Columbia Law Review takes down 106-page article on Nakba from author who previously claimed he is tasked to 'conclude an ongoing struggle'

Columbia Law Review’s Board of Directors took down a portion of their website after an article about the “Nakba” went online which heavily criticized the Israeli government in the ongoing Israel-Palestine war. 

”Nakba,” Arabic for “castastrophe,” is a term used by Palestinians and anti-Israel activists to refer to the events of the Israeli War of Independence.

According to an Instagram post from the Harvard Undergraduate Palestine Solidarity Committee, the article from Rabea Eghbariah, a known Palestinian author who was involved with Harvard’s “People’s Commencement,” was taken down from the Columbia Law Review’s website following months of debate over the article. During the “People’s Commencement,” Eghbariah claimed he “was tasked with an impossible mission: to conclude an ongoing struggle.”

In its Instagram post, Harvard’s Palestine Solidarity Committee wrote: “SILENCING PALESTINIAN VOICES WILL NOT SILENCE THE MOVEMENT.” 

The group further stated: “Last year, Harvard Law Review turned down the piece in a last minute decision after soliciting it. Today, Columbia Law Review has decided to censor it as well.” 

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The group added: “This most recent repression by the Columbia Law Review Board of Directors is a shameful attempt to silence groundbreaking legal scholarship shining light on the catastrophe of Zionism and the ways in which it fragments, displaces, and disempowers Palestinian society.” 

The group also added a link to find the full article following it being taken down from the Law Review’s site. 

The article, titled ”Toward Nakba as a Legal Concept,” is written to clarify what the word Nakba means and to “encapsulate the ongoing structure of subjugation in Palestine and derive a legal formulation of the Palestinian condition.” 

The 106-page article also describes how “[t]he Nakba has thus undergone a metamorphosis” from its original historical meaning, and how the Israeli government has allegedly, according to the author, “[t]ransformed the Nakba into a tenacious system of Israeli domination.” 

A passage in the article, titled “A Legal Anatomy of the Ongoing Nakba,” outlines three structures that “breakdown” the Nakba. 

Eghbariah writes: “The foundational element allows us to consider the crimes committed during the 1948 Nakba and the unresolved legal questions stemming from the establishment of the State of Israel over Palestinian ruins. The structural element allows us to examine the various forms of domination practiced by the Israeli regime that emerged from that violence.”

Adding that the ongoing war is a result of “apartheid,” Eghbariah also stated: “The discussion about apartheid is thus located within the structural element of the Nakba. The purpose—denying Palestinians the right to self-determination—allows us to reconsider the legal questions pertaining to the denial of territorial integrity and ability to exercise self-determination as a group. Taken together, these elements form a legal anatomy of the ongoing Nakba.”

The pro-Palestinian groups who have spoken out against the article’s being taken down have stated: “COLUMBIA LAW REVIEW’S BOARD OF DIRECTORS MUST IMMEDIATELY REPUBLISH THE PIECE,” and “THIS DECISION REFLECTS AN UNPRECEDENTED LEVEL OF ACADEMIC REPRESSION, BUT WE WILL CONTINUE SPEAKING UP.” 

According to The Intercept, the Columbia Law Review’s Board of Directors pressured its editors to consider rescinding the publication of the article. After editors published the story, the board of directors temporarily took the website down.

In a statement to the outlet, the board of directors said it had concerns regarding “deviation from the Review’s usual processes” and took the website down so that the article could be reviewed fully.

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“We spoke to certain members of the student leadership to ask that they delay publication for a few days so that, at a minimum, the manuscript could be shared with all student editors, to provide them with a chance to read it and respond,” the board wrote in the statement. “Nevertheless, we learned this morning that the manuscript had been made public. In order to provide time for the Law Review to determine how to proceed, we have temporarily suspended its website.”

Campus Reform has contacted Columbia University for comment. This article will be updated accordingly.