Columbia anti-Israel activists take back apology over student’s comment on ‘murdering Zionists’
The student in question said ‘Zionists don’t deserve to live. . . . Be grateful that I’m not just going out and murdering Zionists.’
CUAD not only rescinded its apology, it also expressed its support for using violence, writing: ‘We support liberation by any means necessary, including armed resistance.’
An anti-Israel student group at Columbia University has recently retracted an apology it issued for a statement one of its members made about “murdering Zionists.”
The student, Khymani James, is a member of Columbia University Apartheid Divest (CUAD). James, who uses “he/she/they” pronouns, said this spring: “I feel very comfortable, very comfortable, calling for [Zionists] to die. . . . There should not be Zionists anywhere.”
“Zionists don’t deserve to live comfortably, let alone Zionists don’t deserve to live,” James continued. “Be grateful that I’m not just going out and murdering Zionists.”
In an Instagram post on Oct. 8, CUAD wrote it was taking back an apology initially made for James’s comments, saying that the student had experienced “anti-blackness and queerphobia” from “fascists” and others.
“. . . we, as CUAD organizers, want to apologize first and foremost to Khymani. We caused irrevocable harm to you by contributing to the ostracization you experienced from your fellow students, fellow organizers, the media, and the public. . . . 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,” the group wrote.
CUAD continued its statement, hardening its stance against the Jewish state and stating its support for using violence to accomplish its agenda.
“We support liberation by any means necessary, including armed resistance,” the activists wrote.
Saying it was “[e]choing decolonial thinkers and revolutionaries” like communist dictator Fidel Castro, who murdered more than 10,000 people, CUAD wrote: “[I]n 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.”
“We are proud to be a part of the fight for the liberation of all oppressed peoples. . . . Long live Palestine, long live the Intifada, and long live the Resistance,” the statement concluded.
On Oct. 9, a day after CUAD issued its statement, Columbia published a statement saying: “Statements advocating for violence or harm are antithetical to the core principles upon which this institution was founded. This has seemed so fundamental that it did not require saying; to hear such things in our community is an aberration, whether or not protected by the First Amendment. We must be clear: calls for violence have no place at this or any university.”
This is not the first time that CUAD praised or excused violence as a means to attain political ends.
On Oct. 3, the group praised two terrorists who murdered seven innocent Israeli civilians in a mass shooting, calling the atrocity a “significant act of resistance” and a “bold attack.” CUAD also expressed its approval for Iran’s recent ballistic missile attack against the Jewish state.
CUAD also praised the late Hezbollah terrorist leader Hassan Nasrallah after his death in an Israeli airstrike.
Campus Reform has contacted Columbia University for comment. This article will be updated accordingly.
