The End of the Academy as We Knew It

I try to be sympathetic to the anti-Israel activists roiling campuses everywhere, including at Columbia University, my graduate alma mater, lately perhaps the most roiled. I do that because of my quaint conception of the academy as a place where, in the pursuit of truth, people should freely express their opinions but also be willing to listen to the opinions of others. And I think about how I would act, say, during the early 1940s, when I learned that a genocide against the Jewish people was occurring and all too many people were not paying attention. Wouldn’t I protest, loudly? Disrupt “business as normal”? Get in the face of the people ignoring it or, worse, in any degree complicit in it? Maybe even break a few rules or laws? I hope that I would.

The problem, then, isn’t the mayhem per se. Yes, it’s appropriately against the rules to domineer a campus for your cause, to rally noisily inside buildings and libraries and disrupt classes and exams, to create a hostile environment for others who are entitled to a safe and secure one to pursue their own paths, programs, politics. Those misbehaviors must be—and have been long overdue for being—punished, by methods including suspension and expulsion. But if you believe a genocide is going on and it’s a moral imperative to stop it, well, I get it: do what you need to, and accept the punishment.

The problem here runs deeper, ultimately rooted in the academy itself: it’s that they believe a genocide is going on in the first place, or have even misidentified the true genocide, as we’ll see below. More generally, it’s that they have adopted an entire narrative that is profoundly one-sided, oversimplified, ignorant of history, often counter to the facts, mistaken about who are the good guys and who are the bad, and driven, ultimately, by hatred and bigotry—and which licenses the profoundly outrageously immoral violence of October 7.

With this in mind, a particularly revealing moment in Columbia president Shafik’s April 17 Congressional testimony did not, in my opinion, receive adequate attention afterward. In response to Rep. Ilhan Omar’s question about whether the president had seen any “anti-Muslim protests on campus,” Shafik answered, “We have had pro-Israeli demonstrations on campus.” Omar interrupted to clarify that she was asking about “anti-Muslim” protests. Had Shafik seen any Columbia protests against Arabs (no), Palestinians (no), or “against Jewish people? A protest saying ‘we are against Jewish people’?” To which Shafik’s answer was again “no.”

So much to unpack!

First, my own sense of academic integrity gives some credit to Omar for distinguishing “pro-Israel” from “anti-Muslim” above. But it also requires me to note, first, that her doing so was in the service (as we’ll see) of something less admirable, namely, diminishing the anti-Jewish nature of the Columbia environment. I must also note that Omar’s daughter, a junior at Barnard, turned out to be a ringleader of the anti-Israel movement there and actively participated in the illegal occupation of the main Columbia quad, and in fact she was suspended the next day for violating campus rules. That Omar didn’t disclose this massive conflict of interest, nor recuse herself from the hearings, is almost as shocking as the fact that no one seemed to care.

But more importantly, there’s Shafik: her first thought, on hearing “anti-Muslim,” was “pro-Israel.” Excuse me? Whether she outright identifies the two is unclear, but that she even made the link at all is deeply disturbing. She then acquiesced, submissively, while Omar led her to a conclusion aimed not least to protect Omar’s daughter from moral repercussions if not academic or legal ones—that none of the protests at Columbia said, “We are against Jewish people,” and thus were not “anti-Jewish.”

This moment captures the essential difference between the main two camps in the campus wars, indeed between the main warring parties in the Middle East themselves.

The pro-Israel rallies are invariably positive, truly “pro” Israel and pro-Jewish. They demand Jewish rights and Jewish security. They also have a long tradition of calling for long-term peace and coexistence between the two parties, and indeed this, and the fact that most campus Jews ultimately support a two-state solution, demonstrates that they are not “anti” anyone. They do condemn Hamas for its policies and practices, i.e., its genocidal ideology and active massacres and hostage-taking, but not the Palestinian nationalist movement as a whole, for its very “existence.” Yet even so, they’re mostly not opposed to calls for a ceasefire, too, as long as those are conjoined with calls to release the hostages. Some believe that there should also be no ceasefire until Hamas is entirely removed from power inside Gaza, but even there the motivation is for peaceful coexistence—for none such is possible as long as Hamas, which openly says as much, remains in power. That Shafik’s mind would even link “pro-Israel” with “anti-Palestinian” much less “anti-Muslim” is, therefore, downright offensive, if not perhaps indeed deeply revealing.

