The US government permits AIPAC Israel to blacklist American citizens from working A FOREIGN COUNTRY decided whether or not an AMERICAN can be hired
What is the Canary Mission?
Mondoweis explains: The Canary mission “documents people and groups that promote hatred of the USA, Israel and Jews on North American college campuses,” making their names and pictures available to potential employers and grad schools. According to Professor Juan Cole, “Canary Mission’s profiles are filled with inflammatory accusations, falsehoods, misrepresentations and errors.”
Stand With Us (tagline “Supporting Israel around the World”) attacks criticism of Israel as “the new anti-Semitism.” The army includes AMCHA, CampusWatch (a project of the right-wing Middle East Forum), the Jewish Community Relations Council (JCRC,) the David Horowitz Freedom Center, the Anti-Defamation League (ADL,) Simon Wiesenthal Center, Zionist Organization of America (ZOA,) The American Israel Education Foundation (AIEF), the David Project, who seek to “shape the campus discussion on Israel,”, the student group Hillel, the Lawfare Project, whose leader has said their purpose is “to inflict massive damage on enemies of Israel,” and many more.
21 April: ” Shredding the First Amendment on behalf of a foreign Apartheid State.” Max Blumenthal @MaxBlumenthal
21 April: Alon Mizrahi on Columbia U studentsVideo from 1968 protests [by Dyor@Powerfulmindx on X] Columbia University Students protest 1968. #ColumbiaUniversity protest against against RACISM, APARTHEID,THE VIETNAM WAR, and THE UNIVERSITY AFFILIATION with the IDA
The case of Harvard University
It started with Harvard University back in December: Harvard University President Claudine Gay faced an inquisition-style line of questioning for which she responded quite poorly. For example, she was asked if she knew what ‘intifada’ meant and Gay could not respond.
The inquisition began after several Zionist students claimed that they felt threatened by the Palestinian protesters on campus.
She was later forced to resign from her role after controversy over her congressional testimony on campus antisemitism and allegations of plagiarism.
Stefanik Asks Harvard’s President If ‘Calling For The Genocide Of Jews Violates Harvard’s Rules’
Harvard student says the university president’s inability to condemn calls for Jewish genocide is ‘shocking’ Harvard student Jacob Miller reacted to Harvard President Dr. Claudine Gay’s effort to clean up statements she made to Congress after she was pressed to declare that calls for genocide against Jewish people is not protected by free speech.
Harvard student gloating about Claudine’s resignation: “Don’t mess with Jews.”
Dispatches from university leadership have enraged some donors, with several severing ties with the institution. One — the Wexner Foundation — cited administrators’ “dismal failure” to stand against Hamas, while other groups have pointed to an alleged rise in antisemitism on campus. https://www.wbur.org/news/2023/11/09/harvard-donors-antisemitism-students-speech
8 Dec: Banner over Harvard caused confusion.
8 Dec: Controversial banner twice flies over Harvard amid criticism of school: What we know Students expressed frustration and confusion after a small plane towed a banner with a Palestinian flag and the phrase “Harvard hates Jews” over the campus of Harvard University
It turned out the airplane was hired by a Jewish group that was trying to make a point re Harvard’s ‘support of Palestinians’ https://www.wcvb.com/article/jewish-students-provocative-banner-harvard-university/46066578
Janury 2024: AMID GAZA PROTESTS, UNIVERSITIES ARE CRACKING DOWN ON A CELEBRATED PROTEST TACTIC: SIT-INS On college campuses around the country, administrators are responding to peaceful sit-ins with sanctions and criminal charges. by Prem Thakker
Feb 12, 2024: More than 30 pro-Palestinian Harvard students participated in a 12-hour hunger strike Friday in solidarity with 17 students at Brown University who refused to eat for eight days to pressure the Brown Corporation to divest from Israel.
The case of Penn University
8 Dec 2023: Penn president Elizabeth Magill resigns amid backlash over congressional hearing comments. Magill voluntarily tendered her resignation as president. Magill’s resignation as president comes days after she testified during a House Education Committee on how three university presidents have handled antisemitism on their campuses. Harvard President Claudine Gay and MIT President Sally Kornbluth also testified
Penn president Elizabeth Magill’s speech before the congressional inquisition
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.
Finally resigned in August
19 April: Israeli police arrest Palestinian Professor and U.S. citizen Nadera Shalhoub-Kevorkian for saying genocideUS presidential candidate Jill Stein thanks Columbia University students for standing up to what is right.
