Columbia University has “temporarily” banished its most distinguished pro-Israel Jewish professor — Shai Davidai — from campus property, a severe disciplinary sanction which prevents him from attending university functions and accessing his office.

Speaking to The Algemeiner on Wednesday morning, Davidai denounced the action as retaliation for his much publicized advocacy of Jewish civil rights, unabashed support for Zionism, and condemnations of student and faculty calls for continued acts of terrorism against Israel and other Western countries. He has, he noted, been targeted by the university before. Last semester, it launched an investigation of his conduct following spurious accusations that his denouncing terrorism amounted to anti-Muslim bigotry.

Now, the university has allegedly found cause to discipline Davidai under a microscope, punishing him for an exchange of words which took place during dueling demonstrations marking the one-year anniversary of Hamas’s Oct. 7 massacre across southern Israel. According to Davidai’s own social media account, as swarms of pro-Hamas students bellowed slogans demanding violence against Israelis, the Columbia professor filmed himself reproaching the university’s chief operating officer, Cas Holloway, for permitting anti-Israel activists to hold a celebration of the terror attack — in which Hamas-led Palestinian terrorists murdered Jewish children, sexually assaulted Jewish women and men, and kidnapped over 200 hostages during their rampage.

Footage of the encounter shows Davidai approaching Holloway and requesting that he explain the pro-Hamas demonstration’s concurrence with a Jewish-student led vigil, a circumstance that many people on campus felt was an injustice and desecration of Jewish life. Davidai then vowed to walk with Holloway until he received a sufficient response to his concerns, a not unusual behavior on Ivy League campuses, where administrative buildings have been illegally occupied and presidential offices stormed by anti-Israel demonstrators over the past year. Earlier in the day, Davidai himself was stalked by pro-Hamas activists and briefly jousted with two public safety officers about whether his freedom of movement had been violated.

“Cas, what do you have to say?” Davidai said to Holloway, with whom he crossed paths incidentally. “How could you allow this to happen on Oct. 7? … You have to do your job, and I will not let you rest until they let us rest.”

During the meeting, Davidai initiated a conversation between Holloway and an Israeli student who, like Davidai, pleaded for answers.

Holloway apologized to the student, to which Davidai responded, “Don’t say sorry if you let this happen. This is your responsibility. This is not being sorry … I’m filing a complaint with you right now, Cas. You’re the COO … You know it’s unsanctioned; you know they violated every time, place, and manner. They are hiding their faces.”

Holloway then proceeded to terminate the conversation, prompting Davidai to say, “I’m walking with you. Where are we going, Cas? Because Jewish and Israeli students don’t get to go, so where are we going? I’m walking with you. I’m not obstructing you.”

During Wednesday’s interview with the Algemeiner, Davidai defended his approach as a genuine expression of grief and concern for the welfare of Jewish students.

“People are free to see exactly the videos and see, you know, what did or did not happen and judge for themselves,” he said. “That is why I call this a clear act or retaliation. My lawyers got on a phone call with them on Oct. 7 [of this year] and were told that the university is going to suspend my ability to be on campus. On that day, the university found that the most important thing is to remove me from campus. I am, to the best of my knowledge, the only professor who has been removed from campus since Oct. 7 [2023].”

Davidai went on to point to faculty conduct which has been covered by The Algemeiner, including Columbia professor Joseph Massad publishing in Electronic Intifada an essay cheering Hamas’s atrocities as “awesome” and describing men who paraglided into a music festival to kill young people as “the air force of the Palestinian resistance.”

Davidai continued, “The only person who was removed from campus is the one that exposed the chief operating officer’s antisemitic problem. And I say this, you know, I don’t know if he is or isn’t an antisemite. I do know that he’s awfully comfortable with antisemitism and that he has an antisemitism problem.”

According to Columbia University, the campus ban, which does not affect Davidai’s compensation or employment status, was prompted by “threats of intimidation, harassment, or other threatening behavior.”

Samantha Slater, a university spokesperson, continued: “Columbia has consistently and continually respected Assistant Professor Davidai’s right to free speech and to express his views. His freedom of speech has not been limited and is not being limited now. Columbia, however, does not tolerate threats of intimidation, harassment, or other threatening behavior by its employees. Because Assistant Professor Davidai repeatedly harassed and intimidated university employees in violation of university policy, we have temporarily limited his access to campus while he undertakes appropriate training on our policies governing the behavior of our employees.”

This latest clash between Davidai and Columbia University comes during what has been widely described as an unprecedented “crisis” at the school which, since Oct. 7, 2023, has undermined its credibility with the public and drawn the scrutiny of federal lawmakers.

In April, an anti-Zionist group occupied Hamilton Hall, forcing then-university president Minouche Shafik to call on the New York City Police Department (NYPD) for help, a decision she hesitated to make and which led to over 108 arrests. However, according to documents shared in August by the US House Committee on Education and the Workforce, 18 of the 22 students slapped with disciplinary charges for their role in the incident remain in “good standing” despite the university’s earlier pledge to expel them. Another 31 of 35 who were suspended for illegally occupying the campus with a “Gaza Solidarity Encampment” remain in good standing too.

