I don’t know about the others off hand, but the $467M to Penn “from Germany” is actually a payment from BioNTech (a German company) in settlement of a lawsuit against it regarding royalties owed under an IP license.
I can't believe Colin has joined the ranks of public intellectuals selling out their anti-censorship principles to run cover for Israeli war crimes. It's absolutely true that the left's sudden embrace of campus free speech is hypocritical, but no less than the right's sudden embrace of identity politics. Making vague, unsubstantiated claims of rampant anti-Semitism to shield Trump's crackdown is truly dark, and an especially deep betrayal coming from those at the forefront of the battle against woke. To see Colin go woke himself is beyond disappointing.
I have no issue with people criticizing Israel. I have also not embraced any form of identity politics. It is a fact that antisemitism has grown exponentially on American campuses, and there are groups that are not merely "pro-Palestine" but routinely devolve into anti-Jew rallies. I am not pro-censorship. But using taxpayer funds to promote organizations that are literally classified as terrorist groups is not okay.
Colin! I say this in a spirit of embrace: I know you are not this naive!
"It is a fact that transphobia has grown exponentially in American society, and there are groups that are not merely 'gender critical' but routinely devolve into targeting trans people."
"It is a fact that racism has grown exponentially in American society, and there are groups that are not merely 'conservative' or 'patriotic' but routinely devolve into anti-blackness."
Antisemitism has grown exponentially on campuses? Including ones where Jewish organizations have co-led the organizing? Pro-Palestine protests *routinely* devolve into anti-Jew rallies? Where exactly is this happening?
For my part, in the 20+ years I've been in or adjacent to Pro-Palestine activism - my lived experience, as it were - I've never come across anti-Semitism, save for the rare kook at a protest who we'd always shout down or ignore. I engaged with a gender critical ally on Twitter about this throughout 2023 and 2024. Literally every single example she gave of Pro-Palestine activists being anti-Semitic - more than a handful during that time - turned out to false, and I saw numerous others debunked along the way.
Hypotheses require evidence to become conclusions, and if your claim is true it shouldn't be hard to cite it. Unless, that is, you're conflating anti-Israel, anti-genocide activism with anti-Semitism--the way every other oppressed group leverages their collective suffering to deflect critical inquiry and suppress speech, which is the essence of wokeness
To conflate being anti-war and anti-genocide with antisemitism is deliberately deceptive, slanderous and bigoted, if not ethno-fascist. Every time people protest the slaughter of thousands of Palestinians, whether in 2009 or 2014 "Cast Lead", Israeli settler terrorism, or presently, there springs up the false deflecting outcry, "antisemitism!" in the same way as transphobe, homophobe or Nazi is used to libel and slander in the same way those who are conscientiously against even more lethal autrocities.
I did not conflate those things. I separate those out completely. People can criticize Israel and how they're waging the war in Gaza without being antisemitic.
I am with Marcus and deeply disappointed in this piece. The test of whether one truly supports speech is not when it involves people you agree but people you disagree with. I am afraid, Colin, you have failed this test here.
As a survivor of a witchhunt against me for my gender critical views (losing my job over it and continuing to be blacklisted), called a transphobe and a bigot and told that my very thoughts made others “unsafe”, I can see the same playbook being used against pro Palestinian activists on campus, only on a far larger scale this time with the support of the federal government. And I find this chilling.
The vast majority of Palestinian activists are not antisemitic any more than I am a transphobe. They are fine with Jews as a religion or an ethnic group but are not fine with Israel’s indiscriminate slaughter of Palestinian civilians which has left Gaza as Trump himself said a demolition zone. Many also disagree with Zionism which is an ideology just like gender identity is an ideology. Opposing an ideology does not mean you are a bigot.
Jews are on both sides of these issues including in Israel itself and many, including myself, have participated in pro Palestinian protests. So I know of what I speak. That makes me no less a Jew proud of my heritage with family who died in the Holocaust and ancestors expelled from Spain 500 years ago. I just don’t want this happening to anyone else. I oppose terrorism against civilians whether done by a nonstate actor like Hamas or a powerful state like Israel on a far larger scale. Israel doesn’t speak for me or for a lot of other Jews. We Jews who speak out for the people of Gaza, student activists across the board and our Palestinian and Arab brothers and sisters in the US should not be silenced through repressive measures - fired, expelled, deported etc. - tearing apart our basic freedoms. To me, that is what is unAmerican.
First Amendment rights are for everyone or no one. No more witchhunts!
