Anti-Semites at Columbia U.

The Daily News has an investigative piece into Columbia University's professors who despise Israel and the intimidation tactics they have used against students who defend it. The climate of repression led to one intrepid student group making a short (25-minute) film, "Columbia Unbecoming," that chronicles some of the anti-Semitic rhetoric and repression, produced by the David Project. The film has been screened for some top administrators at Columbia.

Remember, Columbia was the home of Edward Said, originator of the theory of Orientalism, faux Palestinian (he was Egyptian), and anti-Semite. The fruit doesn't fall far from its poisonous tree.

Here's some of the thoughts of the Upper West Side elites:

In the world of Hamid Dabashi [Middle East Studies Dept. Chair], supporters of Israel are "warmongers" and "Gestapo apparatchiks."

The Jewish homeland is "nothing more than a military base for the rising predatory empire of the United States."

Nicholas De Genova, who teaches anthropology and Latino studies. The Chronicle of Higher Education calls him "the most hated professor in America."

At an anti-war teach-in last year, he said he wished for a "million Mogadishus," referring to the slaughter of U.S. troops in Somalia in 1993.

* * *
Joseph Massad, who is a tenure-track professor of Arab politics. Students and faculty interviewed by The News consistently claimed that the Jordanian-born Palestinian is the most controversial, and vitriolic, professor on campus.

"How many Palestinians have you killed?" he allegedly asked one student, Tomy Schoenfeld, an Israeli military veteran, and then refused to answer his questions.

* * *
Lila Abu-Lughod, a professor of anthropology, romanticizes Birzeit University in the West Bank as a "liberal arts college dedicated to teaching and research in the same spirit as U.S. colleges."

But it is well-established that Birzeit also is the campus where Hamas openly recruits suicide bombers, stone-throwers and gunmen.

These people are vile heirs to the Nazi thought process and they are teaching young adults at one of the most prestigious colleges in the world. There's something wrong with that.


N.B. -- The Monk whiffed on some details when this was initially posted and has corrected them: the film is Columbia Unbecoming, produced (read: financed) by the David Project and made by and with Columbia students and it is 25 minutes long; corrected info courtesy John Fund. So much for posting by memory alone.