Columbia University has been home to a camp on the West Lawn of its Morningside Heights campus for the past week.
This camp, however, is nothing like your good old summer camp. It is an encampment of hate.
The encampment was set up the night before Columbia University President Minouche Shafik was set to testify in a hearing on college antisemitism before the House of Representatives.
Since then, Shafik and other university leaders have faced the dilemma of allowing freedom of speech while guaranteeing a safe campus environment, namely for Jewish students and faculty.
The university has been discussing the encampment’s removal with anti-Israel student organizers whose alleged goal was to promote peace in the Middle East.
What has been seen, in reality, is a rampant and constant display of anti-Israel and antisemitic rhetoric.
When Shafik was asked whether calling for the genocide of Jews violates Columbia’s code of conduct at the hearing, she unequivocally responded in the affirmative.
That same day, the protests began, with participants yelling that “We are Hamas,” and “Oh Hamas, our beloved, strike, strike Tel Aviv.”
Another chant heard and taped was: “We say justice, you say how? Burn Tel Aviv to the ground. Go Hamas, we love you. We support your rockets, too.”
The Columbia Jewish Alumni Association, just a few days later on Friday, wrote to Shafik warning that violence against Jewish students was an actual eventuality.
“Within the last 24 hours, for example, protesters assaulted an invited speaker and threatened Jewish students by shouting, ‘We know where you live,’” the letter said. “Immediately outside Columbia’s gates, protesters shouted that ‘October 7 would be every day’ for Jewish students while, on its lawn, protesters called for the destruction of Israel and equated the NYPD and IDF to the KKK.”
The following Sunday, Rep. Virginia Foxx (R-North Carolina), Chairwoman of the House Committee on Education and the Workforce, also wrote to Shafik, charging the university with failing to meet its obligations under Title VI of the Civil Rights Act to ensure an environment of equal opportunity for Jewish students.
“Columbia’s continued failure to restore order and safety promptly to campus constitutes a major breach of the University’s Title VI obligations, ” she wrote.
“If you do not rectify this danger, then the Committee will not hesitate in holding you accountable.”
Assistant Prof. Shai Davidai, who works at Columbia Business School, had his faculty identification card deactivated during his counter-protest efforts, which were opposing the anti-Zionist ones on campus.
Shafik, however, said that Davidai was being investigated after several complaints were allegedly presented against him, despite him saying that he and other Israeli and Jewish students and faculty “just want to be Jewish on campus.” Now, Columbia must decide how to react to the protesters to ensure the safety of all students on campus once again.
The university and representatives of Columbia University Apartheid Divest (CUAD) have been in negotiations, and the university threatened protesters with police action. But is that enough?
All Jews are in danger
The Jerusalem Post sees the rampant hate and calls for violence on campuses worldwide, and most prominently at Columbia University, as an extreme escalation that puts not only Israelis but all Jews in danger. We therefore say that clearing the yard is not enough. Removing the encampment will only encourage these hateful groups to grow louder and potentially take aggressive measures to get their way. What they must actually be threatened with is their academic standing at the university.
How can it be that an Israeli professor was seemingly suspended over complaints that no one has heard or seen publicly, while the anti-Israel students calling for the genocide of Jews are treated exactly the same? Their academic success must depend on their seeing Jews as human beings – otherwise, they should not pass, and they should not receive degrees.
One of these things is not like the other, and it is Shafik and Columbia’s responsibility to handle the issue accordingly. Otherwise, they are telling the Jews on campus: We don’t care in the same way about you.