Colin as always I appreciate your rigor and how you consistently uphold the liberal commitments to truth, evidence, and equality. However I continue to find your commitment to this one-sided. You are spot on with your criticism of these sickening things going on in academia and on the left. But your silence on Trump’s illiberalism is deafening.
This line is what gets me:
“His strategy was to hold institutions accountable across all these fronts at once: protecting civil rights, restoring free inquiry, and calling out the radicalization happening under the banner of academic freedom.”
I agree he is calling out and putting a stop to radicalism from the left, and this is good. But to argue that Trump’s motivation is to “uphold civil rights” or “restoring free inquiry” is false. He is against illiberal critical social justice ideology because he is FOR his own version of personality-centered authoritarianism, which is patently obvious in his denialism around the 2020 election results, his blatant disregard for truth-telling, and his deportation of people he deems to be illegal aliens WITHOUT DUE PROCESS.
While dismantling the authoritarian regime of wokeness, Trump is ushering in his own authoritarian regime. Why are you not commenting on this? Why are you painting Trump’s actions as, not only good in their impact, but correct in their motivation? Are you just being willfully blind to this? I genuinely don’t understand your position as someone who is so rigorously committed to truth, free speech, open inquiry and evidence.
I don't doubt that foreign funding may have in fact been used to promote "pro-palestine" curricula. I also don't doubt that it featured speakers who may be associated with organizations that are classified as terrorist. However, the idea that "antisemitism" is somehow rampant on these campuses etc. etc., I just don't believe that. I did spend half a decade on one of these campuses, and many firsthand accounts of people on these campuses at that time [the time of these pro Palestinian agitations] do not support such a narrative of widespread antisemitism. Yes, there were some antisemitic individuals on the campuses at various times, and they were not always college students -- some were essentially random people. Additionally, most of the conflict happened from confronting protestors and/or civil disobedience participators. Given that what I am commenting on is a story rather than say a felony court case, it may not be worth further investigation. However, I do have concern about the general principle of spreading propaganda, and based on the various things I have read, the idea that there is some kind of widespread antisemitic activity on these campuses seems to be propaganda.
A S — You don’t say *when* you “did spend half a decade on one of these campuses” and failed to perceive “rampant” antisemitism; nor *when* “firsthand accounts … at that time” failed to show it.
There was no noticeable antisemitism on the Columbia campus when I was a student there, decades ago, when the student body was reputed to be half Jewish; but all indications are that things are very, very different today. Back then it would have been unthinkable for Jewish students to have to take refuge from a howling, pro-Palestinian mob behind locked doors in a college library, as happened at Cooper Union in October 2023.
Is antisemitic activity “widespread”? Widespread enough on some campuses to make Jewish students fear going to class.
People can be afraid when there is no danger. I meant I read firsthand accounts of what happened in 2023. For the incident you mentioned, I have watched the video. That crowd does not look particularly dangerous. There were zero .major injuries that I am aware of in all of this. Riots are much much more serious. Real fights are much more serious than this alleged "antisemitism". Various ethnicities have had people actually beaten up. And, of course, in the past and around the world, that and worse has happened to some Jewish people. However, it is not some widespread thing that high scoring students go around being antisemitic on these campuses as far as I have read.
Note: I am not downplaying antisemism. I used quotes above because I don't think most of what is being described here as antisemitism is actually antisemitism. So I used quotes in that sentence.
True, the killing of a pro-Israel demonstrator by a pro-Palestinian activist was still a couple of weeks in the future. However, the Jewish students barricaded in the Cooper Union library had every reason to believe that the baying mob trying to get at them did not wish them well.
From what I saw in the video, the activists were actually quite peaceful in that instance. I have seen videos of far more aggressive pro Palestinian activist groups at Columbia. The part where we agree is that, in general, there were aggressive and dangerous pro Palestinian activists who had collected into the groups. I believe that was largely due to non students who had come from off campus. Also, my personal view is that the police should have been cracking down on any civil disobedience from the beginning (that is always my view , on any cause). None of this leads me to believe there is widespread antisemitism on the campuses. To be clear, even if a Swastika showed up on the campus each week, that would not be evidence of antisemitism, just that one or more individual is enjoying notoriety of their graffiti and scaring people. Similarly, not everyone chanting from the river to the sea was endorsing violence or being antisemitic. So unfortunately it there end up being reports of antisemitism for cases where there was not. I view this as problematic because I want to know the real amounts for serious issues like antisemitism, not inflated reports. Also, inflated reports cause people to become desensitized, especially if nothing illegal happens - no students beaten up, none stolen from, etc.