18 April: Among those suspended at Columbia University is Ilhan Omar’s daughter among others for protesting the genocide
200 students were arrested but protests against the Gazan genocide intensified.
Not only did it intensify, but it spread to other universities across the US in support of the arrested students. Several students involved in the protest said they also were suspended from Columbia and Barnard College.
16 April: New York City universities step up purge of pro-Palestinian faculty. The victimization of academics opposed to the US-backed genocide in Gaza has intensified in recent weeks, with two New York City universities at the forefront of the assault on democratic rights. The city’s most elite institution, Columbia University, notified Dr. Abdul Kayum Ahmed, an assistant professor teaching human rights at Columbia, that his appointment would not be renewed. Across town, at John Jay College, part of the City University of New York (CUNY) system, administrators similarly sent notice to long-time professor Danny Shaw that he would be denied reappointments in the summer and fall. https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2024/04/17/bpdx-a17.html24 April: Congressman Jamaal Bowman@RepBowman ·I condemn any potential police action on Columbia University’s campus. As an educator who personally experienced the over policing of our schools, this is personal to me. We must resist right-wing demagoguery and stop suppressing peaceful protest if we are to keep students safe.
18 April: Stefanik questions Columbia University president on professor’s “pro-Hamas” comment. House Education Committee hearing, Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-NY) grilled Columbia University President Minouche ShafikProf Franke’s comments on former Israeli soldiers allegedly being behind the spraying of skunk water on pro-Palestinian activists in an incident on the campus in January were misconstrued as a call to ban all former Israeli soldiers from the campus.
Prof. Kathryn Franke was thrown under the bus by Shafik. Prof. Franke wrote on X: The President of @Columbia lied in her Congressional testimony on Wednesday. Several times. One of those times relates to comments I have made about the safety of our students at Columbia. Consider this a correction and a demand for an apology.
Prof Joseph Massad who was also thrown under the bus by Shafik, was on the receiving end of a campaign of threats and intimidation launched against, after the publication of an article on the ongoing Israel-Gaza war. Particularly in these fraught times, university leadership has a heightened responsibility to protect all members of the campus community. Shafik neither defended Massad nor did she clarify that these were mischaracterisations of his words. Massad has since illustrated how his words had been distorted.20 April: more than 100 college students at #ColumbiaUniversity are sacrificing their academic careers in order to stand up for Palestinians’ lives. These students are our stars,support them, please keep the pressure going.
Student suspensions
On 3 April 2024 Columbia University suspended four students and ordered them evicted from university housing within twenty-four hours as a consequence of their alleged involvement in a 24 March 2024 event titled “Resistance 101.” In a statement issued on 5 April 2024 President Shafik justified the suspensions by claiming that the university had twice barred the event from taking place on campus and that it had “featured speakers known to support terrorism and promote violence.” We note that President Shafik’s statement offered no evidence that the event actually featured such speakers, nor did it specify which university policies the students had allegedly violated.
20 April: .@Yale students continue seventh day of hunger strike in protest against university funds being used to support companies selling arms to genocidal Israel. The movement for justice and accountability is growing and spreading across university campuses in the US and beyond, including Columbia and @Harvard last week. If change doesn’t come from the top, it is coming from the people and it is making a difference. Hossam Zomlot posted this and said: “Thank you to every student that has taken a stand to defend justice, freedom and equality for all.”
On 5 April 2024 President Folt named Asna Tabassum as valedictorian for USC’s May 2024 commencement. Ms. Tabassum, who identifies herself proudly as a Muslim woman of South Asian origin, will graduate with a major in biomedical engineering and a minor in USC’s interdisciplinary “Resistance to Genocide” program. Selection for this honor requires a minimum GPA of 3.98, a record of active involvement in the USC university community and submission of an essay reflecting on the student’s personal and intellectual journey while at USC. This year, nearly 100 students were considered for this honor by the Valedictorian and Salutatorian Selection Committee, composed of three faculty members. The committee’s selection of Ms. Tabassum was forwarded to and accepted by Provost Guzman. Shortly after the announcement of her selection as valedictorian, Ms. Tabassum began to be targeted by a number of campus and off-campus groups, among them We Are Tov, Trojans for Israel and the Lawfare Project, which falsely accused her of antisemitism based on social media posts that were critical of the State of Israel and supportive of Palestinian rights, and called for the university to revoke its designation of her as valedictorian. The posts these organizations cited cannot plausibly be construed as antisemitic.
20 April: Dr Norman Finkelstein @normfinkelstein at #ColumbiaUniversity shared his beliefs that the protesters should more carefully select their words. Watch to the end to see how students responded. Dr Norman Finkelstein and the students are our stars.
