount them, or its own reporting, in its March 10 and 9 articles. The four aforementioned articles also failed to inform readers that CUAD is not merely anti-Israel, but professes to “[fight] for the total eradication of Western civilization.”
The other organizations that are part of the CUAD coalition are no less hateful in their public statements. Columbia’s Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) chapter, which is part of the CUAD coalition, lauded Hamas’ October 7 massacre as “a counter-offensive against their settler-colonial oppressor.” Columbia Social Workers for Palestine, also part of CUAD, has promoted imagery glorifying Hamas (see the second screenshot below). CUAD member Columbia Law Students for Palestine promoted an image of Palestinians entering Israel during the October 7 massacre alongside the words, “Glory to the Martyrs” and “Victory to the Resistance.”
CUAD’s rhetoric has fostered violence and unrest on Columbia’s campus. In late April 2024, the group organized a takeover of the university’s Hamilton Hall, during which rioters broke into the building and barricaded themselves inside. Protesters hung a banner from the building that displayed the words, “Student Intifada.” During the so-called Second Intifada (2000-2005), Palestinian terrorist groups such as Hamas and Palestine Islamic Jihad murdered more than 1,000 Israelis, including via suicide bombings.
Khalil himself participated in a recent takeover of Barnard College’s Milstein Library during which agitators distributed material from the “Hamas Media Office” and photos of now-deceased Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah. White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said that Khalil personally handed out the Hamas propaganda materials. According to a report in Newsweek, Columbia’s Office of Institutional Equity has accused Khalil of “organizing an event that glorified Hamas’ October 7 attack.” (Despite his affiliations with such behavior, the Senate Judiciary Committee Democrats posted on X, “Free Mahmoud Khalil” alongside a picture of him, indicating lionization and not merely an attempt to debate the nuances of immigration law.)
A well-rounded understanding of CUAD’s and its affiliates’ positions paints a much different picture than what readers obtain from recent reporting. The group is not simply a consortium of well-meaning peace activists who support Palestinians and seek a ceasefire in Gaza, but a group of radicals who support terrorism.
CUAD’s contention, recounted by Reuters, that its “criticism of Israel is being wrongly conflated with antisemitism” is specious. Organizations that proudly support Hamas and the October 7 massacre are not merely criticizing Israel — they are espousing support for atrocious crimes against Israeli Jews and disseminating unambiguously antisemitic viewpoints. The International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) Working Definition of Antisemitism lists “Calling for, aiding, or justifying the killing or harming of Jews in the name of a radical ideology or an extremist view of religion” as a contemporary example of Jew-hatred.
The Associated Press described CUAD accurately when it wrote on March 10 that although the group purports to be an anti-war movement, it “has also voiced support for leaders of Hamas and Hezbollah, another Islamist organization designated by the U.S. as a terrorist group.” Journalists should follow this example to ensure that their readers are fully informed about radicalism and antisemitism in the United States.
CUAD: A Microcosm of Campus Radicalism
CUAD’s antisemitic views are indicative of a much wider problem on American campuses. Since Hamas’ October 7 massacre, antisemitism on college and university campuses in the United States has spiked. In 2024, the ARC recorded 742 antisemitic incidents on American campuses, a 120.8% increase from the 336 documented in 2023. Of the 742 incidents, 664, or 89.5%, were Israel-related and/or anti-Zionist incidents of antisemitism.
Anti-American and antisemitic hate groups such as SJP fuel this toxicity, and they proudly broadcast their views on social media, largely Instagram. Since July 2024, the ARC has monitored hundreds of SJP and similar groups’ Instagram accounts and will detail its findings in-depth in a forthcoming report.
The ARC found that support for Hamas and other U.S.-designated terrorist organizations, including the October 7 massacre, among SJP chapters is widespread. Of the 270 potential violations of Meta’s policies by SJP that the ARC documented, 236, or roughly 87%, implicate the “Dangerous Organizations and Individuals” policy, which forbids glorification of terrorists.
The National SJP umbrella organization set the tone for this pro-Hamas activism when it posted a “toolkit” on October 12, 2023 that lauded Hamas’ massacre as “a historic win for the Palestinian resistance.” The Palestinian Youth Movement, an anti-Israel hate group that many SJP chapters follow on Instagram and whose content SJP chapters regularly promote, also celebrated the October 7 massacre.
Yet, much like media outlets have fallen short in describing CUAD’s ideology, they also frequently describe the SJP-led protests that have roiled campuses since October 7 as “anti-war.” A March 11 Politico headline read, “Republicans have hated universities for years. Anti-war protests gave them a reason to punish them.” Another April 2024 Associated Press headline read, “Anti-war protesters dig in on campuses across the U.S. as universities, police take action.”
Such framing is illogical. If the groups organizing nationwide campus protests purportedly oppose the war in Gaza, yet they also proudly support Hamas’ massacre that sparked the fighting, they cannot reasonably be described as “anti-war” given such a glaring self-contradiction.
All who value tolerance and oppose extremism must see the groups behind the post-October 7 campus unrest, including the key players embroiled in the recent Columbia University controversies, clearly. Radicalism and support for antisemitic terrorist organizations are transforming higher education institutions into hubs of hostility toward Jews, Israelis, Zionists, and supporters of the Jewish state.
Resolute stances against such pernicious behaviors, which in the case of CUAD has gone beyond free speech to criminal vandalism, violence, harassment, and support for terrorism, are imperative if American colleges and universities are to restore healthy learning environments focused on the pursuit of academic excellence.
