#columbia muslim students

[intersectionalpraxis]

Shai Davidai needs to be FIRED and de-platformed. He's a danger to Palestinian/Arab/Muslim students and allies to Palestinian liberation. That has been proven time and again.

Here is another beautiful moment/act of solidarity I wanted to share that happened on the same campus:

[the-garbanzo-annex-jr]

Source

[moderat50]

Hamas Live Like Kings While Palestinians Suffer

Hamas suck the Palestinian people dry. They don't care about the people. Meanwhile, Benjamin Netanyahu & his right wing coalition government implement their own Holocaust on the people of Gaza; cutting off critical supplies and bombing civilians.

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Erum Salam at The Guardian:

Student activists are planning a fresh wave of pro-Palestine protests at US colleges this fall, boosted by a “summer school” led by organizers over the break, ramping up coordination and strategy in the wake of police crackdowns on campuses this past spring. Despite academic suspensions, doxing attempts and the arrests of more than 3,000 students nationwide, the students who occupied their campuses’ lawns with tents last semester are gearing up for another – possibly bigger – round of demonstrations “on all fronts, by all means”, calling once again for a ceasefire in Gaza and for their colleges to divest from financial ties to Israel. The National Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) organization held online education and training sessions this summer, offering unofficial courses to students who belong to specific student organizations – such as Jewish Voice for Peace, the Muslim Students Association and local SJP university chapters around the country – on the history of Palestine but also on how to organize, with the aim of creating a more unified and better prepared mass protest movement.

“The purpose of it was kind of to have all these people that are involved in SJP itself to build different workshops to be more educated on organizing and to be prepared for certain situations,” said Sereen Haddad, a Palestinian American undergraduate student at Virginia Commonwealth University, a public institution in that state’s capital, Richmond. NSJP and local SJP chapters have been accused by their opponents of sympathizing with Hamas – a claim the organization vehemently rejects – and have been suspended on some college campuses including Columbia University in New York, Brandeis University in Massachusetts and George Washington University in Washington DC, for allegedly breaking campus rules.

[...] Inspired by their peers at Columbia, students at roughly 80 other US universities scrambled to replicate the tent protests in New York City, but with much less time to prepare. Legal observers and faculty members have said the protests were overwhelmingly peaceful, but shocking videos showed many protests – at the University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA), the University of Texas at Austin, Dartmouth College in New Hampshire, Emory University in Atlanta, and many more – were met with violent clashes with police, called onto campus by university administrators, who eventually cleared the protest camps. Columbia’s president, Minouche Shafik, resigned on Wednesday after months of intense backlash from different sides for her handling of the protests, amid accusations of both tolerating antisemitism and effectively supporting of genocide. Despite police crackdowns across the country and academic punishments, student organizers expect to come back this fall just as determined to protest, and much more coordinated. Many have been boosted by sessions with the NSJP and a coalition of other groups that advocate for a free Palestine and argue, as does the United Nation’s international court of justice (ICJ), that Israel imposes a form of apartheid on Palestinians..

This fall, a return of pro-Palestine/anti-Gaza Genocide protests on college campuses is expected.

[magz]

Palestine related news summary from LetsTalkPalestine, May 1 to May 4, 2024.

[Ways to help, sources, and more: LetsTalkPalestine Linktree]

May 1.

(Instagram reel of UCLA protest. Includes footage of treating n washing a pro-palestine protestors' bloody head)

Day 208

🇨🇴 Colombia to cut diplomatic ties w/ Israel

•⁠ ⁠33 killed, 57 injured in the last 24 hours. Real number likely higher

⚖️ US lobbying ICC not to issue arrest warrants for senior Israeli officials, after Israel's threat to respond by retaliating against Palestinian Authority for sparking ICC investigation

🇫🇷 France denies selling weapons to Israel used in Gaza, claiming what's sold will be re-exported to 3rd countries via Israel, but did supply Israeli Iron Dome defense system

🇹🇷 Turkey set to follow Columbia & Nicaragua by joining South Africa's ICJ case against Israel

🎓 Zionist mob attacked Palestine protestors at UCLA w/ fireworks & pepper spray for 3 hours, police didn’t intervene (📹👆). Columbia & CUNY asked NYPD to raid & arrest 280+ student protestors. New encampments across UK, Tunisia & Canada

🚚 First aid trucks enter through Beit Hanoon crossing to north Gaza despite Israel's promise to open 1 month ago. Nearly half of aid convoys to north Gaza denied by Israel.

