Anti-Semitism at Columbia University

As if Germany and Sweden were not bad enough, anti-Semitism, masquerading as anti-Israel bias, is alive and well at Columbia University. And not just at Columbia.

Among the leaders of anti-Israel studies at Columbia University is one Rashid Khalidi. You remember Khalidi. A few months back he denounced the Trump administration for being infested with Jews. Yes, that Rashid Khalidi. You also remember that before he came to Columbia Khalidi lived in Chicago where he was a bosom buddy of one Barack Obama. You also know that when Khalidi left Chicago his friends threw a going-away party, featuring a speech by Barack Obama. We have still not heard the speech because the only tape recording is locked in safe at the Los Angeles Times. How much do you want to bet that it’s filled with anti-Israeli sentiment?

But, I digress.

The New York Daily News reports on the leftist anti-Israel anti-Semitism at Columbia. (via Maggie’s Farm)

  

When Columbia University’s Center for Palestine Studies was established in 2010, Rashid Khalidi, its founding and current director — and a supporter of an academic boycott of Israel — stated that steering clear of political activism was an important goal of the center:

“The last thing you want is a Middle East institute or a center for Israel or Palestine that isn’t within the university mission. . . . We’d avoid doing anything that’s directly related to any political activism.”

However, just seven years later, new research from our organization reveals that the Center for Palestine Studies has become an academic epicenter for anti-Israel political activism, as well as the promotion of an academic boycott of Israel and its mother movement, boycott, divestment and sanctions, otherwise known as BDS.

In 2015 and 2016, of the 44 Israel-related events sponsored by the Center for Palestine Studies, 41 included anti-Israel, pro-BDS speakers. During the same two-year period, Israel-related events sponsored by Columbia University’s other two Middle East studies departments — the Middle Eastern, South Asian and African studies department and the Middle East Institute — also overwhelmingly included anti-Israel, pro-BDS speakers.

What can be done? Well, consider that the Middle East Institute is being funded by the U. S. Department of Education. Evidently, it had to have been the Obama Education Department that chose to fund this swill. The Daily News sanitized the story, but still:

This is particularly troubling in the case of Columbia’s Middle East Institute, designated a National Resource Center by the U.S. Department of Education and given significant federal funding under Title VI of the Higher Education Opportunity Act. This law, currently before Congress for reauthorization, was established to fund outstanding university programs to equip students with a full and unbiased understanding of regions and countries vital to U.S. security.

The law requires programs receiving Title VI funding to demonstrate that their activities reflect “diverse perspectives and a wide range of views.” Promoting an academic boycott of Israel doesn’t just pervert this legal obligation; limiting the free flow of information about a complex, volatile and highly sensitive region of the world risks harming U.S. security.

Perhaps Congress or Betsy De Vos will do something about this. We can hope.

You will also understand that this anti-Israel sentiment foments anti-Semitism:

Most troubling is our finding that when faculty boycotters bring their anti-Israel sentiments and support for BDS to campus, it significantly increases the likelihood of anti-Semitism on that campus: Schools that host events with BDS-supporting speakers were twice as likely to have anti-Semitic incidents such as assaults, harassment, destruction of property and suppression of speech.

More than 250 U.S. university presidents, including Columbia’s president, have resoundingly condemned the academic boycott of Israel. Now it’s time for these same presidents to address the clear and present harms that an academic boycott of Israel brings to their own campuses.

Everyone who has a minimally functioning intelligence knows that the war against Israel, led by crypto-Nazi Palestinian terrorists, is over. The Palestinians have lost. Their allies have all but abandoned them. So we are curious to see that the anti-Israeli cause is alive and well on the Upper West Side, at Columbia University.