Last Sunday, good old Columbia University in New York City hosted a seminar, Palestinian Resistance 101, which featured some of the most anti-Semitic speakers ever. When we look around and wonder about the ugly words heard and assaults seen around us, the October 7th attack Israel, and everything else, we know that it’s the open pride in that should cause us to take a stand. Within ten minutes of reading about this Columbia seminar, I read that Steven Spielberg was warning about the rise of anti-Semitism.
It has been thirty years since the movie Schindler’s List and as Spielberg said speaking up is more relevant than when it was released:
(WATCH) Today at a USC Shoah Foundation ceremony, Steven Spielberg spoke out against antisemitism & in favor of the power of empathy https://t.co/cZs2lntQno pic.twitter.com/PR9a1etrRv
— Deadline Hollywood (@DEADLINE) March 25, 2024
Meanwhile, at Columbia University, the Washington Free Beacon reported:
On Sunday, a group of keffiyeh-clad individuals huddled around a computer to discuss the “Palestinian resistance.” Charlotte Kates, a member of the Israeli-designated terror group Samidoun, praised Hamas’s Oct. 7 terror attack for showing “the potential of a future for Palestine liberated from Zionism.” Khaled Barakat, a Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine activist, lauded airplane hijackings as “one of the most important tactics that the Palestinian resistance have engaged in.”
Airplane hijackings! By any means necessary! Dr. Barakat has more to say on the tactics:
For his part, Barakat glowingly discussed the PFLP’s wave of terrorism during the 1960s and 1970s. He specifically praised the terror group for hijacking airplanes, which he said “introduced the Palestinian questions to the world.” Barakat falsely claimed the hijackings were done peacefully—in fact, PFLP hijackers killed at least two pilots and one Israeli passenger.
“If we take, for example, certain tactics that the Palestinian movement have practiced—take, for example, hijacking airplanes,” Barakat said, “it was one of the most important tactics that the Palestinian resistance have engaged in.”
“If it wasn’t for these tactics, we would [have] never heard of … Palestinian women who led these kinds of heroic operations that introduced the Palestinian questions to the world,” he continued. “If you take, for example, the speeches that were given to the people in the airplanes by Palestinian fighters … they’re all about what our struggle is about.”
It’s not extraordinary that Vancouver would host a terrorist, but Columbia University in NYC hosting Palestinian Resistance 101?
Khaled Barakat lives in Vancouver, he is in the upper echelons of the Palestinian Front for the Liberation of Palestine, a terrorist organization known for airplane hijackings, suicide bombings & 2014 massacre at a Jerusalem synagogue. https://t.co/JweYqbftiE …/3 pic.twitter.com/lzvPjQoMhr
— Libs4Canada (@Libs4Canada) November 12, 2023
By the way, Charlotte Kates on the left in the video is married to Khaled Barakat on the right:
Resistance 101
This event was hosted by Columbia University Apartheid Divest. It was originally going to be at the Barnard Center for Research on Women but was moved last minute to Columbia.
This event featured the following speakers
Nerdeen Kiswani the Chair of Within Our… pic.twitter.com/5oBQvy5oKP
— Stu (@thestustustudio) March 26, 2024
Khaled Barakat is giddy at the idea of “crazy Palestinians” having 400 nuclear warheads, but Charlotte Kates really sent my head spinning. I think I transcribed this correctly:
NGOs were created as an alternative to revolutionary political parties and revolutionary organizations.”
Non-Governmental Organizations are fronts for revolutionary organizations. We always knew that, but when they say the quiet part out loud, it’s still jarring.
Resistance 101
This event was hosted by Columbia University Apartheid Divest. It was originally going to be at the Barnard Center for Research on Women but was moved last minute to Columbia.
This event featured the following speakers
Nerdeen Kiswani the Chair of Within Our… pic.twitter.com/5oBQvy5oKP
— Stu (@thestustustudio) March 26, 2024
Well, at least Columbia is not full on anti-Semitic as Harvard is:
The event was initially scheduled to take place at Columbia’s Barnard College, the university’s all-female undergraduate school. A flyer promoting the event listed the Barnard Center for Research on Women as a host. At the start of the event, however, student organizers said they were forced to “change rooms” at the last moment after a Ph.D. student lodged a complaint to the university. The change was “part of a long line of Columbia’s long line of repression,” the organizers said.
The event was moved to Columbia’s “Q House,” an “LGBTQ+ special interest community at Columbia University,” according to an internal email obtained by the Free Beacon. “This location change is due to Columbia University continuing to repress Palestinian students and the allies of the Palestinian struggle for liberation on campus,” read the email, which was addressed to “comrades.”
A Columbia spokeswoman said the university is “aware of an unsanctioned, unapproved event that took place last night” at a “residence.” Kates and Barakat addressed attendees via Zoom, while Kiswani attended in person.
“Columbia canceled the event, denying requests to use university space, as did Barnard,” the spokeswoman told the Free Beacon. “Despite this, the event organizers held the event in a residence with an online option.”
The answer to hate speech like this is more speech. More speech condemning the speech and the speakers.
Featured Image: iMuslim/flickr.com/cropped/Creative Commons
NGOs are not necessarily “fronts for revolutionary organizations” and to categorize them all as such is a massive insult to humanity.
Yes, many have been derailed by radical politics. However, most NGOs including Médecins San Frontières, CRS, the pre-rebrand ICRC (which was overwhelmingly considered an NGO until very recently), etc., have largely remained focused on their unique humanitarian niches.
Well-meaning folk, regardless of where they might be aimed, remain well-meaning. Their intentions may lead to hell, but they’re not the ones driving the steam roller.
A surgeon fixing cleft palates may be motivated by a résumé-building experience, but the people who fund him legitimately want to fix cleft palates. So might that surgeon, despite the professional bump.
Mosaad needs to step up their game and get back to taking out terrorists like this….
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