A Timeline Tracing Columbia University’s Descent into Anti-Semitic Anarchy

A Timeline Tracing Columbia University’s Descent into Anti-Semitic Anarchy

By Lieba Nesis

The escalating antisemitism at Columbia University where cries to “Kill Jews” and replay the October 7th Hamas massacre 10,000 times have sent shockwaves throughout the world. The vandalism and violence currently occurring as protestors took over the Hamilton Hall building at 12 AM Monday evening, April 29th, after being given a 2 PM deadline to vacate without Mayor Eric Adams or Columbia president Minouche Shafik taking action is inexplicable. How did this two-week chaos evolve?

 

While the encampments may have began at 4AM Wednesday April 17th as hundreds of students pitched tents to coincide with President Minouche Shafik’s disastrous three hour Congressional testimony-this antisemitic hate has been brewing for years. Starting with the current president Minouche Shafik who denied in her testimony that “long live the intifada” and calls to wipe Israel off the map were antisemitic.  She readily criticized the only Jewish professor Shai Davidai by condemning his behavior and saying he had harassed 50 students; failing to mention it was all social media related as he called out antisemitic students on Twitter after the University failed to take action. Shafik and her three collaborators Claire Shipman, David Schizer and David Greenwald were not under oath for the House Committee on Education and Workforce testimony ensuring there will be no criminal consequences for their continued perjury.

Shafik denied that any anti-Jewish protests had occurred on campus in the past six months: as she was quickly contradicted by all three panelists with Claire Shipman recounting Jewish students being targeted at Columbia Law School on admitted students day.  Shafik also told Congressman Jim Banks she was unaware of Columbia’s antisemitic Social Work orientation materials that included a glossary where Ashkenormativity was defined as a “system of oppression that favors white Jewish folx.”  More bad news was a recent New York Post article where Yale Professor Ahmed Mobarak accused Shafik of intellectual theft and plagiarism as she removed a co-author’s name from a 1994 research paper. Despite Columbia’s bedlam on April 24th its Board of Trustees said they “strongly support” Shafik as “someone who takes a firm stance against hatred, harassment and discrimination”.

The festering Jew hatred at Columbia has been brewing for nearly a decade. In 2018 Holocaust Scholar Elizabeth Midlarsky’s office was vandalized and spray-painted with swastikas and the word “Yid”.  Nobody was arrested and the attacks increased with four antisemitic attacks in 2020 and no action by Columbia.  Former esteemed President Lee Bollinger who was forced to step down in 2023 after 21 historic years at Columbia was a hardline Israel supporter voting against BDS and raising the alarm bells  in March 2020 against the “anger, hatred, demonization and invidious discrimination” he was witnessing against Jews on campus-one of the reasons he was forced to resign. Since Shafik took reign in October 2023 the school has become a cesspool of Jew hate. The events leading up to April 17th’s chaos reveal its inevitability as hate groups Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP), Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP) and Within Our Lifetime (WOL), along with 94 other Jewish hate groups on campus, have been running things at Columbia since October 7th. An October 5th post from SJP Columbia saying “we are back first general meeting to be announced soon stay tuned” as a map showing an eradicated Israel and the Arabic words  for “Violence, Revolution” appear in the background reveal they had prior knowledge of Hamas’s October 7th massacre.

Columbia’s protests are far from organic having been funded by Jew haters George Soros, Wall streeter Felice Gelman, The Rockefeller Brothers Fund, and former orthodox Jew Howard Horowitz from WESPAC. Some of the groups members are Jewish as they held a seder and shabbat meal at the encampment while calls for the genocide of Israel could be heard in the background.  The escalation over the past six months can be traced to the university’s inaction as actual terrorists are currently entrenched on campus as reflected by this timeline:

October 4th- Dr. Minouche Shafik is inaugurated as president with little fanfare-3 days later the anti-Jewish mayhem begins

October 5th-SJP Columbia warns of violence and revolution two days before the Hamas massacre and starts planning its demonstrations as it knows an attack is brewing

October 7th-1200 innocent Israeli civilians are killed while many are raped, beheaded and mutilated with over 250 hostages taken

October 9th- SJP  and JVP Columbia sign a letter praising Hamas and its massacre as an “unprecedented historic moment” and saying they are in full solidarity with Palestinian resistance

October 11-A 24-year-old Israeli student hanging pro-Israel fliers is assaulted on the Columbia campus