May 2.

(Instagram post, news update. The Israeli occupation has killed Palestinian Dr. Adnan Al-Barash.)

Day 209

• 28 Palestinians killed, 51 injured in last 24 hours. Note that the toll is underreported.

🏥 Dr. Adnan al Barash killed in captivity after IOF abducted him in Dec (📷👆)— 496 medical personnel killed in Gaza + 309 in captivity

🇸🇦 Saudi Arabia arrests many for anti-Israel online posts, incl. an executive & media figure. Timing suspicious w/ reports of renewed normalization talks

• IOF attacks aid convoy, killing 1

🇹🇷 Turkey stops all trade w/ Israel after banning 54 exports to Israel

🇺🇸 US House pass “antisemitism awareness” bill using repressive IHRA definition of antisemitism despite antisemitism covered in anti-discrimination law. Why is IHRA definition problematic? See tinyurl.com/ynsfy8sx

• IOF airstrike in central Gaza killed 5, incl. a child

🪨 37m tons of rubble in Gaza, heavy contamination w/ unexploded ammunition & 800,000 tons of asbestos

🎓 Columbia & Emory University face federal investigation for anti-Muslim discrimination, reports of doxing & harassment

May 3.

Day 210

• World Press Freedom Day: Israel killed 100+ journalists since Oct 7 + holding 53 captive

• 26 killed, 51 injured in the last 24 hours. Note the toll is underreported.

• Israel attack on Rafah killed 7, incl. a mother & her children — the children’s bodies were shredded by the airstrikes

🇹🇹 Trinidad & Tobago recognizes the State of Palestine as West Bank & Gaza

🇬🇧 UK sanctions 2 Israeli groups + 4 settlers for violence in West Bank, warns of more sanctions if no Israeli action against settler attacks

• Israeli strike on Bureij camp killed 5, incl. a child

💰 UN estimates cost to rebuild Gaza at $40bn; more than post-WWII reconstruction

🎓 Goldsmiths University students in London win & obtain demands after occupying library — @ goldsmithsforpalestine on instagram for details

🎓 University encampments for Gaza go global spreading to 🇨🇦 🇮🇳 🇳🇿 🇪🇸 🇦🇷 🇯🇵 🇰🇼 🇱🇧 🇹🇳 🇯🇴. US crackdown w/ 2,200 students arrested

• Iran-backed Bahraini militia launches attack at southern Israeli port Eilat

May 4.

Day 211

✝️ Israel blocks entry of many Palestinian Christians to Jerusalem for Holy Saturday celebrations

•⁠ 32 Palestinians killed, 41 injured in Gaza in last 24 hours. Toll underreported

•⁠ ⁠IOF killed 5+ in 15-hour siege on Tulkarem (West Bank) & clashes with Hamas resistance fighters. IOF targeted fighters’ homes w/ women & kids inside, demolished homes trapping many under rubble

•⁠ ⁠Israeli strikes on Gaza kill 11 incl. 3 in bombings of tents in Rafah

•⁠ Head of UN WFP says north Gaza experiencing “full-blown famine” and it’s only a matter of time before south Gaza faces same level of starvation

🇫🇷 British-Palestinian @ dr.ghassan.as denied entry to France for Senate address as witness of Gaza Genocide as Germany put year-long ban on his entry to Europe (Schengen)

