NEW YORK — These days, Brian Cohen, the executive director of the Kraft Center for Jewish Student Life at Columbia University, spends more time than he would like explaining the meaning behind social media posts to campus administrators — from one featuring an infamous photograph of a man holding up his bloody hands during the Ramallah lynching in 2000, to others highlighting the inverted red triangle used by the Hamas terror group to paint targets.
“The administration needs to understand who that guy in the window [with the bloody hands] is to understand why that post is so problematic,” Cohen said. “Personally, I am afraid for the safety of the community for everyone at the university; I can see one random student get inspired to do something violent.”
Since the start of the fall semester, Columbia University Apartheid Divest (CUAD), an anti-Israel coalition of more than 100 student organizations, has used explicitly violent rhetoric and images in its online postings. In its October 8 statement, the umbrella group wrote, “We support liberation by any means necessary, including armed resistance. In the face of violence from the oppressor equipped with the most lethal military force on the planet, where you’ve exhausted all peaceful means of resolution, violence is the only path forward.”
In the statement, CUAD also rescinded an apology it had issued last spring after a video by one of its members, Columbia University student Khymani James, circulated in which he said, “Be grateful that I’m not just going out and murdering Zionists.” While the video was made last January, the university didn’t ban James from campus until April, when it received attention.
In light of this, Columbia students and faculty are asking what it will take for law enforcement to start investigating groups that incite violence which, unlike disseminating hate speech, is not protected by the First Amendment. (The NYPD and FBI declined to comment for this story.)
Echoes of the radical 1960s
“I’m really concerned because I’ve seen this movie before,” said Mitch Silber, executive director of the Community Security Initiative (CSI). CSI is a joint UJA Federation of New York and Jewish Community Relations Council of New York (JCRC) initiative to safeguard the greater New York City Jewish community.
Silber served as director of intelligence analysis at the New York City Police Department before joining CSI. Today, he teaches about terrorism at the university’s School of International and Public Affairs and said he sees parallels between the current anti-Israel groups on campus and the Students for a Democratic Society (SDS), a group in the late 1960s that among other things opposed US involvement in Vietnam.
“They protested and protested but nothing changed regarding US foreign policy. Eventually, some students peeled off to form the Weather Underground, and they turned to domestic terrorism,” said Silber.
“Now, more than a year into the protests, the encampments, the building takeovers, nothing has changed. They aren’t getting it done and the retraction by CUAD shows they are getting more radical. We are on the same trajectory,” Silber said.
According to an online list, CUAD groups include overtly pro-Palestinian groups, but also clubs seemingly unconnected to the Gaza war, such as Columbia Queer and Asian, BOSS Barnard Organization of Soul and Solidarity, Reproductive Justice Collective, Global Learning Exchange, Third Wheel Improv and Columbia Chicanx Caucus.
Those on the more radical trajectory include anti-Israel groups such as Students for Justice in Palestine, Jewish Voices for Peace, and other members of CUAD who have participated in training sessions with outside groups such as Within Our Lifetime and activists in the Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network.
One of those trainings included a remote conference titled “Resistance101.” During the April panel students were instructed that “there is nothing wrong with being a member of Hamas, being a leader in Hamas, being a fighter in Hamas.” The university suspended and evicted four students from university housing for their role in the conference.
Samidoun has links to the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), which carried out some of the deadliest terror attacks in Israeli history prior to the Hamas-led massacre on October 7, 2023, including suicide bombings and aircraft hijackings.
Last week, the US and Canada designated Samidoun as a terrorist entity. The designation included one of its primary leaders, Khaled Barakat, who took part in the “Resistance 101” panel.
Germany and the Netherlands also recently banned Samidoun because it supported the October 7 onslaught, which saw 1,200 people slaughtered and 251 kidnapped to the Gaza Strip. Israel has considered Samidoun a terrorist group since 2021.
While this designation should serve as a wake-up call to campus leaders, it doesn’t mean that outside law enforcement will begin investigating student groups, Silber said.
“The tie is only meaningful retrospectively if there is a deep investigation that shows links between Samidoun and campus groups. The campus groups would have to cross a certain threshold for that to happen,” Silber said.
In short, the calls for violence still aren’t yet specific enough to warrant an official investigation, he said.
That doesn’t mean outside law enforcement isn’t aware of the postings.
As another former law enforcement officer speaking to The Times of Israel explained, the NYPD regularly “crawls through publicly available social media” like Instagram, Facebook and Reddit to monitor what’s occurring in the city.
‘Calls for violence have no place at Columbia’
Columbia declined to answer whether it has called for assistance from outside law enforcement and whether the university will discipline students who signed on to the October 8 CUAD statement for its open support of armed resistance.
“Statements advocating for violence or harm are antithetical to the core principles upon which this institution was founded. Calls for violence have no place at Columbia or any university,” said Millie Wert, Columbia’s assistant director of media relations.
Several students and faculty interviewed for this article said they find the university’s position unacceptable.
“It’s unbelievable that the university is allowing a coalition of 116 student groups to get away with publishing a statement calling for violence and defending calling for the murder of Zionists,” said computer science PhD candidate Tal Zussman. “The fact that there haven’t been any consequences for these groups is a complete abdication of responsibility.”
“Frankly, it’s scary and discriminatory that the Barnard Gardening Club, for example, seems to think that murdering Zionists is some sort of legitimate political statement. Why do they even need to take a position on this conflict?” Zussman said.
Likewise, Amy Werman, a full-time professor in the School of Social Work, said she’s alarmed by this most recent call for violence.
“This type of violent rhetoric creates a hostile environment within these groups and has already pushed Jewish and Israeli — and actually many reasonable students — out of clubs that are part of CUAD. The university has to act immediately to resolve this,” Werman said.
First Amendment is not a get-out-of-jail-free card
The increasingly incendiary language and actions used by CUAD and other groups needs to be addressed, said Richard Priem, CEO of the non-profit Community Security Service (CSS). He pointed out that the First Amendment doesn’t protect the obstruction, takeover, or vandalization of university buildings.
“Obviously, I would support the idea that any group that is breaking the law be monitored. I understand the significance of free speech, but there should be a zero-tolerance policy by university administrations [for this kind of speech]. They should not be closing their eyes,” Priem said.
“But in my conversations with law enforcement, there is a worry that if they act strongly they will infringe on free speech. Nobody wants to be accused of violating the First Amendment,” he said.
Another former intelligence officer, who spoke to The Times of Israel on condition of anonymity, said the Department of Homeland Security is also likely keeping an eye on some of these campus groups.
Indeed on October 1, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), which was established after 9/11, issued a fact sheet titled Federal Campus Safety Resources. The resource is designed to assist campus public safety departments and make federal resources available “to help prepare for and prevent targeted violence and terrorism across our country.”
Additionally, DHS also has a Campus Safety Placemat handout that instructs student protesters to “avoid violence, intimidation, and harassment.” (DHS declined to comment for this story.)
Meanwhile, Silber cautioned that what happens at Columbia will likely continue to shape what happens on campuses nationwide.
“Columbia is the epicenter for the student intifada in the United States. What happens at Columbia radiates outward. We saw that with the encampment and now here we have at Columbia a student who said taking someone’s life is better for the world,” Silber said.
Reprint of “THE TIME OF ISRAEL”
