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Columbia University Jewish Community Remains Resolute With Israel Support as Student Groups Expand New BDS Coalition
Anti-Israel students protest at Columbia University in New York City. Photo: Reuters/Jeenah Moon
The Jewish community at Columbia University in New York has remained resolute in supporting Israel amid strong hostility from much of the faculty and student body, with hundreds of people gathering this week to raise money for Israeli emergency services during the Jewish state’s war with the Hamas terror group.
Over 350 alumni, faculty, parents, and students on Monday night gathered at the Moise Safra Center in Manhattan for a fundraiser organized by Chabad at Columbia University and the school’s Jewish Alumni Association to raise money for a new ambulance for Israel’s emergency response service Magen David Adom.
“Recognizing the difficulties students are facing at Columbia University, a group of dedicated Columbia alumni of the Columbia Jewish Alumni Association wanted to do something to help,” Naomi Drizin, the wife of Chabad Rabbi Yuda Drizin, told The Algemeiner. “The primary objective was to come together in celebration of Jewish life while actively contributing to a positive cause — raising funds for a Magen David Adom ambulance.”
The vehicle, Drizin added, will be named the Columbia Jewish Community Ambulance for Magen David Adom and serve as “a symbol of hope and light.”
One student who spoke to The Algemeiner said the event was important to the school’s Jewish community, which is still mourning the lives lost on Oct. 7, when Hamas terrorists invaded Israel and killed over 1,200 people, mostly civilians, in the deadliest single-day massacre of Jews since the Holocaust.
Organized in just three weeks, the student described the event as a triumph.
The fundraiser came days after the Columbia University Apartheid Divest (CUAD) coalition issued a Nov. 14 statement in the campus newspaper demanding the school “immediately divest all economic and academic stakes in Israel” in order to fight “Israeli apartheid” against Palestinians. The coalition falsely accused Israel of “actively committing genocide and ethnic cleansing” and called on Columbia to cancel the opening of its Tel Aviv Global Center and end a dual degree-program the school offers in partnership with Tel Aviv University.
The statement, which was was signed by dozens of campus organizations, argued that Israel’s defensive war in Gaza in response to the Oct. 7 massacre, in which Hamas terrorists also kidnapped hundreds of people from Israel as hostages, was part of an effort to “annex and ethnically cleanse” Palestinian land.
“The Zionist project is reaching its apex as Israel continues to violate international law by indiscriminately bombing civilians and cutting off their access to food, water, medicine, and fuel,” the statement read. “These attacks are explicitly connected to Israel’s attempt to annex and ethnically cleanse more Palestinian land of its indigenous population. As such, it is imperative that we act now. If we wait, there may not be a Gaza left to defend.”
The statement did not mention the Hamas atrocities or that Israel withdraw all its soldiers and civilian settlers from Gaza in 2005.
CUAD supports the boycott, divestment, and sanctions (BDS) movement, which seeks to isolate Israel from the international community as a step toward the Jewish state’s eventual elimination.
Columbia’s chapter of Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) tweeted on Tuesday that the coalition has grown.
“Excited to announce we have officially hit 80 student organizations in our coalition in just one week!” the group wrote. “Columbia students, please mobilize your organizations to join our coalition! We are showing Columbia that the students refuse to be complicit in apartheid and genocide.”
Columbia announced earlier this month that it had suspended SJP and Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP), another anti-Israel group, as official student organizations on campus through the end of the fall semester.
“This decision was made after the two groups repeatedly violated university policies related to holding campus events, culminating in an unauthorized event Thursday afternoon that proceeded despite warnings and included threatening rhetoric and intimidation,” said Gerald Rosberg, senior executive vice president of the university who also chairs Columbia’s Special Committee on Campus Safety.
Hundreds of students walked out of class at Columbia that Thursday, demanding an immediate ceasefire to the fighting in Gaza, for school officials to falsely call Israel’s treatment of the Palestinians a “genocide,” and for the university to boycott and divest from Israeli institutions. The protesters did not mention Hamas or demand the release of the hostages still being held in Gaza.
The prior day, dozens of students from Columbia’s School of Social Work staged an over nine-hour sit-in, claiming they were expressing solidarity with local and national Palestinian resistance movements — a stunt that school officials said violated rules in the university’s code of conduct.