🇺🇸 88 US lawmakers warn Biden that Israeli aid blockade violates US ‘foreign assistance’ law

•⁠ IOF abducts 5 overnight in West Bank

🎓 Uni encampments spread to Switzerland, Ireland, Germany, Cuba & Costa Rica

[girlfictions]

it is so viscerally painful how the government condems antisemitism when the "antisemitism" is student activists protesting for palestine but when american jews protest for palestine they have no issue arresting us in droves

rabbis have been arrested at grand central today for demanding a ceasefire at the same time muslim students at columbia are being labelled “antisemites” on doxxing trucks…. meanwhile american zionist celebrities are tweeting about how they fear for their lives from the safety of their mansions while palestinians are being mass murdered in the dark. ya allah what has this world come to.

[memecucker]

The complaint alleges how, for more than six months, Palestinian students, Arabs, Muslims, students perceived to be Palestinian, and students associated with or advocating for Palestinians, have been the target of extreme anti-Palestinian, anti-Arab, and Islamophobic harassment, including receiving multiple death threats, being harassed for wearing keffiyehs or hijab, doxed, stereotyped, being treated differently by high-ranking administrators including Columbia University President Minouche Shafik, an attack with a chemical agent that led to at least 10 students requiring hospitalization and dozens of others, including a Palestinian student, seeking medical attention, and more.

Palestine Legal is representing four students and the student group Columbia Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP), who have all been the target of anti-Palestinian discrimination and harassment by fellow students, professors, and/or Columbia administrators.

“As a Palestinian student, I’ve been harassed, doxxed, shouted down, and discriminated against by fellow students and professors — simply because of my identity and my commitment to advocating for my own rights and freedoms,” said Maryam Alwan. “I’m horrified at the way Columbia has utterly failed to protect me from racism and abuse, but beyond that, the university has also played a role in this repression by having me arrested and suspended for peacefully protesting Israel’s genocide in Gaza. The violent repression we’re facing as peaceful anti-war protesters is appalling. Palestinian students at Columbia deserve justice and accountability, not only for Israel’s decades-long oppression and violence against our people, but for the racism and discrimination we’ve experienced here on Columbia’s campus.”

Columbia has actively contributed to pervasive racism and discrimination against Palestinian students on campus, causing both mental and physical harm. For example, students have been arrested, assaulted, suspended, locked out of campus and their classes, forced to seek medical attention, and forced to drop classes and delay their own graduation.

[soon-palestine]

The conflict over Columbia U's Gaza Solidarity Encampment pits an Egyptian-born school president against a student movement largely led by Arabs and Muslims protesting Israel's genocide in the besieged Gaza Strip. Goaded by Republican members of Congress and the Israel lobby, Columbia President Manouche Shafik has sicced the NYPD on the protesters, triggering mass arrests and suspensions of students for supposedly "trespassing" on their own campus.

Like so many contemporary Ivy League presidents, Shafik is not a scholar or academic. She currently serves on the board of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, providing a patina of diversity to a supranational global governing entity guided by a single uber-billionaire. Prior to that, Shafik acted as deputy governor of the Bank of England, the UK bank that confiscated Venezuela's gold reserves under orders from the US government in 2019. She has also served in top roles at the IMF and World Bank, where global south debt becomes a point of leverage for Washington and London. Her own journey to the US began as a young child when Egypt's populist President Gamal Abdel-Nasser seized land from her wealthy father.

Shafik owes her entire career to the trans-Atlantic oligarchy, and has no space in which to defy it. She was not appointed as president of Columbia to instill values like critical thinking or academic freedom. She's there to raise hundreds of millions from her wealthy benefactors. Her leadership not only exemplifies the elite corruption of US universities, it exposes the sham of neoliberal diversity politics.

[matan4il]

Hey! Anon from the last time here! By "Pro-Palestine Westeners" I was partially referring to all these students from Columbia and MIT who were illegally occupying the school grounds and harassing/hurting the actual Israeli/Jewish/Middle Eastern/the other generally decent students.