Antisemitism is “widespread” in the sense that such activities and attitudes are to found on most elite campuses. You seem to be using the word to mean that the majority of students are (arguably) not antisemitic.
But then, radicals on the Columbia campus were able to shut it down even though 77% of the students (including me) opposed the strike, many years ago. Today, the problem is that the “silent majorities” who support Jews and Israel fear to oppose the radicals.
N.B.: You never answered my original question:
You don’t say *when* you “did spend half a decade on one of these campuses” and failed to perceive “rampant” antisemitism; nor *when* “firsthand accounts … at that time” failed to show it.
This argument reminds me of the “mostly peaceful protests” narrative during the Floyd riots and protests. Yet this is very dangerous ground. Just like with DEI we cannot fight racism with more racism. But trends suggest ideological capture and resultant intended chaos is occurring. We have to fight it on the high ground.
This is on the minds of many people right now - with growing misfiring.
23,000IsraelSoldiers
IsraelSoldiersInUSUseChemicalWarfare
TENS OF THOUSANDS WAR CRIMINALS will soon be Entering the US. In fact, some of them are already here attacking anti-war protesters with chemical weapons they previously deployed in Israel. Others, who volunteered to participated in Israel's genocidal war, will be returning to countries like France and Britain to threaten our safety and weaken democratic institutions.
Why has no one raised the alarm over 23,000 U.S.A. citizens who have gone to Israel to fight in a genocidal war in Gaza? Isn't it illegal to join the military of another country to give your life & loyalty for the political goals of another government? Anti-war protesters in USA are losing jobs, being expelled, kidnapped and deported for being against the Israeli war and ethnic cleansing. Why aren't U.S. Citizens volunteering for the Israeli genocide being tried for treason, or arrested upon returning, or being stopped at the border and sent back to Israel and having their U.S. citizenship revoked? Over 23,000 Americans working for Israel - WHO ARE THEY? They need to be identified and held accountable for their role in Genocide. ICE refuses entry to innocent refugees yet allows murderous militants entry?
CHEMICAL WARFARE
At Columbia U, on Jan/19/24, two Israel Occupation Force soldiers were identified as two of the perpetrators in a chemical attack on anti-war students. The chemical spray, produced in Israel, is used by the Israeli military IDF on Palestinians to suppress protests against settler terrorists and the Israeli occupation. Both Israeli soldiers were current Columbia students. They were wearing keffiyeh disguises to spray protesters with a chemical weapon imported from Israel. Several of their victims were hospitalized for decontamination. Members of Jewish Voice for Peace reported being spat on and harassed by Israeli pro-war on-lookers. The soldier's names were hidden to protect their identity. The Israeli soldier-students weren't arrested for chemical warfare or even assault, but one who was suspended for a few months sued Columbia over his temporary suspension and was awarded almost half a million dollars ($395,000) by Columbia for his assaults on anti-war students. The Israeli soldiers apparently lied about the chemical spray, characterizing it as a novelty joke item of USA origin and its use by them simplyan expression of freedom of speech. A perversion of justice beyond cynical.
This is an instance of using the US Courts to reward Israeli soldiers using military weapons to attack US students in order to suppress their speech and their protests against genocide and ethnic cleansing. Despite being legal residents, students are too terrified to fight back - for good reason.
The student, (who deployed chemical spray) according to a document, is a Jewish-Hispanic immigrant who served in the Israeli army and holds both American and Israeli citizenship. A senior at Columbia, he was one of two students suspended by the university until the end of the semester for spraying the protesters at a demonstration on January 17th 2024. Their names are being withheld to protect their identity and protect them from personal criticism.
AI facial recognition software company Betar spokesman Daniel Levy says people on his list were identified using a facial-recognition tool called NesherAI created by Hawila's company, Stellar Technologies, located in his apartment in Brooklyn. The software's name is from the Hebrew word for “eagle.” Demonstrating the software, Hawila allowed the computer code to assimilate the upload of thousands of photos from social media accounts. The software matched a screenshot of a masked protester Hawila photographed at a recent demonstration with publicity photos of a woman who he was then able to identify.
USA GULAG ARCHIPELAGO
Anti-war student arrests: Turkish student, Rumeysa Ozturk, who was studying for her doctorate at Tufts on a Fulbright scholarship with a student visa was surrounded by six government agents on a street near her home. She was man-handled, hand-cuffed and whisked off in a Gestapo-type operation. She was then secretly taken to a site in a part of the far-reaching USA Gulag Archipelago. Her sin was criticizing Tufts’ response to a student group’s call for the university to divest from Israeli companies.