21 April: Columbia University students dance the Palestinian Dabka
Prem Thakker@prem_thakker ·: Organizers say 50+ Barnard & 30+ Columbia students are suspended; Barnard students lost dining & housing. Jewish & Muslim students shared prayer space. “Columbia wants you to believe we are enemies to protect their genocidal investments, but there is no deeper solidarity.”Naomi Klein was at the Columbia U campus.
Jewish students at Columbia University were celebrating Shabbat in song at the Columbia Gaza Solidarity Encampment
Jewish students at Columbia University were celebrating Shabbat in song at the Columbia Gaza Solidarity Encampment
Jewish students at Columbia University were celebrating Shabbat in song at the Columbia Gaza Solidarity Encampment
23 April: Columbia University has announced classes will be remote for the rest of the year as anti-Israel protests rock the school
24 April: Mehdi Hasan@mehdirhasan ·”I Am a Jewish Student at Columbia. Don’t Believe What You’re Being Told About ‘Campus Antisemitism’” Important, powerful, detailed-filled piece from student @jbenmenachem, exclusively for Zeteo https://zeteo.com/p/i-am-a-jewish-student-at-columbia
24 April: Jared Kannel, a Jewish student taking part in the Gaza encampment at Columbia Uni, tells TRT World that he feels “100% safe”” and that US officials are trying to evade Israel’s war crimes by focusing on “anti-Semitism” on college campuses
Zach, Jewish student from Israel on U of Michigan25 April: ZIONIST feds got shooters locked on a pro-Palestine student protest in Indiana.
25 April: Jill Stein at Columbia U
Turn up the heat on Columbia
29 April: A group of 21 House Democrats signed on to a letter calling for Columbia University’s board to end an ongoing peaceful pro-Palestinian encampment on its campus or resign: Adam Schiff Daren Soto Lois Frankel Jared Moskowitz Debbie Wasserman Schultz Brad Schneider Haley Stevens Steny Hoyer Dean Phillips Kathy Manning Wiley Nickel Chris Pappas Donald Norcross Josh Gottheimer Rob Menendez Tom Suozzi Dan Goldman Ritchie Torres Greg Landsman Henry Cuellar Marc Veasey Israel Lobby Total: >$10,996,000https://axios.com/2024/04/29/house-democrats-columbia-university-resign…
Professors at the forefront and/or paying the price
Prof. Abdel Kayum Ahmed – Columbia University, notified Dr. Abdul Kayum Ahmed, an assistant professor teaching human rights at Columbia, that his appointment would not be renewed.
John Jay College, part of the City University of New York (CUNY) system, administrators sent notice to long-time professor Danny Shaw that he would be denied reappointments in the summer and fall. Prof. Katherine Franke who was arrested and cuffed by the police says Minouche lied repeatedly.
30 Nov: Temple University professor Marc Lamont fired from CNN: CNN on Thursday parted ways with contributor Marc Lamont Hill after a speech the college professor made on Israel and Palestine at the United Nations. A CNN spokesperson confirmed Hill is no longer under contract. The network did not give a reason, but the move comes amid objections to Hill’s speech by the Anti-Defamation League and other groups. He immediately apologizes for urging ‘free Palestine from river to sea’
19 April: Jodi Dean, a professor at Hobart and William Smith Colleges in upstate New York was placed on leave for her pro-Palestinian comments.25 April: A Native American prof at GWU described how Campus Hillel paid her to provide indigenous support to Israel until she became repelled by the supremacist ethos of Zionists She said Israel’s assault on Gaza “totally switched me and a lot of other people who were on the fence.”Arresting faculty
12 Oct: Yale University professor, Zareena Grewal, a historical anthropologist and a documentary filmmaker who works as an associate professor of American studies, ethnicity, race, migration, and religious studies. She faced calls to be ousted over her social media posts in which she appeared to justify Hamas terrorists killing Israeli civilians — and called Israel a “murderous, genocidal settler state.”25 April: Among those arrested today were Noelle McAfee, Chair of the Philosophy Department at Emory University.26 April: Prof. McAfee speaks out
Cornell UniversityAmerican Professor Roha Benjamin denounces the support of black Officeholders for Israel25 April: Emory’s Caroline Fohlin is knocked down by the police while shouting: “I’m a professor!!” Hear the disbelief in her voice. She never expected to be treated like this by her own university for protesting Israel’s slaughter.