I know there's Pro-Palestine people who are actually decent, but all these college students are risking suspension/expulsion/jailtime because they'd rather chant pro-Ha*as slogans rather and listening to news from biased fonts rather than educating themselves on what's really happening. Some people would rather stay in their ivory towers, rather than going outside and touching grass.

I also know there's LGBT+ people in Palestine and other parts of MENA, and all I wish for them is that they live long enough to find a place where to live freely and out of the closet, without suffering persecution from their government.

Hope this clarified at least a little bit my other ask, and sorry it sounded so ambiguous. Finally, let's hope that Eden Golan gets at least in the top 5 at Eurovision 2024, just to spite anyone who booed her.

Hi Nonnie!

Thank you for sending this ask to clarify the previous one, it's what I thought you meant, and I'm glad to hear I wasn't too off.

TBH, as a gay woman myself, with gay Palestinian friends who are a part of my queer community, and whose struggles I know well, that's the first group I thought about as well. Then I thought about the fact that under Hamas law, husbands can rape their wives with impunity. I thought about the way the Christian population (the biggest non-Muslim minority under Palestinian rule) has demographically plummeted in the areas that Israel passed on to Palestinian control as a part of the Oslo accords. I thought about black people, whose ancestors were kidnapped because of the Trans-Saharan (i.e Arab) trade slave, and are still treated as lesser humans because of that (based on their skin color, they are still referred to in Arabic to this day as "Abeed," meaning slaves).

I think this last group, which most people don't even realize exists, deserves a bit more info shared about it:

Pretty sure black activists in the states, who don't know the history (and present) of the Arab slave trade, or the persisting anti-black racism that exists in Palestinian society, have no clue they're being exploited against the same Jewish community, which stood with Martin Luther King Jr. and the civil rights movement, even having some of its members paying with their very lives for this. I hope they wake up and realized they're being used for antisemitic purposes by the same people who enslaved and are still discriminating against some of their people.

But it's funny how the world's activists and human rights defenders seem to ignore the plight of these marginalized Palestinians, isn't it? Almost like, because they're NOT being oppressed by Jews, rather by fellow Palestinians, and can't be used to justify antisemitic rhetoric and action, then they don't count. So much for minority solidarity and intersectionality, right? It doesn't extend to Jews, and it doesn't extend to Palestinians who can't be weaponized against Jews.

Regarding the last bit of your ask, bless you for being hit with Apollo's dodge ball and predicting Eden making it into the top 5, despite every effort made by the jury members of so many countries, the awful people in the audience, and members of fellow delegations. It was magnificent!

Sending you hugs! xoxox

(for all of my updates and ask replies regarding Israel, click here)

[intersectionalpraxis]

Hi! Can you help share this petition about the Zionist 🤡 professor at Columbia?

https://twitter.com/itslaylas/status/1778067513886015569?t=mHBqEDXzqu6OnKyqmlTZAg&s=19

"Since a video of Columbia Business School Assistant Professor Shai Davidai delivering a speech accusing Columbia students of being “pro-terror” went viral on October 18, 2023, he has been using his newfound social media platform to bully pro-Palestine students of color with complete impunity despite being untenured. Under the guise of fighting antisemitism, he uses his Twitter and Instagram accounts to incite harassment and violence against these students."  "Shai’s usage of his social media platform to harass students is a clear violation of university policy and an abuse of power from a faculty member. Shai has claimed that any opposition towards him is “antisemitism”. The issue is not with Shai’s individual political beliefs, the issue is how he uses personal social media accounts to target, harass, and bully students, including Palestinian students who have lost family members in Gaza."

Ya'll PLEASE share and sign this petition -they are close to their 5K goal. When you click on the link, it lists what this zionist Columbia University Professor has done. I know I've spoken about him before and to emphasize again, this man is a DANGER to Palestinian/Arab/Muslim students.