Alireza Doroudi, a University of Alabama doctoral student originally from Iran, was also detained by ICE. He had been held at a jail, but was transferred to federal custody in Jena, La.
Momodou Taal, a doctoral candidate in Africana Studies at Cornell, had his student visa revoked for participating in anti-war protests protests and creating a hostile environment for Jewish students, according to US government officials. “I have lost faith I could walk the streets without being abducted,” Taal said, “Weighing up these options, I took the decision to leave on my own terms.”
Mahmoud Khalil, a graduate student at Columbia until December, was in his apartment when several ICE agents entered and took him into custody. Khalil was in the United States as a permanent resident with a green card,
Yunseo Chung, a 21-year-old Columbia University student who has lived in the US since she was 7, filed a suit after immigration agents tried to arrest and deport her for participating in anti-war demonstrations.
HARVARD UNIV
Hedge fund billionaire and Harvard alumni Bill Ackman led the call for the ouster of the Harvard President accusing her of Anti-Semitism. The CEO of Pershing Square is well-known for pressure campaigns, having built much of his wealth by using aggressive propaganda techniques. He called for the names of all the students who signed an anti-war statement (calling on Israel to stop the bombings) so that he and other CEOs could blacklist them from ever being hired by their firms. Ackman had the students faces displayed on trucks around campus labeling the students "anti-Semites." He also sent mailings to everyone in the area naming the Anti-War students. In addition, he hired a helicopter to fly over the area with signs in the sky naming the students. Overkill to crush dissent and support the bombing of Gaza? Ackman said the Harvard Board was worried that if they fired president Gay, it would look like they were kowtowing to him.
UNIV OF PENN
Among the first to call on Elizabeth Magill to resign was Marc Rowan, CEO of private equity giant Apollo Global Management. Rowan is one of the university’s wealthiest donors.
Billionaire Ronald Lauder, another powerful financial backer of school, threatened to do the same if more wasn’t done to fight "antisemitism." Brandeis Center, a Jewish civil rights legal organization, filed civil rights complaints with the US Dept of Education, accusing Penn of nurturing a hostile environment toward Jewish students. Stone Ridge Holdings CEO Ross Stevens, a major donor to Penn, sent a letter to Penn threatening to cost the school approximately $100 million for allowing students anti-war demonstrations.
COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY
Columbia President Minouche Shafik resigned after a little more than a year. She's the third female college president to lose her job. Students' protests over how Israel is fighting its war against the Palestinians has exposed cracks in the protection of the right to express an opinion publicly without being penalized or maligned.
New York GOP Rep. Elise Stefanik, a Harvard alumna, was relentless in her condemnation of the women college presidents. Hearing of Shafik's resignation Elise Stefanik said, “THREE DOWN, so many to go.”
A fourth woman, interim college President at Columbia, Katrina Armstrong, has been forced out after seven months. Armstrong’s resignation from Columbia U. comes after the Trump White House called for a ban on masks at campus anti-war protests as part of a list of reforms aimed at cracking down on "rampant antisemitism" that demonstrations against the massive bombing of Palestinians are being cast as.
Fifth woman: tenured Columbia University law professor Katherine Franke is stepping down after 25 years following a university investigation into her comments during an anti-war campus protest on January 2024 involving two IDF Israeli students who sprayed anti-war demonstrators with a chemical made and used in Israel by the IDF to suppress protests in Palestine. In an interview with Democracy Now! Franke claimed that Israeli students who had served in the Israel Defense Forces "have been known to harass Palestinian and other students on our campus."
Massachusetts Institute of Technology President Sally Kornbluth; although grilled by Stefanik, was spared ouster by the pro-Israel billionaires.
Reports have indicated that approximately 100 USA black sites exist all over the world, including in countries like Poland, Romania, Thailand, Lithuania (site Violet recently in the news, where Kalid Shaik Muhammad was waterboarded), Egypt, Guantanamo, etc. to hide prisoners being held and/or tortured by U.S. military or CIA agents.
I don’t know about the others off hand, but the $467M to Penn “from Germany” is actually a payment from BioNTech (a German company) in settlement of a lawsuit against it regarding royalties owed under an IP license.
https://www.reuters.com/business/healthcare-pharmaceuticals/biontech-enters-settlement-with-us-agency-upenn-over-covid-vaccine-royalties-2024-12-27/
Can I just for one second say "no duh?!"
