The Education Department’s Inexcusable Inaction in Confronting Antisemitism

Columbia University Apartheid Divest, the umbrella anti-Israel organization comprising dozens of campus groups and responsible for occupying university buildings this past spring, marked the anniversary of October 7 as only it could: by apologizing — for its previous condemnation of one of its leaders’ calls for violence against Zionists on campus and beyond. CUAD clarified its position on violence: “We support liberation by any means necessary, including armed resistance. . . . Violence is the only path forward.”

At demonstrations marking the anniversary, students at Columbia were photographed holding signs depicting paragliders, a reference to the Hamas operatives who infiltrated Israel’s south and massacred, tortured, and raped Israeli civilians. “Long live the Al-Aqsa Flood,” read one, using Hamas’s name for the atrocities. Throngs of chanting students called for more violence against Israelis and the dismantling of the Jewish state.

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Tal Fortgang

Tal Fortgang is a legal policy fellow at the Manhattan Institute.

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Columbia University Apartheid Divest, the umbrella anti-Israel organization comprising dozens of campus groups and responsible for occupying university buildings this past spring, marked the anniversary of October 7 as only it could: by apologizing — for its previous condemnation of one of its leaders’ calls for violence against Zionists on campus and beyond. CUAD clarified its position on violence: “We support liberation by any means necessary, including armed resistance. . . . Violence is the only path forward.”

At demonstrations marking the anniversary, students at Columbia were photographed holding signs depicting paragliders, a reference to the Hamas operatives who infiltrated Israel’s south and massacred, tortured, and raped Israeli civilians. “Long live the Al-Aqsa Flood,” read one, using Hamas’s name for the atrocities. Throngs of chanting students called for more violence against Israelis and the dismantling of the Jewish state.