Thank you for alerting me to this petition.

SHAI DAVIDAI MUST BE FIRED.

[eretzyisrael]

by Dion J. Pierre

The US House of Representatives has launched an investigation into 20 nonprofit organizations that are currently funding anti-Zionist student groups mounting pro-Hamas demonstrations on college campuses, an effort aimed at uncovering long suspected links to terrorist organizations and other hostile foreign entities.

As part of the inquiry, US Reps. Virginia Foxx (R-NC) and James Comer (R-KY) wrote to Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen on Tuesday, asking her to share any “suspicious activity reports” generated by the activities of Students for Justice in Palestine, Jewish Voice for Peace, American Muslims for Palestine, Tides Foundation, Rockefeller Brothers Fund, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the Council on American-Islamic Relations, and other groups.

Foxx and Comer chair the House Committee on Education and the Workforce and the House Committee on Oversight and Accountability, respectively.

“The committees are investigating the sources of funding and financing for groups who are organizing, leading, and participating in pro-Hamas, antisemitic, anti-Israel, and anti-American protests with illegal encampments on American college campuses,” Foxx and Comer wrote in their letter to Yellen. “This investigation relates to both malign influence on college campuses and to the national security implications of such influence on faculty and student organizations.”

The inquiry comes amid widespread suspicion that an eruption of anti-Zionist protests on college campuses, in which students illegally occupied sections of section and refused to leave unless their schools agreed to condemn and boycott Israel, was fueled by immense financial and logistical support from outside groups. Foxx and Comer said in their letter that the investigation’s findings will inform recommendations for new federal laws requiring increased transparency and reporting of foreign contributions to American colleges and universities.

On Tuesday, Foxx told the Washington Free Beacon, which first reported the investigation, that the protests were a symptom of a larger threat to national security.

“It’s no coincidence that the day after the October 7 Hamas terrorist attack, antisemitic mobs began springing up at college campuses across the country,” Foxx said. “These protests have been coordinated and well organized, indicating that outside groups or influences may be at play. American education is under attack. It’s critical that Congress investigates how these groups — who are tearing apart our institutions — are being funded and advised before it’s too late.”

Foreign links to the anti-Zionist student movement have been the subject of numerous comprehensive studies.

Last week, the Network Contagion Research Institute (NCRI) published a report showing a connection between the anti-Zionist group Shut It Down for Palestine (SID4P) — a group formed immediately after Hamas’ massacre on Oct. 7 — and the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). NCRI explained that SID4P, which organized numerous traffic-obstructing demonstrations after Oct. 7, is an umbrella group for several other organizations which compose the “Singham Network,” a consortium of far-left groups funded by Neville Roy Singham and Jodie Evans. The report describes Singham and Evans as a “power couple within the global far-left movement” whose affiliation with the CCP has been copiously documented.

“The Singham Network exploits regulatory loopholes in the US nonprofit system to facilitate the flow of an enormous sum of US dollars to organizations and movements that actively stoke social unrest at the grassroots level,” the report said. “Alternative media outlets associated with the Singham Network have played a central role in online mobilization and cross-platform social amplification for SID4P.”

In 2022, the National Association of Scholars (NAS) revealed that one of the founders of Students for Justice in Palestine, Hatem Bazian, is also a co-founder of American Muslims for Palestine, an advocacy group which, NAS said, “retains ties to terrorist groups operating in the Palestinian Territories.”

NAS added that the Palestinian Campaign for the Academic Cultural Boycott of Israel — which has been influential is steering the boycott, divestment, and sanctions (BDS) movement against Israel in academia — is “structurally linked” to Palestinian terrorist organizations through the Council of National and Islamic Forces in Palestine — a member of the Palestinian BDS National Committee which comprises Hamas, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), Popular Front-General Command, Palestinian Liberation Front, and Palestinian Islamic Jihad.