I can't believe Colin has joined the ranks of public intellectuals selling out their anti-censorship principles to run cover for Israeli war crimes. It's absolutely true that the left's sudden embrace of campus free speech is hypocritical, but no less than the right's sudden embrace of identity politics. Making vague, unsubstantiated claims of rampant anti-Semitism to shield Trump's crackdown is truly dark, and an especially deep betrayal coming from those at the forefront of the battle against woke. To see Colin go woke himself is beyond disappointing.
I have no issue with people criticizing Israel. I have also not embraced any form of identity politics. It is a fact that antisemitism has grown exponentially on American campuses, and there are groups that are not merely "pro-Palestine" but routinely devolve into anti-Jew rallies. I am not pro-censorship. But using taxpayer funds to promote organizations that are literally classified as terrorist groups is not okay.
Colin! I say this in a spirit of embrace: I know you are not this naive!
"It is a fact that transphobia has grown exponentially in American society, and there are groups that are not merely 'gender critical' but routinely devolve into targeting trans people."
"It is a fact that racism has grown exponentially in American society, and there are groups that are not merely 'conservative' or 'patriotic' but routinely devolve into anti-blackness."
Antisemitism has grown exponentially on campuses? Including ones where Jewish organizations have co-led the organizing? Pro-Palestine protests *routinely* devolve into anti-Jew rallies? Where exactly is this happening?
For my part, in the 20+ years I've been in or adjacent to Pro-Palestine activism - my lived experience, as it were - I've never come across anti-Semitism, save for the rare kook at a protest who we'd always shout down or ignore. I engaged with a gender critical ally on Twitter about this throughout 2023 and 2024. Literally every single example she gave of Pro-Palestine activists being anti-Semitic - more than a handful during that time - turned out to false, and I saw numerous others debunked along the way.
Hypotheses require evidence to become conclusions, and if your claim is true it shouldn't be hard to cite it. Unless, that is, you're conflating anti-Israel, anti-genocide activism with anti-Semitism--the way every other oppressed group leverages their collective suffering to deflect critical inquiry and suppress speech, which is the essence of wokeness
To conflate being anti-war and anti-genocide with antisemitism is deliberately deceptive, slanderous and bigoted, if not ethno-fascist. Every time people protest the slaughter of thousands of Palestinians, whether in 2009 or 2014 "Cast Lead", Israeli settler terrorism, or presently, there springs up the false deflecting outcry, "antisemitism!" in the same way as transphobe, homophobe or Nazi is used to libel and slander in the same way those who are conscientiously against even more lethal autrocities.
I did not conflate those things. I separate those out completely. People can criticize Israel and how they're waging the war in Gaza without being antisemitic.
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/04/28/nyregion/protests-israel-woman-attacked-brooklyn.html?smid=nytcore-android-share
I am with Marcus and deeply disappointed in this piece. The test of whether one truly supports speech is not when it involves people you agree but people you disagree with. I am afraid, Colin, you have failed this test here.
As a survivor of a witchhunt against me for my gender critical views (losing my job over it and continuing to be blacklisted), called a transphobe and a bigot and told that my very thoughts made others “unsafe”, I can see the same playbook being used against pro Palestinian activists on campus, only on a far larger scale this time with the support of the federal government. And I find this chilling.
The vast majority of Palestinian activists are not antisemitic any more than I am a transphobe. They are fine with Jews as a religion or an ethnic group but are not fine with Israel’s indiscriminate slaughter of Palestinian civilians which has left Gaza as Trump himself said a demolition zone. Many also disagree with Zionism which is an ideology just like gender identity is an ideology. Opposing an ideology does not mean you are a bigot.
Jews are on both sides of these issues including in Israel itself and many, including myself, have participated in pro Palestinian protests. So I know of what I speak. That makes me no less a Jew proud of my heritage with family who died in the Holocaust and ancestors expelled from Spain 500 years ago. I just don’t want this happening to anyone else. I oppose terrorism against civilians whether done by a nonstate actor like Hamas or a powerful state like Israel on a far larger scale. Israel doesn’t speak for me or for a lot of other Jews. We Jews who speak out for the people of Gaza, student activists across the board and our Palestinian and Arab brothers and sisters in the US should not be silenced through repressive measures - fired, expelled, deported etc. - tearing apart our basic freedoms. To me, that is what is unAmerican.
First Amendment rights are for everyone or no one. No more witchhunts!
Colin as always I appreciate your rigor and how you consistently uphold the liberal commitments to truth, evidence, and equality. However I continue to find your commitment to this one-sided. You are spot on with your criticism of these sickening things going on in academia and on the left. But your silence on Trump’s illiberalism is deafening.
