Woke university lecturers sign letter DEFENDING students who support Hamas
Pro-Palestinian students take part in a protest in support of the Palestinians amid the ongoing conflict in Gaza, at Columbia University
Reuters
Staff at Columbia University have signed a letter defending students who support Hamas' attack on Israel and have asked they receive protection by administrators on campus.
Signed by over 130 professors, the open letter expresses “concerns about how some of our students are being viciously targeted with doxing, public shaming [and] surveillance,” adding that “making such claims cannot...be considered antisemitic”.
The letter claims that students are protesting over the oppression of the Palestinian people at the hands of the Israeli government.
Top donors to the university have vowed to stop giving money to Colombia amid the pro-Palestinian demonstrations.
WATCH NOW: GB News' Katherine Forster live from the pro-Palestine protest in London
Leon Cooper, a billionaire investor who went to Columbia, has threatened to cut off donations due to students' support for Palestine.
“These egregious forms of harassment and efforts to chill otherwise protected speech on campus are unacceptable,” the letter signed by some 130 staff reads.
The letter defends its students for their “empathy for the lives of dignity of Palestinians”.
It also supports those who signed a student-written statement which declares that Hamas’ attack comes within the larger context of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, which began decades ago.
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Pro-Palestinian students take part in a protest in support of the Palestinians amid the ongoing conflict in Gaza, at Columbia University in New York City
Reuters
Demonstrators have faced doxing from trucks who have dubbed them as “Columbia’s Leading Anti-Semites”.
Staff at the Ivy League University have also demanded that the administration “cease issuing statements that favour the suffering and death of Israelis or Jews over the suffering and deaths of Palestinians.”
“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 antisemitic if they express empathy for the lives and dignity of Palestinians and/or if they signed a student-written statement that situated the military action begun on Oct. 7 within the larger context of the occupation of Palestine by Israel,” the letter continues.
“In our view, the student statement aims to recontextualize the events of Oct. 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.”
They added that this was “not a radical or essentially controversial opinion,” as it was supported by the United Nations and human rights organisations.
Pro-Palestinian students take part in a protest in support of the Palestinians amid the ongoing conflict in Gaza, at Columbia University in New York City
Reuters
“One of the core responsibilities of a world-class university is to interrogate the underlying facts of both settled propositions and those that are ardently disputed,” the letter ends.
“These core academic values and purposes are profoundly undermined when our students are vilified for voicing perspectives that, while legitimately debated in other institutional settings, expose them to severe forms of harassment and intimidation at Columbia.”
The letter concludes by requesting that the university reverses a decision to create teaching programmes in Israel.
Rabbi Joseph Potasnik, executive vice president of New York Board of Rabbis, told The New York Post that the letter from Columbia professors was unacceptable.
“I guess the Columbia professors wouldn’t have a problem with the Ku Klux Klan or the Nazis,” he said sarcastically.
“What we expect in college is that students at some point would be taught about moral clarity.
“To describe Hamas as a legitimate group rather than as terrorists is beyond comprehension and beyond contempt.”