“On the one hand, BDS is designed to secure political legitimacy vis-á-vis Israel, with boycotts and divestment offering Palestinian activists and terrorists new domains to assert their cause,” NAS senior fellow Ian Oxnevad wrote. “On the other hand, BDS, along with the formation of multiple NGOs and nonprofit organizations, offers the Palestinians new avenues by which to access funding in a post-9/11 international financial system designed to curtail funding for terrorism.”

[moderat50]

Benjamin Netanyahu Far-Right Government, Trump, & Republicans Criticize Biden's Efforts To Cut Civilian Causalities

Trump, Republicans, & Netanyahu's government balk at Biden's witholding of offensive weapons from Israel to try to limit Gaza civilian casualties.

[femmeclefable]

i took this photo on friday on Indiana University’s Dunn Meadow, our designated “free speech” zone. we have been protesting in solidarity with columbia and other universities calling for IU to divest. Many of you have probably already seen an image of a sniper positioned on the top of the Indiana Memorial Union, pointed toward the peaceful protestors. You may have also heard that administration has sent in SWAT and riot police to intimidate us into silence on Gaza. they have arrested over 50 students and faculty now. i have personally had two close friends arrested. you may have also heard of the anti-Black reasoning for sending in militarized police: that one of our active organizers was deemed suspicious purely due to the fact of his Blackness. we have been protesting peacefully since thursday, and have been met with sustained resistance from Chabad agitators who have blasted shitty EDM over Jewish seder as well as Muslim prayer. they have been joined by college republicans, antisemitic antagonists, provocateurs, and as you can see, white supremacists waving the thin blue line and proud boy flags. out and proud white supremacist nazis. these are the forces that stand against Palestinian liberation. these are the forces that back Zionism. it is so important to stand up and fight back against them. please. join an encampment if you have one near you. join us in solidarity if you can. if you can’t physically join the protests then i encourage you to donate to bail funds or find out what is needed locally. donate to helping protestors have food and water. it is so beyond important we do anything we can in the name of palestinian liberation.

[phoenixyfriend]

Suggested Listening: Columbia Protests (as of 4/25/24)

Alright, folks, I've seen a couple different approaches to this situation, and I think there's something to be learned from each of the below. I know some of them have a contested reputation, but all media sources have a bias and I will be including some context on those biases.

The podcasts I'm sharing are:

The Daily (New York Times)

The Take (Al Jazeera)

Democracy Now! (independent radio broadcast)

Global News Podcast (BBC Radio)

It's come up a few times on NPR as well, but not in enough detail for me to include. I will be linking Spotify, but these are all available elsewhere, though official transcripts can take several days.

The Daily - April 25th, 2024: This podcast is a production of The New York Times. The paper is left-leaning, but has a noted bias towards Israel, and has run into trouble on trans issues in the recent past. The podcast is further left, though still more cautiously moderate than something like Democracy Now; the podcast has previously been responsible for fact checks against the more biased NYT opinion pieces.*

Why you should listen to it: This episode provides the most comprehensive timeline to what has happened, in what order, and why certain actions have been taken. It is notably more sympathetic to Columbia University President Shafik than other coverage, though that may just be the natural result of explaining the current political pressures. It is still more sympathetic to the protesters than to her, but I do think this is helpful for establishing a timeline of events. It is not the only one, and I will share another below.

* That infamous article about the alleged systemic sexual violence that Hamas committed on Oct. 7th was put through a fact checker by the podcast team when it came time to do an episode about it, and the inability to substantiate it led to not only the episode being cancelled, but the article itself being (quietly) edited to note that it was not substantiated. The NYT did not handle it well, but I want to make it clear that the podcast team is independent in many respects, and while I've taken issue with some of their episodes, they often have more comprehensive coverage of certain matters.