October 12-the biweekly threatening protests of SJP and JVP begin as Columbia is forced to close its campus to the public early in the day due to the aggression of the Palestinian groups with Jewish student Caroline Smith saying she felt “dispirited” and unsupported from the University. Professor Shai Davidai raises the alarm bells to Columbia’s leaders that an out-of-control antisemitism is going unchecked. Being that the school is private property they are allowed to limit free speech especially when it calls for the destruction of Israel and should have shut down on campus protests at this stage

October 23- Columbia calls off its annual Giving Day where alumni contribute money due to the dueling protests between pro-Israel and pro-Palestinian

October 30-Over 100 Columbia professors sign a letter defending students who backed the October 7th terror attack and further call Israel an apartheid state

Nov 1-Shafik announces the creation of a task force to combat antisemitism after violent anti-Israel protests become habitual

November 10th-Columbia suspends SJP and JVP for holding an unauthorized school walkout and “repeatedly violating University policies relating to holding campus events” as an unlawful sit-in at the Social Work school is held.  The anti-Israel organizations continue to hold protests and form under a new group called Columbia University Apartheid Divest (CUAD) without any oversight basically functioning as before the suspension

https://twitter.com/jewishstarlight/status/1785360800778953054?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw  

Nov 14-400 students rally on campus to protest the termination of SJP (Students for Justice in Palestine) and JVP (Jewish Voice for Peace): while 200 faculty members walk out the next day to protest SJP and JVP’s suspension

December 5th-House Committee calls on leaders of Harvard, U of P, and MIT to answer for antisemitic demonstrations. President Minouche Shafik reveals her disregard for the unfolding crisis as she travels to the UN Climate Change Conference in Dubai-shouldn’t this hearing have been a priority?

January 19-another unlawful anti-Israel protest is held. Two Jewish students spray harmless fart spray at venomous participants and are the only Columbia students in this whole morass to be expelled until May 2025.

March 21-A Columbia University Task Force set up to combat antisemitism refuses to settle on a definition allowing rampant anti-Jewish chants such as “from the River to the Sea Palestine will be Free” and “Long Live the Intifada” to permeate the University

March 24-a culmination of hundreds of anti-Israel events peaks with a scary March 24th “Resistance 101” event at Columbia’s Q House-an LGBT special interest community at the University-hosted by CUAD and 94 other student groups.  Charlotte Kates a member of terror group Samidoun along with Khaled Barakat a Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine activist join “Within Our Lifetime” Founder Nerdeen Kiswani who calls for Israel to be wiped off the map. These three terrorists praise Hamas’s October 7th”resistance” along with Hezbollah and exhort attendees to employ armed resistance against Israel-essentially using Columbia’s grounds to recruit domestic terrorists. Aidan Parisi, a graduate student in Columbia’s School of Social Work, who organized the event is suspended but refuses to vacate his dorm.  His suspension is later lifted as he becomes a leader at the current Gaza Solidarity Encampment. The other three students organizers also have their suspensions lifted.  There are a couple of major student agitators on campus including Parisi, Khymani James, Cameron Jones, Maryam Alwan, Maryam Iqbal, and Mahmoud Khalil. Had they been suspended initially most of the radicalism would have been contained.

April 7-Shafik finally sends out a letter acknowledging the Hamas “terror attack” in Israel as her April 17th Congressional hearing draws closer-fooling no-one.

April 17-Hundreds of students pitch tents on the South Lawn of Columbia at 4 AM. Hours later Shafik along with her idiotic supporting staff appear in Washington for the House Committee Hearing where they admit they can’t even define antisemitism.  It becomes clear she not only doesn’t care about antisemitism but allows it to thrive under the guise of free speech. Shafik admits professors Joseph Massad and Mohamed Abdou who praised Hamas’s atrocities continue employment while Jewish professor Shai Davidai is being investigated. While Professor Dr. Jeffrey Lieberman is immediately fired in 2022 for an innocuous tweet containing a photo of a Sudanese model and saying her dark skin was a “beautiful sight to behold” professors who advocate for the killing of Jews continue to retain employment. Shafik allows the dangerous encampment to endure. Enabling the sprinklers to douse the tents, calling university security to block the protestors are all actions she declines to take

April 18-Shafik finally calls the NYPD who arrest 108 students who are all released from custody hours later with their suspensions also dropped along with any notation on their records. Shafik once again shows her gross incompetence as she remains in Washington at a Bezos Earth Fund dinner while chaos ensues at Columbia. She later complains she was unable to eat due to repeated phone calls.