Both SJP and JVP have been instrumental in organizing anti-Israel protests on Columbia’s campus since Hamas’ onslaught across southern Israel last month.
“Lifting the suspension will be contingent on the two groups demonstrating a commitment to compliance with university policies and engaging in consultations at a group leadership level with university officials,” said Rosberg, who added that the suspension means the two groups will not be eligible to hold events on campus or receive university funding.
The suspension has not deterred anti-Israel groups at Columbia from holding protests in solidarity with SJP, which appears to be still organizing events with other campus organizations despite its suspension.
In its Nov. 14 statement, CUAD said it was “moved to action by the ostensibly politically motivated suspension” of SJP and JVP, demanding Columbia reinstate both groups and “issue an official apology for their unjust suspension in violation of university procedure.” SJP and JVP were the first two signatories of the statement.
Columbia has come under intense scrutiny for its response to Hamas’ Oct. 7 pogrom and the resultant war between Israel and the Palestinian terror group. Several students and professors have released multiple letters seemingly blaming Israel for the current conflict and rationalizing the Hamas atrocities.
Follow Dion J. Pierre @DionJPierre.
The post Columbia University Jewish Community Remains Resolute With Israel Support as Student Groups Expand New BDS Coalition first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Israel Says Its Missions in UAE Remain Open Despite Reported Security Threats
President Isaac Herzog meets on Dec. 5, 2022, with UAE President Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan in Abu Dhabi. Photo: GPO/Amos Ben Gershom
i24 News – Israel’s Foreign Ministry said on Friday that its missions to the United Arab Emirates are open on Friday and representatives continue to operate at the embassy in Abu Dhabi and the consulate in Dubai in cooperation with local authorities.
This includes, the statement underlined, ensuring the protection of Israeli diplomats.
On Thursday, reports appeared in Israeli media that Israel was evacuating most of its diplomatic staff in the UAE after the National Security Council heightened its travel warning for Israelis staying in the Gulf country for fear of an Iranian or Iran-sponsored attacks.
“We are emphasizing this travel warning given our understanding that terrorist organizations (the Iranians, Hamas, Hezbollah and Global Jihad) are increasing their efforts to harm Israel,” the NSC said in a statement.
After signing the Abraham Accords with Israel in 2020, the UAE has been among the closest regional allies of the Jewish state.
Israel is concerned about its citizens and diplomats being targeted in retaliatory attacks following its 12-day war against Iran last month.
Earlier this year, the UAE sentenced three citizens of Uzbekistan to death for last year’s murder of Israeli-Moldovan rabbi Zvi Cohen.
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Hamas Says It Won’t Disarm Unless Independent Palestinian State Established
Palestinian Hamas terrorists stand guard on the day of the handover of hostages held in Gaza since the deadly Oct. 7, 2023, attack, as part of a ceasefire and a hostages-prisoners swap deal between Hamas and Israel, in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip, Feb. 22, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Hatem Khaled
Hamas said on Saturday that it would not disarm unless an independent Palestinian state is established – a fresh rebuke to a key Israeli demand to end the war in Gaza.
Indirect negotiations between Hamas and Israel aimed at securing a 60-day ceasefire in the Gaza war and deal for the release of hostages ended last week in deadlock.
On Tuesday, Qatar and Egypt, who are mediating ceasefire efforts, endorsed a declaration by France and Saudi Arabia outlining steps toward a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and saying that as part of this Hamas must hand over its arms to the Western-backed Palestinian Authority.
In its statement, Hamas – which has dominated Gaza since 2007 but has been militarily battered by Israel in the war – said it could not yield its right to “armed resistance” unless an “independent, fully sovereign Palestinian state with Jerusalem as its capital” is established.
Israel considers the disarmament of Hamas a key condition for any deal to end the conflict, but Hamas has repeatedly said it is not willing to lay down its weaponry.
Last month, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu described any future independent Palestinian state as a platform to destroy Israel and said, for that reason, security control over Palestinian territories must remain with Israel.
He also criticized several countries, including the UK and Canada, for announcing plans to recognize a Palestinian state in response to devastation of Gaza from Israel’s offensive and blockade, calling the move a reward for Hamas’ conduct.