The Take - April 25th, 2024: This is a podcast from the English-speaking branch of Al Jazeera, a Qatari news organization that, while independent, does receive a certain amount of funding from the Qatari government. By that measure, I do hesitate to place it on a left-right scale due to existing outside the Western political spectrum. As a Middle Eastern, Arab news org, Al Jazeera provides a perspective much closer to the action than others, and one that is generally much more sympathetic to Muslim and Arab voices. It is also, like the others on this list, an award-winning journal. At this time, Al Jazeera is considered one of the most reliable news sources for information on what is happening in Gaza, through their Palestinian correspondents; they have also been banned in Israel as antisemitic propaganda.

I need to make it very clear that I am not in any way denigrating it for having Qatari government funding; the BBC shares many of those factors, just British.

Why you should listen to it: Al Jazeera got a reporter into the student protest encampment in Columbia, and got more direct interviews with some of the students on the ground. This is part two of their coverage of the protests; Part One (April 24th, 2024)provides another perspective of the timeline, which focuses on different factors, generally closer to the events in Columbia than the national factors.

Democracy Now! - April 23rd, 2024: This is a far left/progressive radio broadcast (repackaged for podcast streaming) that has been running since 1996. They often have interviews with people that I haven't necessarily seen other podcasts bring in, and while I would not consider them extreme, I do sometimes find that certain details get left out in pursuit of a more black-and-white narrative.

Why you should listen to it: Cohost Juan González has been in the field of progressive journalism for a very long time, but it's more relevant than ever for this episode: González was one of the original organizers for the 1968 Columbia protests that resulted in one of the largest mass arrests in NYPD history. The 1968 protests were massive, and deeply impactful on a national scale. González's perspective on how this current protest compares to the one he helped organize nearly sixty years ago is a fascinating way to think about the current events.

Global News Podcast - April 25th, 2024: BBC is a very centrist source for journalism, funded primarily by the UK government and advertising. As such, their coverage tends to lean in favor of the current party, though they do not 'toe the party line' as such. They do regularly platform right-wing activists, but they also have correspondents in the Middle East with a more progressive perspective. I would compare them to CNN in the US; ineffective in terms of opinion, and comparatively milquetoast on that front, but capable of getting access to high-level events that smaller networks aren't.

Why you should listen to it: ...honestly, this is just a 'round it out' kind of suggestion, to get an idea of what the international community is thinking of the events at Columbia. I don't think they necessarily contribute much in terms of factual discovery, but it helps with getting the lay of the land.

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Rowaida Abdelaziz at HuffPost:

Earlier this month, the University of Southern California announced that Asna Tabassum would be the Class of 2024′s valedictorian, with a 3.98 GPA and in recognition of her community service and leadership skills. She is graduating with a major in biomedical engineering and a minor in resistance to genocide.

But on Monday, USC canceled the speech. In an announcement dated Monday, Provost Andrew Guzman said the “intensity of feelings, fueled by both social media and the ongoing conflict in the Middle East” has “created substantial risks relating to security and disruption at commencement.” “After careful consideration, we have decided that our student valedictorian will not deliver a speech at commencement. While this is disappointing, tradition must give way to safety,” he wrote. “This decision has nothing to do with freedom of speech. There is no free-speech entitlement to speak at a commencement. The issue here is how best to maintain campus security and safety, period.” The school did not elaborate further. Reached for comment, the provost’s office directed HuffPost to Guzman’s statement.

Tabassum, in an interview with HuffPost, questioned the university’s reasoning and told HuffPost she felt disappointed and let down by USC. “I am surprised that my own university – my home for four years – has abandoned me,” she said. In a statement published on Monday, Tabassum said that she was not aware of any specific threats against her or the university, and that during a meeting last Sunday, administrators told her that “the University had the resources to take appropriate safety measures for my valedictory speech, but that they would not be doing so since increased security protections is not what the University wants to ’present as an image.’” “Security and safety is also my concern. That’s consistent with my commitment to human equality and human rights. I don’t think that they’re mutually exclusive at all,” Tabassum told HuffPost. She noted that notable figures including former President Barack Obama, rap star Travis Scott and right-wing speaker Milo Yiannopoulos have all been able to visit campus grounds. [...]