April 19-Students arrive with more tents on the West lawn along with an escalation in aggression as Shafik remains paralyzed. Terrorist leader Nerdeen Kiswani joins the encampment to celebrate her wedding as she calls for the eradication of Israel and revolution.

April 21-Columbia Chabad Rabbi Eli Buechler tells 290 Jewish students in a Whatsapp chat they should leave because they are no longer safe in the face of extreme antisemitism and anarchy

April 22-Professor Shai Davidai is refused entry to Columbia campus while Hamas sympathizer Mohamed Abdou who Shafik claimed was fired socializes with protestors on campus along with Hamas massacre photographer and participant Motaz Azaiza and disgraced actress Susan Sarandon.  At the encampment Arab movies are watched, Arab prayers are held, and leader Khymani James tells zombie like students to form a  human chain to block Zionists seeking to enter. That same day hundreds of professors sign open letters denouncing the suspension of students and join a walkout as they rally on campus to back the antisemitic protests. Among these professors is currently employed Joseph Massad who praised October 7th as “astounding” and “awesome” in a much condemned article. Shafik says the school needs a reset as she encourages students to learn online and faculty to work remotely-basically meaning Jewish students should stay far away. Major Columbia contributor Robert Kraft halts donations due to “virulent Jew hate”

April 23-Speaker of the House Mike Johnson appears on Columbia campus where he is vigorously booed. He denounces the rampant Jew hatred, demands Shafik resign and threatens to urge Biden to call the National Guard

April 24-Shafik extends the Monday night deadline-requiring student encampments to pack up-until an unknown time. She fails to utilize Eric Adams offer of the NYPD or Hochul’s offer of the National Guard. Feckless Eric Adams as usual fails to take charge of the chaotic situation. Shafik makes some half-assed deal to remove a couple of tents and some outsiders from the encampment but ultimately proves her presidency is an unmitigated disaster. Due to Columbia’s success Jew hatred has spread to over 40 colleges but has largely gone untolerated at other universities as NYU boards up its campus and arrests of students at Emerson, USC and UT Austin later follow.  The feckless Board of Trustees at Columbia say they strongly support Shafik for her “firm stance against harassment.”

April 25-Congresswoman Ilhan Omar joins her supposedly suspended 21-year-old Barnard attending daughter, Isra Hirsi, on campus.  Omar calls it an honor to see the anti-war encampment firsthand

April 26-Columbia bans the leader of the Gaza encampment, Khymani James, from campus after a January video resurfaces of him telling a Columbia administrator Zionists “don’t deserve to live.” Whether he is suspended or expelled from the school is unclear.  This dangerous individual not being kicked out in January is astounding as he is both head of Columbia University Apartheid Divest (CUAD) and a major force in the “peaceful encampment” who forced “Zionists” out. Once again Columbia chooses to back the aggressors as its Senate votes for a resolution that accuses the administration of violating academic freedom and breaching the due process rights of antisemitic students and professors. Additionally, an investigation of the administration begins.  Representative AOC visits the encampment and poses for selfies.

April 28-The tents and virulent anti-Jewish chants continue despite a supposed deadline to leave campus four days prior. Students continue to demand Columbia divest from Israel while calling for a Gaza ceasefire.  Columbia’s mayhem strikes fear in the heart of every university as they rethink their entire playbook on permitting protests as crackdowns become increasingly aggressive. Jewish hate spreads to UCLA, Emerson and U of T.

April 29-Students are given a 2 PM deadline to vacate the tents or otherwise suspensions will ensue. Once again “fired” antisemitic teacher Mohamed Abdou is seen at the campus protest. Students flout the deadline and continue aggressive anti-Israel chants. Columbia professors don yellow and orange vests as they use their bodies to protect Jew-hating students

12 AM that day April 30-Students  see little consequences for their violence so they break windows and barricade themselves in Columbia’s Hamilton Hall.  Once again grossly incompetent hard-partying Mayor Eric Adams fails to use the NYPD despite the requirement that in “exigent circumstances” they must be called. Students who oppose the barricades are assaulted and maintenance workers are temporarily held hostage. Columbia is in full lockdown. The May 15th graduation is in jeopardy as are the Jewish student lives! Hamilton Hall continues to be barricaded for the entirety of the day