A long history of silencing pro-Palestine voices
Dr. Rabab Abdul Hadi: Dr. Rabab Abdulhadi at San Francisco State University (SFSU.) Hired in 2007 to start a program in Arab and Muslim Ethnicities and Diasporas (AMED) studies, she has been under attack ever since. AMED was promised two additional professorships and administrative support, positions the university has never filled. Dr. Abdulhadi and her students have been targeted three times in hate posters pasted on campus by the David Horowitz Freedom Center. These posters name and picture AMED faculty and students, calling them supporters of terrorism and anti-Semitic. She has been censured, with administrators asking her to take down her personal Facebook page that criticized Zionism
Perhaps the most notorious of them all is what happened with Prof. Norman Finklestein. Professor Norman Finkelstein. Finkelstein was denied tenure at De Paul University in 2007 for his writings critical of Israel, despite the university calling him a “prolific scholar and outstanding teacher.” He has never been offered another teaching job in the United States. When professors at Cal State University Northridge tried to have Finkelstein hired temporarily, the university refused. They had received messages attacking Finkelstein from JDL, Stand with Us, and Hillel, and Jewish alumni threatened to withdraw donations.
Archbishop Desmond Tutu was canceled as a speaker at Minnesota’s University of St. Thomas after the Zionist Organization of America and JCRC complained he was anti-Israel.
Letters
AAUP Letter
Columbia student association letter
27 April: Nearly 1000 scientists & academics worldwide from India & the US to France & Mozambique condemn Columbia. Applaud American students for looking past the “smokescreen” of US media + building “an inclusive coalition to peacefully advocate” for Palestinian human rights & divestment.
29 April: Statement by Columbia U.
Letter by Minouche Shafik, Columbia President – 29 April
AAUP’s President’s Letter
Publication Date: Wednesday, April 24, 2024
Today, AAUP president Dr. Irene Mulvey released the following statement:
The AAUP condemns in the strongest possible terms the crackdown on peaceful dissent occurring this week at Columbia, NYU, and other universities nationwide. The arrests of students and faculty are a disproportionate and wrong-headed response to overwhelmingly peaceful campus events. Higher education is premised on full and free discussion and debate of all ideas. Summoning armed police officers in order to silence debate and suppress speech that poses no genuine threat to campus safety is a danger to democracy.
The evictions and campus lockdowns are equally wrong-headed and an escalation of the crisis of repression currently plaguing US higher education.
By capitulating to ongoing congressional pressure instead of providing a full-throated defense of academic freedom, university presidents have failed in their duty to protect the autonomy of academic and intellectual life from outside interference. By asserting that peaceful protesters are “trespassing,” the administration gives credence to controversial definitions of antisemitism that are, as the AAUP cautioned in 2022, overly expansive and a threat to academic freedom. Peaceful campus protests should never be met with censorship and jail time. Our goal should be a robust exchange of ideas, open dialogue, and communication in service of knowledge and understanding for the public good.
We stand in solidarity with our AAUP chapters and members standing up for academic freedom and the free speech and associational rights of students and faculty.
White House press release on Columbia U
23 April: Billionaire Robert Kraft no longer funding Columbia for its antisemitism
Rep. Elise Stefanik@RepStefanik Today I formally demanded @Columbia President Shafik resign following her failure to put an end to the mob of students and agitators spreading antisemitism and calling for acts of terrorism against Jewish students at Columbia.
Pro-Israel groups pay “protestors” 50k to smear students and activists Footage from an undercover Al Jazeera investigation leaked after getting blocked from being released in the US shows pro-Israel demonstrations of American college students astroturfed from the top
Racist comment about the Palestinian dance
Al Jazeera undercover investigation: people being paid to infiltrate the college protests to incite hate and chant anti-Semitic slogans. They call it “Astro-surfing” . At the end of the video the “organizer” tells that they will go back to the office for some refreshments.
Other universities joining in in support of Columbia U students and the crackdown on them all
19 April: Protesters gathered on Harvard University’s campus on Friday, April 19, one day after police arrested more than 100 demonstrators at Columbia University in New York City.Yale University students
22 April: Yale police arrest students20 April: All out to Columbia University!!! Support the brave Columbia students who have liberated a part of the Columbia campus and are refusing to leave until the university divests from Israel!
23 April: NYCPYM: “NEW YORK UNIVERSITY: NYPD has entered the liberation encampment at Gould Plaza and has begun to mass arrest students. We stand with the youth refusing to leave until their demands are met. This movement will not dim with the violence of the NYPD. All power to the student movement! We won’t back down, we won’t surrender! Faculty have formed a wall to protect students, hundreds of students and community members link arms to protect the protesters and the encampment. Jail support shifts will start soon at 1 Police Plaza. We’ll see you soon! No Rest!”