The war started when Hamas-led militants stormed into southern Israel on October 7, 2023, killing 1,200 people and taking 251 hostages back to Gaza.
Israel and Hamas traded blame after the most recent round of talks ended in an impasse, with gaps lingering over issues including the extent of an Israeli military withdrawal.
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US Envoy Witkoff Visits the Gaza Aid Operation That the UN Calls Unsafe
US Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff, Washington, DC, Jan. 20, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Carlos Barria
President Donald Trump’s Middle East envoy visited a US-backed aid operation in Gaza on Friday, which the United Nations has partly blamed for deadly conditions in the enclave, saying he sought to get food and other aid to people there.
Steve Witkoff visited a site run by the US and Israel-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation in Rafah in the war-shattered Palestinian territory, where Israel has been fighting the militant group Hamas.
Humanitarian organizations and many foreign governments have been strongly critical of the GHF, which began operations in late May. A global hunger monitor warned this week that famine is unfolding in Gaza.
The Israeli military said it was still looking into the incident in which soldiers fired warning shots at what it described as a “gathering of suspects” approaching its troops, hundreds of meters from the aid site.
The United Nations says more than 1,000 people have been killed trying to receive aid in Gaza since the GHF began operating, most of them shot by Israeli forces operating near GHF sites.
The Israeli military has acknowledged that its forces have killed some Palestinians seeking aid and says it has given its troops new orders to improve their response.
The UN has declined to work with the GHF, which it says distributes aid in ways that are inherently dangerous and violate humanitarian neutrality principles, contributing to the hunger crisis across the territory.
The GHF says nobody has been killed at its distribution points, and that it is doing a better job of protecting aid deliveries than the U.N.
Israel blames Hamas and the U.N. for the failure of food to get to desperate Palestinians in Gaza and introduced the GHF distribution system, saying it would prevent aid supplies being seized by Hamas. Hamas denies stealing aid.
Indirect negotiations between the sides aimed at securing a 60-day ceasefire and hostage release deal ended last week in deadlock.
Hamas on Friday released a video of Israeli hostage Evyatar David in one of its tunnels appearing skeletally thin. Its allied Islamic Jihad militant group released a video on Thursday of hostage Rom Braslavski, crying and pleading for his release.
CRAFTING A PLAN
US Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee, who traveled with Witkoff to Gaza on Friday, posted on X a picture showing hungry Gazans behind razor wire with a GHF poster displaying a big American flag and the words “100,000,000 meals delivered.”
“President Trump understands the stakes in Gaza and that feeding civilians, not Hamas, must be the priority,” GHF spokesperson Chapin Fay said in a statement accompanied by images of Witkoff in a grey camouflage top, flak jacket and “Make America Great Again” baseball cap with Trump’s name stitched on the back.
Witkoff said on X that he had also met with other agencies.
“The purpose of the visit was to give @POTUS (Trump) a clear understanding of the humanitarian situation and help craft a plan to deliver food and medical aid to the people of Gaza,” Witkoff said.
He visited Gaza a day after meeting Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Israel is under mounting international pressure over the devastation of Gaza since the start of the war and growing starvation among its 2.2 million inhabitants.
MALNUTRITION
Gaza medics say dozens have died of malnutrition in recent days after Israel cut off all supplies to the enclave for nearly three months from March-May.
Israel says it is taking steps to let in more aid, including pausing fighting for part of the day in some areas and announcing protected routes for aid convoys.
The worsening crisis has prompted France, Britain and Canada to announce plans to potentially recognize a Palestinian state, a move already taken by most countries but not by major Western powers.
On Friday, the Israeli military said that 200 trucks of aid were distributed by the U.N. and other organizations on Thursday, with hundreds more waiting to be picked up from the border crossings inside Gaza.
The United Nations says it has thousands of trucks still waiting, if Israel would let them in without the stringent security measures that aid groups say have prevented the entry of humanitarian assistance.
Israel began allowing food air drops this week, but U.N. agencies say these are a poor alternative to letting in more trucks. On Friday, the Israeli military said that 126 food packages were airdropped by six countries, including for the first time France, Spain, and Germany.