In contrast, the other side is far less “pro-Palestinian” than it is “anti-Israel.” I’ve made that general point elsewhere; suffice it to say here, with respect to Columbia, that some evidence may be found in, I don’t know, maybe these: the jubilation and celebration of October 7 without an ounce or instant of hesitation or remorse about the mass slaughter and hostage-taking, including numerous Columbia professors praising the massacre as “awesome” and the like; the months of mass rallies and campus events openly supporting Hamas and other internationally proscribed terrorist groups famous for murdering Jews everywhere, including a workshop on “Resistance 101” featuring lessons from a member of the proscribed terrorist group Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine; the dozens of incidents of bullying, harassment, and assault of Jewish students outlined in the now several major lawsuits against the school; the months of mass rallies, chanting, social media, and campus graffiti expressing violence-endorsing sentiments such as “Intifada! Intifada!” and “By any means necessary!,” along with the equally violence-endorsing sentiments of “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be Arab!” (the Arabic version of the chant) and “We don’t want two states, we want 1948!”—i.e., chants calling not for the destruction of any of the 100+ Christian states, the 50+ Muslim states, or the 20+ Arab states, but of the one sliver of a Jewish state in the world. Even just in the past few days, we have had Columbia affiliates not just openly endorsing Hamas but openly identifying themselves with it (here’s one screaming, “We are all Hamas, pig!” at a Jew wrapped in an Israeli flag). And lest you think their affinity is due to Hamas’s wonderful social welfare programs, it seems rather that it’s for what they take to be Hamas’s wonderful October 7: “Never forget the seventh of October, that will happen not one more time, not five more times, not ten more times, not a hundred more times, not a thousand more times, but ten thousand times!”

Here are the facts. In addition to all the harassment and name-calling and assaults of Jewish students, for six months Columbia has been overtaken by rallies and chanting and signage and social media celebrating, endorsing, and calling for large-scale violence against Jews and for the destruction of the one Jewish state in the world.

One may well feel for, and wish to advocate for, the Palestinians, believing they have experienced great injustice and wishing to improve their lives and condition in all sorts of ways.

But the actual campaign itself is anti-Jewish to the core.

But wait—what about Omar’s question, “Have you seen anti-Jewish protests?” To which Shafik meekly answered, “no”?

Well, this is the same Omar who at that hearing characterized the campus conflict as occurring between those who are anti-war and pro-war—astonishingly referring to those screaming “Intifada!” and “By any means necessary!” and celebrating the October 7 massacre as the “anti-war” folks, while those calling for peaceful coexistence were the “pro-war” folks. So perhaps her interpretation of what constitutes an “anti-Jewish” protest might not be the most authoritative.

Fortunately Shafik’s three Columbia colleagues testifying beside her had the clarity and courage to disagree with her, unanimously declaring that there had indeed been anti-Jewish protests on their campus. That wasn’t quite enough to persuade Shafik, so Rep. Stefanik most helpfully, pointed out that some of the rally chants included “Fuck the Jews!,” “Death to Jews!,” “Fuck Israel!,” “No Safe Space for the Zionist State!,” and “Jews out!”—to which she added, again most helpfully, “You don’t think those are anti-Jewish?” Yet Shafik still hesitated, trying to make a truly Talmudic distinction between an “anti-Jewish protest” and one at which anti-Jewish things were merely said (or we might say screamed). Rabbi Akiva surely would be proud, but then maybe even prouder of Rep. Stefanik, whose forceful clarity finally brought even the Columbia president, after six months of open support for genocide of the Jews on her campus, to admit that maybe there had been anti-Jewish protests there after all.

We know what is happening here. They are trying to say it’s all “anti-Zionist,” not “anti-Jewish”—and sometimes they succeed in keeping those masks on, these days the keffiyeh-masks, unlike the times such as the above, when the mask slips off. After all, among the other chants frequently heard are variations of “Zionists off campus!,” going along with the anti-Israel boycott resolutions and referenda, the explicit policy of “anti-normalization” (i.e., refusing to speak to, much less cooperate with, anyone who supports Israel), and numerous examples of outright exclusion of Jewish students from campus clubs and resources unless they renounce Zionism. That’s only “anti-Zionism,” they will say. But of course note: it amounts to an extended campaign to prevent Jewish people from advocating for Jewish rights and security, to silence and exclude them unless they renounce Jewish rights and security. To be “anti-Zionist” or to exclude or silence Zionists is to exclude, and silence, those who believe that Jews have the same human rights all other people have, who believe Jews deserve the same protections all other oppressed minorities have.