This line is what gets me:
“His strategy was to hold institutions accountable across all these fronts at once: protecting civil rights, restoring free inquiry, and calling out the radicalization happening under the banner of academic freedom.”
I agree he is calling out and putting a stop to radicalism from the left, and this is good. But to argue that Trump’s motivation is to “uphold civil rights” or “restoring free inquiry” is false. He is against illiberal critical social justice ideology because he is FOR his own version of personality-centered authoritarianism, which is patently obvious in his denialism around the 2020 election results, his blatant disregard for truth-telling, and his deportation of people he deems to be illegal aliens WITHOUT DUE PROCESS.
While dismantling the authoritarian regime of wokeness, Trump is ushering in his own authoritarian regime. Why are you not commenting on this? Why are you painting Trump’s actions as, not only good in their impact, but correct in their motivation? Are you just being willfully blind to this? I genuinely don’t understand your position as someone who is so rigorously committed to truth, free speech, open inquiry and evidence.
I don't doubt that foreign funding may have in fact been used to promote "pro-palestine" curricula. I also don't doubt that it featured speakers who may be associated with organizations that are classified as terrorist. However, the idea that "antisemitism" is somehow rampant on these campuses etc. etc., I just don't believe that. I did spend half a decade on one of these campuses, and many firsthand accounts of people on these campuses at that time [the time of these pro Palestinian agitations] do not support such a narrative of widespread antisemitism. Yes, there were some antisemitic individuals on the campuses at various times, and they were not always college students -- some were essentially random people. Additionally, most of the conflict happened from confronting protestors and/or civil disobedience participators. Given that what I am commenting on is a story rather than say a felony court case, it may not be worth further investigation. However, I do have concern about the general principle of spreading propaganda, and based on the various things I have read, the idea that there is some kind of widespread antisemitic activity on these campuses seems to be propaganda.
A S — You don’t say *when* you “did spend half a decade on one of these campuses” and failed to perceive “rampant” antisemitism; nor *when* “firsthand accounts … at that time” failed to show it.
There was no noticeable antisemitism on the Columbia campus when I was a student there, decades ago, when the student body was reputed to be half Jewish; but all indications are that things are very, very different today. Back then it would have been unthinkable for Jewish students to have to take refuge from a howling, pro-Palestinian mob behind locked doors in a college library, as happened at Cooper Union in October 2023.
Is antisemitic activity “widespread”? Widespread enough on some campuses to make Jewish students fear going to class.
People can be afraid when there is no danger. I meant I read firsthand accounts of what happened in 2023. For the incident you mentioned, I have watched the video. That crowd does not look particularly dangerous. There were zero .major injuries that I am aware of in all of this. Riots are much much more serious. Real fights are much more serious than this alleged "antisemitism". Various ethnicities have had people actually beaten up. And, of course, in the past and around the world, that and worse has happened to some Jewish people. However, it is not some widespread thing that high scoring students go around being antisemitic on these campuses as far as I have read.
Note: I am not downplaying antisemism. I used quotes above because I don't think most of what is being described here as antisemitism is actually antisemitism. So I used quotes in that sentence.
True, the killing of a pro-Israel demonstrator by a pro-Palestinian activist was still a couple of weeks in the future. However, the Jewish students barricaded in the Cooper Union library had every reason to believe that the baying mob trying to get at them did not wish them well.
From what I saw in the video, the activists were actually quite peaceful in that instance. I have seen videos of far more aggressive pro Palestinian activist groups at Columbia. The part where we agree is that, in general, there were aggressive and dangerous pro Palestinian activists who had collected into the groups. I believe that was largely due to non students who had come from off campus. Also, my personal view is that the police should have been cracking down on any civil disobedience from the beginning (that is always my view , on any cause). None of this leads me to believe there is widespread antisemitism on the campuses. To be clear, even if a Swastika showed up on the campus each week, that would not be evidence of antisemitism, just that one or more individual is enjoying notoriety of their graffiti and scaring people. Similarly, not everyone chanting from the river to the sea was endorsing violence or being antisemitic. So unfortunately it there end up being reports of antisemitism for cases where there was not. I view this as problematic because I want to know the real amounts for serious issues like antisemitism, not inflated reports. Also, inflated reports cause people to become desensitized, especially if nothing illegal happens - no students beaten up, none stolen from, etc.
Antisemitism is “widespread” in the sense that such activities and attitudes are to found on most elite campuses. You seem to be using the word to mean that the majority of students are (arguably) not antisemitic.
