Anti-Israel Columbia student group announces support for ‘armed resistance’

A view of protesters demonstrating outside the campus of Columbia University in New York City, April 22, 2024. Credit: Evan Schneider/U.N. Photo.

by Andrew Bernard

(JNS) — An anti-Israel student protest coalition at Columbia University announced on Oct. 8 that “violence is the only path forward” in its efforts to achieve “Palestinian liberation” in Morningside Heights in Manhattan.

The Columbia University Apartheid Divest group retracted an apology that it had made on behalf of Khymani James, a suspended Columbia student who told a university disciplinary hearing in January that “Zionists don’t deserve to live” and that they should “be grateful that I’m not just going out and murdering Zionists.”

“The anti-blackness and queerphobia that Khymani experienced, and continues to experience, from neo-liberals, neo-liberal media and fascists is disgusting,” the group wrote. “By issuing a so-called ‘apology,’ CUAD exposed Khymani to even more hatred from white supremacist and queerphobic liberals and fascists, along with the neo-liberal media.”

James, 21, who is gay and black, is suing the university for alleged discrimination. He thanked his “comrades” for their support and disavowed his previous statements, in which he said that he had misspoken when he called for the killing of “Zionists.”

“I never wrote the neo-liberal apology posted in late April, and I’m glad we’ve set the record straight once and for all,” he wrote. “Anything I said, I meant it.”

Columbia University Apartheid Divest — whose members include Isra Hirsi, the daughter of Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) — stated that it would no longer be “bending to neo-liberal media” by sticking to non-violent tactics. (JNS sought comment from Omar’s office.)

“We support liberation by any means necessary, including armed resistance,” it wrote. “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.”

The group marked the one-year anniversary of Hamas’s Oct. 7 massacre by posting a set of “objectives” for the attack issued by former Hamas chairman Ismail Haniyeh. Haniyeh was killed in an explosion at his guesthouse in Tehran on July 31. No one has claimed credit for the assassination, although Iran has blamed Israel.

CUAD was one of the groups behind Columbia’s anti-Israel protest encampment that was erected on the school’s South Lawn ahead of congressional testimony by then-university president Minouche Shafik about antisemitism on campus.

That encampment, and Shafik’s initial decision to have the NYPD forcefully clear it, sparked copycat anti-Israel encampments at universities across the country in the spring.

Shafik announced her resignation in August citing the “period of turmoil” and the difficulty in overcoming “divergent views across our community.”

CUAD is not an officially recognized Columbia student group, and it’s not clear how many members it has. Two student group chapters that Columbia suspended in November for intimidation and holding unsanctioned protests — Students for Justice in Palestine and Jewish Voice for Peace — promoted CUAD’s statement on social media.

Ben Chang, a Columbia spokesman, told The New York Times on Oct. 9 that statements advocating violence are “antithetical to the core principles upon which this institution was founded.”