U of Minnesota
The University of Minnesota just ordered janitors to shut off water supply, lock bathrooms and lock doors to Coffman Union where pro-Palestine protests have set up an encamptment.
24 April: Governor Abbot has sent in State Troopers to the University of Texas The students chant “You don’t scare us” and “Get off our campus”.
24 April: State troopers deployed to smash hundreds of Palestine protesters in Texas right now as the student resistance spreads to UT Austin. It’s no surprise to see cops protecting Israeli nazis. Cops represent the vanguard of fascism24 April: Republican Rep. Mike Lawler suggests the anti-war student protestors (now nationwide) support Hamas. Also invokes the repeatedly-debunked claim (including by the Israeli military) of beheaded babies that’s been used by pro-war politicians to justify collective punishment of Gaza.
24 April: Mass chaos breaks out at college campuses across the United States as pro-Palestine protests intensify. Columbia, Harvard, USC, University of Texas at Austin and others are getting swarmed by protesters. Police at USC are taking out their batons as the protesters are turning violent. Texas state troopers have been deployed and reportedly made dozens of arrests at the University of Texas at Austin. Harvard Yard has also been taken over by pro-Palestine protesters who are setting up camp after the university threatened to take action.
24 April: Police violently arrest pro-Palestine protesters at the University of Southern California.24 April: U of Austin, where Texas state troopers are barring students from accessing the other side of the campus. A standoff
24 April: Dr. Mads Gilbert wrote on X: “These images from Harvard Yard at Harvard University just in from brave student activists. Kent State 2024 – this will change history. All over the US students are standing in solidarity with Palestine. European and Scandinavian university students must also TAKE ACTION.” Dr. Mads24 April: Mondoweis -> Faculty members are calling on Morehouse College to rescind its invitation to Joe Biden to speak at its 2024 commencement: “Any college or university that gives its commencement stage to President Biden in this moment is endorsing genocide.”
Arielle Angel, Editor-in-Chief, Jewish Currents. ” There really is a way in which this narrative around #Jewish students campus is not taking into account the #Jewish students who are supporting these Protests.”Aaron J. Mate-> Memo to Gaza protest infiltrators disguising themselves in keffiyehs to undermine Palestinians and their supporters: you’re making it way too obvious. Watch @MaxBlumenthal and I catch them in the act
22 April24 April: A photographer for FOX 7 in Austin was arrested during the protests at University of Texas Austin
25 April: Georgia state police acting on behalf of apartheid Israel assault a handcuffed protester with a taser on the campus of Emory University
25 April: SNIPERS on the roof above University protesters
Zionists trying to incite violence
Shai Davidai is demanding THE NATIONAL GUARD come in to violently disperse the Gaza Solidarity Encampment
Columbia U’s Shai Davidai inciting violence
The Shirion Collective
24 April: Netanyahu released the following statement on University Protests. (Why is he interfering in US politics?) “What’s happening in America’s college campuses is horrific. Antisemitic mobs have taken over leading universities. They call for the annihilation of Israel. They attack Jewish students, and they attack Jewish faculty. This is reminiscent of what happened in German universities in the 1930s. It’s unconscionable, it has to be stopped. It has to be condemned and condemned, unequivocally.”25 April: Oct7factcheck.com – @nickburbank710 “They deny that infants were placed into ovens and burnt alive” Tonite, Speaker Mike Johnson repeated the “babies in ovens” lie on @CNN (unchallenged by @ErinBurnett) and ignorantly castigates protestors for denying it. @haaretz reported that story as false all the way back in Dec.
25 April: PVT@hoaxvstruths: A huge thank you to @ShaiDavidai for advertising the Columbia University Palestine encampment movement with his daily meltdowns. 40 colleges have now joined & established encampments for Palestine – bringing the total Encampments to 41. USA: 38 colleges UK: 2 colleges France: 1 college
26 April: Mossad tweeting threats to students at US universities
26 April: Mossad tweeting threats to students at US universities
26 April: MIT pro-Israel students trying to provoke and get a reaction as they put themselves in the middle of the pro-Palestine protest.
26 April: Reps. Ritchie Torres (D-N.Y.) and Mike Lawler (R-N.Y.) plan to introduce the COLUMBIA Act, a bill that would create “antisemitism monitors” at select colleges.
Pelham on X: Israeli women pretending to be pro-Palestine supporters to make the university students look bad… you can’t hide that Jewish nose…