But then, radicals on the Columbia campus were able to shut it down even though 77% of the students (including me) opposed the strike, many years ago. Today, the problem is that the “silent majorities” who support Jews and Israel fear to oppose the radicals.
N.B.: You never answered my original question:
You don’t say *when* you “did spend half a decade on one of these campuses” and failed to perceive “rampant” antisemitism; nor *when* “firsthand accounts … at that time” failed to show it.
This argument reminds me of the “mostly peaceful protests” narrative during the Floyd riots and protests. Yet this is very dangerous ground. Just like with DEI we cannot fight racism with more racism. But trends suggest ideological capture and resultant intended chaos is occurring. We have to fight it on the high ground.
You might want to tell us what NCRI is and who funds it.
This is on the minds of many people right now - with growing misfiring.
23,000IsraelSoldiers
IsraelSoldiersInUSUseChemicalWarfare
TENS OF THOUSANDS WAR CRIMINALS will soon be Entering the US. In fact, some of them are already here attacking anti-war protesters with chemical weapons they previously deployed in Israel. Others, who volunteered to participated in Israel's genocidal war, will be returning to countries like France and Britain to threaten our safety and weaken democratic institutions.
Why has no one raised the alarm over 23,000 U.S.A. citizens who have gone to Israel to fight in a genocidal war in Gaza? Isn't it illegal to join the military of another country to give your life & loyalty for the political goals of another government? Anti-war protesters in USA are losing jobs, being expelled, kidnapped and deported for being against the Israeli war and ethnic cleansing. Why aren't U.S. Citizens volunteering for the Israeli genocide being tried for treason, or arrested upon returning, or being stopped at the border and sent back to Israel and having their U.S. citizenship revoked? Over 23,000 Americans working for Israel - WHO ARE THEY? They need to be identified and held accountable for their role in Genocide. ICE refuses entry to innocent refugees yet allows murderous militants entry?
CHEMICAL WARFARE
At Columbia U, on Jan/19/24, two Israel Occupation Force soldiers were identified as two of the perpetrators in a chemical attack on anti-war students. The chemical spray, produced in Israel, is used by the Israeli military IDF on Palestinians to suppress protests against settler terrorists and the Israeli occupation. Both Israeli soldiers were current Columbia students. They were wearing keffiyeh disguises to spray protesters with a chemical weapon imported from Israel. Several of their victims were hospitalized for decontamination. Members of Jewish Voice for Peace reported being spat on and harassed by Israeli pro-war on-lookers. The soldier's names were hidden to protect their identity. The Israeli soldier-students weren't arrested for chemical warfare or even assault, but one who was suspended for a few months sued Columbia over his temporary suspension and was awarded almost half a million dollars ($395,000) by Columbia for his assaults on anti-war students. The Israeli soldiers apparently lied about the chemical spray, characterizing it as a novelty joke item of USA origin and its use by them simplyan expression of freedom of speech. A perversion of justice beyond cynical.
This is an instance of using the US Courts to reward Israeli soldiers using military weapons to attack US students in order to suppress their speech and their protests against genocide and ethnic cleansing. Despite being legal residents, students are too terrified to fight back - for good reason.
The student, (who deployed chemical spray) according to a document, is a Jewish-Hispanic immigrant who served in the Israeli army and holds both American and Israeli citizenship. A senior at Columbia, he was one of two students suspended by the university until the end of the semester for spraying the protesters at a demonstration on January 17th 2024. Their names are being withheld to protect their identity and protect them from personal criticism.
https://www.yahoo.com/news/private-groups-identify-report-student-041123910.html
STALKING STUDENT DEMONSTRATORS:
AI facial recognition software company Betar spokesman Daniel Levy says people on his list were identified using a facial-recognition tool called NesherAI created by Hawila's company, Stellar Technologies, located in his apartment in Brooklyn. The software's name is from the Hebrew word for “eagle.” Demonstrating the software, Hawila allowed the computer code to assimilate the upload of thousands of photos from social media accounts. The software matched a screenshot of a masked protester Hawila photographed at a recent demonstration with publicity photos of a woman who he was then able to identify.
USA GULAG ARCHIPELAGO
Anti-war student arrests: Turkish student, Rumeysa Ozturk, who was studying for her doctorate at Tufts on a Fulbright scholarship with a student visa was surrounded by six government agents on a street near her home. She was man-handled, hand-cuffed and whisked off in a Gestapo-type operation. She was then secretly taken to a site in a part of the far-reaching USA Gulag Archipelago. Her sin was criticizing Tufts’ response to a student group’s call for the university to divest from Israeli companies.
