A Tale of Two Ivory Towers | Opinion

Since Hamas' Oct. 7 slaughter of 1,200 Israelis, most of them civilians, Columbia University President Minouche Shafik has issued a "message of concern for our community" (Oct. 9), and statements on "Upholding Our Values" (Oct. 18), "Standing in Solidarity" (Oct. 27), a reaction to "several antisemitic incidents" on that campus, "Announcing Taskforce on Antisemitism" (Nov. 1), and "Announcing Doxing Resource Group" (also Nov. 1).

Shafik did not mention Hamas by name in any of her communications. Based on these texts, the Oct. 7 carnage could have been perpetrated by aliens from Mars or some amorphous creatures emanating out of nowhere. In her Oct. 9 statement she did state that she was "devastated by the horrific attack on Israel this weekend," and in her Oct. 18 and first Nov. 1 statements, she referred to, respectively, the "terror attacks on Israel" and the "October 7 terror attack in Israel." But that's clearly as far as she was prepared to go.

No specific mention anywhere of, let alone expressed moral outrage at, the brutal Oct. 7 mass killings of Israeli civilians, or the rapes of Jewish women and girls, or the violent kidnapping of civilian hostages from Israel into Gaza. And decidedly no identification or condemnation of those who carried out the said "terror attack."

I am not suggesting that Shafik is insensitive or indifferent to the rise in antisemitism on her campus. She has spoken out firmly against it and, as already indicated above, formed a task force "to enhance our ability to address this ancient, but terribly resilient, form of hatred." What troubles me is her seeming refusal to publicly repudiate Hamas by name and her failure to state categorically that any glorification of Hamas should be as unacceptable at Columbia as holding up the Ku Klux Klan or Hitler's SS as role models.

Contrast Shafik with Cornell President Martha Pollack who declared categorically on Oct. 10 that "the atrocities committed by Hamas this past weekend were acts of terrorism, which I condemn in the strongest possible terms." In a statement six days later, Pollack referred to the "despicable atrocities perpetrated by the Hamas terrorist organization in Israel last week" and emphasized that "the intentional targeting and killing of innocent civilians is the very definition of terrorism." In her State of the University Address on Oct. 20, she again referred to the "atrocities perpetrated by the Hamas terrorist organization" and reiterated her condemnation of "terrorism in the strongest possible terms."

The tone of a university, or of any institution for that matter, is set at the top and from the top. When a Cornell history professor announced at a pro-Palestinian rally that he had been "exhilarated" by the Oct. 7 Hamas attack, Pollack did not mince words. "I am sickened by statements glorifying the evilness of Hamas terrorism," she said. "Any members of our community who have made such statements do not speak for Cornell; in fact, they speak in direct opposition to all we stand for at Cornell."

At Columbia, meanwhile, the administration has yet to react to a tenured professor of modern Arab politics and intellectual history who praised the Oct. 7 Hamas attack as "innovative Palestinian resistance" and for whom "The sight of the Palestinian resistance fighters storming Israeli checkpoints separating Gaza from Israel was astounding."

As best I can tell, Shafik did not in any way admonish the close to 180 Columbia professors who signed an open letter dated Oct. 30 in which they referred to Oct. 7 as a "military action" and opined that "One could regard the events of October 7th as just one salvo in an ongoing war between an occupying state and the people it occupies, or as an occupied people exercising a right to resist violent and illegal occupation."

Rep. Josh Gottheimer (D-NJ), on the other hand, had no difficulty calling out the authors of this particular missive. "Hamas terrorists brutally murdered, raped, burned alive, and kidnapped innocent babies, children, women, men, and elderly, including Americans," he wrote on X, formerly Twitter. "Anyone claiming this was 'military action' is delusional and complicit in the spike of antisemitism and hate."

"With blatantly anti-Jewish student groups and professors allowed to operate with complete impunity, it sends a clear and distressing message that Jews are not just unwelcome, but also unsafe on campus," declared billionaire hedge fund pioneer and philanthropist Henry Swieca in resigning from the Board of Overseers of Columbia Business School.

Last Wednesday, around 200 professors protested loudly on the steps of Columbia's Low Library in support of two student groups that had been suspended for engaging in "threatening rhetoric and intimidation" at an unauthorized demonstration. I have a few simple questions for these professors who have in effect given their seal of approval to surging anti-Israel and, yes, antisemitic hatred: have any of you uttered a single solitary word of compassion for Yehudit Weiss, the 65-year-old mother of five who was taken hostage from Kibbutz Be'eri on Oct. 7 and whose lifeless body was found by Israeli soldiers in Gaza?

Are any of you disturbed for even a nanosecond by what happened to her?

Does Yehudit, a murdered Israeli woman, a murdered Jewish woman, fall outside the scope of your various fields of concern? Are your compassion and passion reserved for only one side of the Israeli-Palestinian equation?

I write as the recipient of master's and law degrees from Columbia who has taught about the law of genocide at its law school since 2011. I care deeply about the institution and am dismayed at the palpable hostility toward Israel and, by extension, toward Columbia's Jewish students that has permeated much of the university. (In the interest of full disclosure, I have also been an adjunct professor at Cornell Law School for the past 15 years and will be teaching a course there next semester on antisemitism in the courts and in jurisprudence.)

I do not mean to criticize Columbia's administration and faculty with a broad brush. Many of them have acted and are acting appropriately and honorably. Former law school dean David Schizer and more than 500 other Columbia faculty members signed a second open letter in which they pointed to "the spate of antisemitic incidents on campus since October 7 . . . which include antisemitic epithets, physical assault, and swastikas scrawled on bathroom walls" and called on "the entire University community to condemn the Hamas attack unambiguously. We doubt anyone would try to justify this sort of atrocity if it were directed against the residents of a nation other than Israel."

In the same spirit, Columbia Law School Dean Gillian Lester wrote to students, faculty, staff, and alumni, that, "No matter one's perspective on the long history of Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the massacre committed by Hamas on October 7^th—the deadliest day in Israel's history—must be condemned for what it was: a horrific act of terrorism. The actions of Hamas were appalling in the wantonness of their cruelty."

I have absolutely no problem with demonstrators who support Palestinian rights or express solidarity with the civilian population of Gaza that is suffering tremendously as a result of the Israel-Hamas war. Indeed, I share these sentiments. But anyone who glorifies or acquiesces in the glorification of Hamas, who deliberately ignores the abject cruelty and horror of the Oct. 7 pogrom, and who steadfastly refuses not only to condemn Hamas but to even utter that terrorist organization's name becomes, in Rep. Gottheimer's words, "complicit in the spike of antisemitism and hate."

Menachem Z. Rosensaft teaches about the law of genocide at the law schools of Cornell and Columbia Universities. He is general counsel emeritus of the World Jewish Congress and the author of Poems Born in Bergen-Belsen (Kelsay Books, 2021)

The views expressed in this article are the writer's own.