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Now the pro-Hamas brownshirts are presenting themselves as the true victims of the demonstrations at Columbia last year, and have decided to sue Columbia for “persecution.” More on this preposterous example of moral topsy-turveydom can be found here: “Anti-Israel activists seek to sue Columbia University, allege student persecution,” by Michael Starr, Jerusalem Post, April 6, 2025:
Anti-Israel activists are seeking legal action against Columbia University over alleged persecution and to force the institution to cut its associations with Israel, Columbia University Apartheid Divest (CUAD) announced on Friday.
The activists are fundraising for a legal fund to seek injunctive relief to stop Columbia and the affiliated Barnard College from taking disciplinary and law enforcement action against students. The suit would demand amnesty and monetary compensation for those disciplined since the post-October 7 massacre protests.
“Monetary compensation”? Moolah, pound notes, wampum, dindi, fric. That’s what it’s all about now for Mahmoud Khalil. When people say “it’s not the money, it’s the principle,” it’s the money. No doubt Mahmoud Khalil, the brave fighter for free speech, who wants to go down in history as a Muslim John Peter Zenger, is hoping to make a killing from the “persecution” he has endured. He hasn’t endured any persecution. He’s the one who’s been doing the persecuting. Remember his harassment of Jewish students, his encouraging, or in some cases leading, fellow Muslims in surrounding Jewish students and preventing them from moving. Don’t forget how his followers came into classrooms to interrupt lectures by Israeli professors and to shout them down. Keep in mind how Khalil’s stormtroopers seized and vandalized campus buildings. Remember Khalil’s leading the chants calling for the obliteration of the state of Israel (“From the river to the sea/Palestine will be free”) and the expulsion, or killing, of its Jewish population, and for unleashing violence against Jews everywhere (“Globalize the Intifada”). And above all, keep in mind his praise of Hamas, which the American government has designated as a “terrorist organization.” This martyr for free speech, Mahmoud Khalil, would if he could shut down all pro-Israel speech in a New York minute.
“Countless Palestinian students and pro-Palestine students have experienced discrimination, violence, harassment, and doxxing on the basis of their identity or perceived identity,” read the funding page. “Since the genocide began, Palestinian, Arab, Muslim, and other students of color have been disproportionately targeted by the University and its affiliates.”
Of course this charge is absurd. There has been no discrimination, no violence, no harassing of Palestinians, Arabs, or Muslims. There has been plenty of discrimination, violence, and harassing of Jews by Palestinians, Arabs, and Muslims. And there is an obvious explanation, having nothing to do with the “racism” that the people who created this funding site claim is at work. A great many of the pro-Hamas and antisemitic demonstrators on campus are “Palestinian, Arab, Muslim, and other students of color.” Hence they form a greater percentage of those who have been removed by the campus police from their encampments, or pulled out of buildings, as they were from Hamilton Hall, which they invaded and vandalized, resulting in thousands of dollars in damages.
The funding page, which had raised $840 by Sunday, explained that pro-Palestinian students had been expelled and suspended through a “draconian” disciplinary system without sufficient evidence. On March 13, the Columbia University Judicial Board announced that it had suspended, expelled, and temporarily revoked the degrees of students involved in last spring’s protests. CUAD said at the time that 22 students were sanctioned. Three Barnard students were expelled for the disruption of a January 21 Israeli history class.
A “draconian” disciplinary system? What can they be thinking of? Columbia bent over backwards to accommodate the student protesters. That behavior is what caused the administration to withhold $400 million in federal grants. Only those students and non-students who were found to have committed acts of violence on the campus, including the harassment of Jewish students, the attempt to shut down classes taught by Israeli professors, the vandalizing of campus property, have been charged. Those who only screamed or chanted their hatred of Israel and Jews, and praised the terrorists of Hamas, nauseating as they were, were not touched. Hundreds of students were involved in the campus protests at Columbia and its sister school Barnard. Of that number, only three Barnard students were expelled. Others at Columbia had their degrees “temporarily revoked.” How harmful could that be, to have the receipt of your degree delayed by a few months?
CUAD alleged on X/Twitter that the students were subjected to police brutality and excessive force when removed from last April’s encampment and the May Hamilton Hall occupation. Reuters reported that around 100 students were arrested in May, and almost 100 in April, according to JTA [Jewish Telegraph Agency].
This charge of “police brutality and excessive force” wasn’t made until a year after the supposed event. How come? Or was this just a case of these pro-Hamas “activists” deciding to mention everything, throwing spaghetti at the wall in case something would stick? Funny, isn’t it, that no one at the time accused the police of “brutality and excessive force,” and that none of the videos taken of those much-publicized events show anything amiss in how the police behaved.
The activists also saw the legal action as a means of pressuring the Columbia administration into adopting its demands, including disclosure of investments connected to Israel and the boycott of Israel-tied companies and academic institutions.
So here we are again, with Muslim and leftist students still calling, so far in vain, for the boycotting of Israeli goods, divestment from Israeli companies, and sanctions on Israeli institutions and individuals.
“Why are we suing? To attack Columbia from all fronts,” CUAD said in an X post graphic.
Why are you doing this? To get money. To bully the university administration. To frighten Jewish students into ceasing to complain. To protect the jobs of Rashid Khalidi, Hamid Dabashi, Joseph Massad, and other faculty enthusiasts for Hamas now teaching at Columbia.