To be anti-Zionist—Omar’s deceptive maneuvering above notwithstanding—is to be anti-Jew.

And even if it were mere “anti-Zionism,” that too is the main point: the movement is not pro-Palestinian, not pro-anything, but anti—anti-Israel, sure, and anti-Jew.

Clearly Shafik should not have linked “anti-Muslim” with “pro-Israel,” but the reverse: “pro-Palestinian” with “anti-Jew.” Anti-Israel, anti-Jew, and thus anti-peace: they seek to destroy Israel and the Jews who live there, and the Jews who support those who live there, which is why they are so gung-ho about Hamas and October 7. Columbia thus has been experiencing, and accommodating, anti-Jewish activism on a daily basis since October 7.

One more very telling moment—there are oh so many. Audio was released back in October of one of the Hamas men calling his parents on October 7 itself, in the home of a Jewish family he had just murdered, using the phone of the Jewish woman he had just murdered, to brag about his achievements. Imagine, just for a moment, that his conversation had gone something like this: “Mom, it was painful and difficult, but we have taken the first steps toward the liberation of Palestine and for freedom and justice.” That would not change the evil status of what he, and they, had just accomplished, but it would at least allow one to pretend the movement was for something, for human rights, for freedom, for justice. Instead the (abbreviated) conversation went like this:

TERRORIST: Hello dad. Open your WhatsApp right now and see all the killed. Look at how many I killed with my own hands, your son killed Jews!

FATHER: Allahu Akhbar, Allahu Akhbar. May God protect you.

TERRORIST: I am talking to you from the phone of a Jew, I killed her and her husband, I killed ten with my own hands.

FATHER: Allahu Akhbar.

TERRORIST: I killed ten. Ten! Ten with my own bare hands. Their blood is on my hands! Let me talk to Mom.

MOTHER: Oh, my son, may God protect you.

TERRORIST: I killed ten all by myself, mother! Mother, your son is a hero. (Talking to terrorists on the scene: Kill! Kill! Kill! Kill them!)

I remember coming to my parents, as a young man, excited to share my achievements in sports, or my good grades in school, or calling them to tell them when my first novel was accepted for publication. This young man was so, so proud of himself, sought his parents’ praise—for killing Jews, with his own hands, ten of them, look and see, I want to show you all the dead Jews, with my own hands!

That is what the anti-Israel, anti-Jewish Columbia community supports when they proudly exclaim, “We are all Hamas! Ten thousand more October 7s!”

They support the genocide of the Jews. Not in the abstract but in the flesh and the blood, they support the organization that endorses Jewish genocide in its charter, that has been attempting to perpetrate genocide now for almost forty years, that committed a wanton act of genocide on October 7, that have themselves multiply promised to repeat October 7 as many times as necessary.

I began, above, by saying I understand when people feel the need to protest and disrupt and maybe even break some rules in order to stop a genocide. But these folks are protesting and disrupting and breaking rules in order to perpetrate a genocide.

These “anti-war” folks, as Omar would have it.

The world is upside-down, and it’s long past time to right it.

It may thus be time for the pro-Israel, pro-Jewish, genuinely anti-genocide, anti-war, and pro-peace-and-coexistence crowd to get some tents together and take over the Columbia quad.

Andrew Pessin is Professor of Philosophy at Connecticut College and Campus Bureau Editor for The Algemeiner. He is the author of numerous academic articles and books, as well as works of philosophy for a general audience. His book Uncommon Sense: The Strangest Ideas from the Smartest Philosophers, was named an “Outstanding Academic Title” by Choice. He has also published four novels: The Second Daughter, The Irrationalist, Nevergreen, and Bright College Years.

This post is part of the Telos-Paul Piccone Institute Israel initiative. For more information about this initiative, please visit the Telos-Paul Piccone Institute website.