A slew of universities have struggled to address students’ protests of the bombing campaign by Israeli forces in Gaza that has killed more than 33,000. In the last few months, schools have dealt with rising cases of antisemitism and Islamophobia, the deactivation of student-activist groups, suspension of staff, cases of doxxing and harassment and even reports of physical violence. This week, Columbia University’s president is set to testify at a congressional hearing about campus safety, four months after a similar hearing resulted in the resignation of two Ivy League presidents. And the Department of Education launched a series of investigations last November into several universities where students have reported antisemitic or Islamophobic incidents. Tabassum said she was denied a chance to let others see someone like her give a high-profile speech ― a South Asian hijab-wearing Muslim, someone “representative of communities and of the masses of people who never saw the institution made for them,” she told HuffPost. “I wanted to offer the hope that ... we can succeed [at] institutions like USC.”

[...] According to USC’s Annenberg Media, some students and alumni said Tabassum’s social media activity ― which includes a link to a pro-Palestinian page ― was antisemitic. Guzman, however, wrote that this decision was made “based on various criteria ― which did not include social media presence.” Since the university’s decision, Tabassum said she’s been overwhelmed by messages of both support and hate. People from her elementary school who she hasn’t spoken to in a decade reached out. Others have taken to Instagram to speculate about her ethnic background and her political views, and to applauded the university’s decision to revoke her invitation.

The USC's asinine decision rescinding Valedictorian Asna Tabassum's chance to make a speech is craven cowardice to Islamophobia and Israel Apartheid apologia all because of her support for Palestine.

See Also:

The Guardian: Backlash as USC cancels valedictorian’s speech over support for Palestine

[sethshead]

When you actually listen to the student protestors' vision, you find that it is substantively identical to that of the even more radical, violent protestors outside. To define Ashkenazim as inherently the oppressors of brown people is both bigoted and historically ignorant. To call Zionists "Babylon swine" is a slur against all Jews. To permit Jews into your encampment and allow them to celebrate Passover (a holiday about our return to the homeland of Eretz Yisrael, which ends with the words "Next year in Jerusalem") is not indicative of seeing us as equals when you also call to strip Jews as a people of the right to self-determination and self-defense. If you would see the seven million Jews of Israel expelled or fall into the clutches of a Hamas that has promised to slaughter or enslave every Jew they get their hands on, then you will ill upon the Jews. If you wish to see Jews as a vulnerable minority throughout the world, with no dedicated safe haven, in living memory of the Holocaust and the ethnic cleansing of a million Jews from the Arab world, then you wish ill upon the Jews. If you do not care what happens to the Jews of Israel if Israel is suddenly no more, then your callousness makes clear that you are no friend to the Jews. If you cannot understand why the Jews (and many non-Jews) of Israel will fight to the very last (a nuclear-tipped last, I should add) to defend Jewish self-determination in Eretz Yisrael and think a few more Oct. 7s, a few more rockets, more dead on both sides, more rejection of a sovereign Palestine within a two-state paradigm will bring about the fall of Israel, then you don't much care about the Palestinians, either.

In light of this, the Jews in that encampment look less like welcome guests than like dhimam, tolerated only so long as they accept their subject, subordinate status and praise the rulers who have power over them. Don't forget: even after accepting subjugation and onerous taxation as the price of dhimitude, the Jews of Khaibar were still expelled by their Muslim overlords. No Jew is safe depending on the beneficence of others for the simple right to live.

I appreciate Powell's article: unlike anything you read in the New York Times, where concerned Jews at Columbia are balanced by anti-Zionist Jews on a one-to-one basis, this article at least implies, meekly, that the Jews allied with the encampment are a distinct minority, and that the mainstream Jewish student body is very much on edge among their anti-Zionist peers and professors. That is a situation that should never have been allowed to happen.