The loss of a human life is a deeply painful and heartbreaking experience for loved ones, regardless of one's affiliation. We extend our heartfelt condolences to the individuals and communities at Columbia University affected by the tragic losses experienced by both Palestinians and Israelis. The sting of tears, the weight on our hearts, and the profound sense of loss are universal emotions that connect us all in grief and unify us by experience. As we mourn the loss of lives, let us come together as a Columbia community and fervently advocate for the universal human right to live in peace and seek justice. 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.
We cannot view the recent actions of Palestinian fighters in isolation. Gaza is an open-air prison...The rest of the statement was completely anti-Israel and then even implied that the slaughter, rape and kidnapping of Israelis is legal under international law:
[W]e remind Columbia students that the Palestinian struggle for freedom is rooted in international law, under which occupied peoples have the right to resist the occupation of their land. If every political avenue available to Palestinians is blocked, we should not be surprised when resistance and violence break out.
This is stomach turning stuff. But it was written by groups that are anti-Israel by definition, who lie as easily as they tear down "kidnapped" signs, and who have no concept of reality, history or international law. It is revolting but not surprising from these groups.
However, a large number of Columbia faculty issued an open letter of their own defending this statement - and in some ways, going beyond it:
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 anti-Semitic if they express empathy for the lives and dignity of Palestinians, and/or if they signed on to a student-written statement that situated the military action begun on October 7th within the larger context of the occupation of Palestine by Israel. ...The student statement begins with language that should satisfy any measure of decency: “The loss of a human life is a deeply painful and heartbreaking experience for loved ones, regardless of one's affiliation. We extend our heartfelt condolences to the individuals and communities at Columbia University affected by the tragic losses experienced by both Palestinians and Israelis.” ...In our view, the student statement aims to recontextualize the events of October 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. One could regard the events of October 7th as just one salvo in an ongoing war between an occupying state and the people it occupies, or as an occupied people exercising a right to resist violent and illegal occupation, something anticipated by international humanitarian law in the Second Geneva Protocol. In either case armed resistance by an occupied people must conform to the laws of war, which include a prohibition against the intentional targeting of civilians. The statement reflects and endorses this legal framework, including a condemnation of the killing of civilians.
Any "recontextualization" of the pogrom is, by definition, an attempt to minimize it. That's what the student statement did and that's what these faculty members are doing. Their calling the deliberate slaughter of civilians, gang rapes of women and burning babies alive a mere "loss of human life" as if it was an auto accident is perverted and, yes, antisemitic. Their refusal to ascribe any responsibility to the Palestinian terrorists for their actions is sick. Their calling these attacks that targeted the elderly, women and children "military action," "military operations" and a "military response" is giving Hamas legitimacy instead of contempt. Calling the worst attack on Jewish civilians since Auschwitz "just one salvo in an ongoing war" is nothing less than a dismissal of the seriousness of the murderous orgy that was planned and executed by Hamas.
Moreover, the original statement did not condemn the killing of Israeli civilians at all as this letter claimed.
The faculty statement was even worse than the statement of the anti-Israel groups. And the fact that this was done by those who are entrusted to teach all students at Columbia shows that Columbia itself is an immoral institution that blames victims for their own deaths.
This disgusting letter puts Jews at risk. Because if "resistance" is a human right and even praiseworthy, and if slaughtering civilians is merely a "military operation" and a minor "salvo" in a much longer war, then who defines what "resistance" is acceptable? Why shouldn't Palestinians on campus attack Zionist Jews on campus in the name of this "resistance' whose legality and acceptance magically expands to anything Palestinians do, with no apparent limit?
If these are the people teaching students at Columbia, and there is no pushback from the administration or from a much larger number of other faculty, then Columbia is not a university as much as it is an antisemitic hellhole.