Alireza Doroudi, a University of Alabama doctoral student originally from Iran, was also detained by ICE. He had been held at a jail, but was transferred to federal custody in Jena, La.
Momodou Taal, a doctoral candidate in Africana Studies at Cornell, had his student visa revoked for participating in anti-war protests protests and creating a hostile environment for Jewish students, according to US government officials. “I have lost faith I could walk the streets without being abducted,” Taal said, “Weighing up these options, I took the decision to leave on my own terms.”
Mahmoud Khalil, a graduate student at Columbia until December, was in his apartment when several ICE agents entered and took him into custody. Khalil was in the United States as a permanent resident with a green card,
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/mar/30/columbia-alumni-diplomas-mahmoud-khalil Current student and a friend of Khalil’s, said: “Students are terrified to set foot on campus. I’m one of them, so just the fact that I’m here is scary because [of] the way that our colleagues have disappeared."
Yunseo Chung, a 21-year-old Columbia University student who has lived in the US since she was 7, filed a suit after immigration agents tried to arrest and deport her for participating in anti-war demonstrations.
HARVARD UNIV
Hedge fund billionaire and Harvard alumni Bill Ackman led the call for the ouster of the Harvard President accusing her of Anti-Semitism. The CEO of Pershing Square is well-known for pressure campaigns, having built much of his wealth by using aggressive propaganda techniques. He called for the names of all the students who signed an anti-war statement (calling on Israel to stop the bombings) so that he and other CEOs could blacklist them from ever being hired by their firms. Ackman had the students faces displayed on trucks around campus labeling the students "anti-Semites." He also sent mailings to everyone in the area naming the Anti-War students. In addition, he hired a helicopter to fly over the area with signs in the sky naming the students. Overkill to crush dissent and support the bombing of Gaza? Ackman said the Harvard Board was worried that if they fired president Gay, it would look like they were kowtowing to him.
UNIV OF PENN
Among the first to call on Elizabeth Magill to resign was Marc Rowan, CEO of private equity giant Apollo Global Management. Rowan is one of the university’s wealthiest donors.
Billionaire Ronald Lauder, another powerful financial backer of school, threatened to do the same if more wasn’t done to fight "antisemitism." Brandeis Center, a Jewish civil rights legal organization, filed civil rights complaints with the US Dept of Education, accusing Penn of nurturing a hostile environment toward Jewish students. Stone Ridge Holdings CEO Ross Stevens, a major donor to Penn, sent a letter to Penn threatening to cost the school approximately $100 million for allowing students anti-war demonstrations.
COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY
Columbia President Minouche Shafik resigned after a little more than a year. She's the third female college president to lose her job. Students' protests over how Israel is fighting its war against the Palestinians has exposed cracks in the protection of the right to express an opinion publicly without being penalized or maligned.
New York GOP Rep. Elise Stefanik, a Harvard alumna, was relentless in her condemnation of the women college presidents. Hearing of Shafik's resignation Elise Stefanik said, “THREE DOWN, so many to go.”
A fourth woman, interim college President at Columbia, Katrina Armstrong, has been forced out after seven months. Armstrong’s resignation from Columbia U. comes after the Trump White House called for a ban on masks at campus anti-war protests as part of a list of reforms aimed at cracking down on "rampant antisemitism" that demonstrations against the massive bombing of Palestinians are being cast as.
Fifth woman: tenured Columbia University law professor Katherine Franke is stepping down after 25 years following a university investigation into her comments during an anti-war campus protest on January 2024 involving two IDF Israeli students who sprayed anti-war demonstrators with a chemical made and used in Israel by the IDF to suppress protests in Palestine. In an interview with Democracy Now! Franke claimed that Israeli students who had served in the Israel Defense Forces "have been known to harass Palestinian and other students on our campus."
Massachusetts Institute of Technology President Sally Kornbluth; although grilled by Stefanik, was spared ouster by the pro-Israel billionaires.
Reports have indicated that approximately 100 USA black sites exist all over the world, including in countries like Poland, Romania, Thailand, Lithuania (site Violet recently in the news, where Kalid Shaik Muhammad was waterboarded), Egypt, Guantanamo, etc. to hide prisoners being held and/or tortured by U.S. military or CIA agents.
https://www.thebureauinvestigates.com/stories/2016-10-10/site-violet-how-lithuania-helped-run-a-secret-cia-prison
You might want to tell us what "NCRI" is, and who funds it.