A Jewish billionaire Columbia University alumni said he would stop donating to his alma mater for struggling to contain campus tensions over the conflict between Israel and Hamas.
Leon Cooperman, the chairman and CEO of investment advisory firm Omega, who graduated from Columbia Business School in 1967 and is the son of Polish immigrants, criticized students taking part in pro-Palestinian demonstrations and the continued employment of Joseph Massad, a Modern Arab Politics professor who, a day after Hamas led the deadliest Palestinian militant attack on Israel in history, described it as "awesome."
"The real shame is I've given to Columbia, probably about $50 million over many years," Cooperman told Fox Business on Wednesday. "And I'm going to suspend my giving. I'll give my giving to other organizations."
Pressed on whether he was suspending his funding of the New York City school, he added: "Unless I see a change. I told them that they should fire this professor [who] made the comments he made. I mean, war is hell. War is not good for anybody, but to praise what Hamas did is disgraceful, disgusting."
"Columbia is grateful to Mr. Cooperman for his years of generosity and service to Columbia Business School," a university spokesperson told Newsweek. "This is a time of crisis for many members of our community and we are focused on providing the support they need while keeping our campus safe."
Since the outbreak of violence in the Middle East, there have been rising tensions on U.S. college campuses over expressions of support for Palestine, which in some cases have spilled over into expressions of support for Hamas's actions.
At Harvard University and Columbia, 31 student groups said in an open letter that Israel was "solely responsible" for Hamas's attack, something that has lost some students job offers.
Columbia took the rare step of closing its campus to the public earlier in the month ahead of two student demonstrations, one in support of Israel and another supporting Palestine, over safety concerns.
On October 12, the university's President Minouche Shafik wrote in a statement that the "atmosphere on campus is extremely charged and many are concerned for their personal safety," with students "experiencing disturbing antisemitic and Islamophobic acts, including intimidation and outright violence."
The move came after an Israeli Columbia student who had been hanging up posters in support of Israel was physically assaulted. In a speech at a vigil the following week, Shai Davidai, an Israeli assistant professor at Columbia Business School, told parents, "we cannot protect your child" while openly criticizing various American universities' leadership.
In an article for Electronic Intifada, a pro-Palestinian outlet, Massad described videos of Hamas militants using paragliders to infiltrate Israel as "stunning" while describing air strikes on Gaza as "barbaric."
He wrote of the militant attacks on Israeli towns near the Gaza border: "Perhaps the major achievement of the resistance in the temporary takeover of these settler-colonies is the death blow to any confidence that Israeli colonists had in their military and its ability to protect them."
A petition to have Massad removed as a professor at Columbia, started on October 13, has since received over 59,000 signatures—though others, such as the Middle East Studies Association, have defended him.
As of Thursday, at least 1,400 people in Israel have been killed, and the Israeli military says 222 people remain hostage in Gaza, according to the Associated Press. At least 6,546 Palestinians have been killed, the AP reported, citing the Gaza Health Ministry, while a further 100 are thought to have been killed in violence in the West Bank.
Commenting on the ongoing pro-Palestinian protests on U.S. college campuses, Cooperman, who Forbes estimates has a net worth of $2.5 billion, said he thought the students "have s*** for brains."
"We have one reliable ally in the Middle East—that's Israel," he said. "We only have one democracy in the Middle East—that's Israel. And we have one economy tolerant of different people—gays, lesbians, et cetera—and that's Israel. So, I have no idea what these young kids are doing."
Update 10/27/23, 7:05 a.m. ET: This article was updated with comment from a Columbia University spokesperson.
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