In August, Shafik resigned as president of the university, and just two months prior, in June, its legal counsel reached an out of court settlement with a student who accused administrators of neglecting their obligation to foster a safe learning environment during the final weeks of last spring semester. While stopping short of admitting guilt, the settlement virtually conceded to the plaintiff her argument that the campus was unsafe for Jewish students, agreeing to provide her and others “Safe Passage Liaisons” tasked with protecting them from racist abuse and violence.

Amid this cluster of scandals and conflagrations, Davidai has allegedly received a lion’s share of the university’s attention. Last semester, it launched an investigation of his conduct, which he called a persecution that “reveals the depths of its hostility towards its Jewish community.” He has since retained counsel to guard his rights and prevent being bulldozed by one of the wealthiest and powerful universities in the world. Despite his troubles, however, he told The Algemeiner on Wednesday that Columbia is redeemable.

“I do this because I love teaching and I love research. And because I truly believe that Columbia can become better,” he said. “For me, Cas Holloway is ruining Colombia’s reputation. He is the anathema of everything that’s right about Columbia, its educational practice, research, and openness to everyone. And I don’t know if he’s a good person or a bad person, but his inaction, his indifference shows that he’s OK with ruining everything that higher education should be standing for.”

Follow Dion J. Pierre @DionJPierre.

The post ‘Don’t Say Sorry’: Columbia University Bans Pro-Israel Professor From Campus first appeared on Algemeiner.com.

US Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR) sent a letter to President Joe Biden on Wednesday demanding that his administration produce evidence that Israel has blocked humanitarian aid into Gaza, accusing Biden of engaging in a “politically driven” campaign against the Jewish state.

In the letter, Cotton wrote that he condemned “the Biden administration’s threat to impose an arms embargo on Israel.” He added that the president has made “unreasonable demands” on Israel to ramp up humanitarian aid deliveries to Gaza, the neighboring enclave ruled by the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas.

“Denying Israel military aid is in direct opposition to the will of Congress, as expressed in the Israeli security supplemental passed earlier this year,” Cotton wrote. “Unilaterally threatening to cut off aid by declaring Israel in violation of US law also ignores Congress’s oversight role. Your administration insists on protecting a terrorist organization in the name of humanitarian aid.”

Cotton demanded that the Biden administration release any “evidence” to congressional committees that Israel has systematically prevented humanitarian aid from entering the Gaza Strip. The senator claimed that, if the Biden administration could not produce the desired evidence, then it should rescind its threats to Israel. 

The White House had sent a letter, addressed to Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant and Strategic Affairs Minister Ron Dermer, expressing concern over what it said was a significant drop in aid deliveries to northern Gaza in recent months. The letter stated that the decline raised questions about Israel’s compliance with a National Security Memorandum (NSM) issued by the Biden administration earlier this year.

The memo requires US security aid recipients, including Israel, to ensure that humanitarian aid is not obstructed in areas where American-supplied weapons are being used.

The administration’s concerns are rooted in reports from international aid agencies and the United Nations that aid deliveries to Gaza have plummeted, raising the risk of widespread famine.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin wrote that Israel “must — starting now and within 30 days — act on the following concrete measures” to ensure the flow of aid, warning that “failure to demonstrate a sustained commitment to implementing and maintaining these measures may have implications for US policy under NSM-20 and relevant US law.”

According to Blinken and Austin, the amount of aid that entered Gaza in September was the lowest in a year. They urged Israel to allow at least 350 aid trucks into Gaza each day, facilitate aid routes through Jordan, and end the “isolation” of northern Gaza by ensuring continued access for humanitarian organizations.

The letter also called for temporary pauses in Israeli military operations to enable aid deliveries, stating that “multiple evacuation orders have forced 1.7 million people” into increasingly precarious living conditions.

On Wednesday, Israel’s official X/Twitter account confirmed that the government has started sending additional humanitarian aid into the Gaza Strip.

“50 trucks carrying humanitarian aid, including food, water & medical supplies, provided by Jordan, were transferred today to Gaza as part of [the Israeli] commitment to deliver humanitarian aid,” the tweet said.

Israel has touted its efforts to ensure significant amounts of humanitarian aid continue to flow into Gaza despite it being a combat zone where Hamas has sought to steal or divert the supplies for its own use.

The post US Sen. Tom Cotton Demands Biden Admin Produce ‘Evidence’ Israel Has Blocked Gaza Aid first appeared on Algemeiner.com.

A building at Georgetown University in Washington, DC was vandalized with pro-terrorist graffiti in the early hours of Wednesday morning, according to the school.

The pro-Hamas and anti-American graffiti was discovered on the Rafik B. Hariri Building. The messages were “pertaining to the war in Gaza,” according to a message sent to the campus community by the university’s associate vice president of public safety along with its chief diversity officer and vice president for diversity, equity, and inclusion.

“We condemn this act and are coordinating with the Metropolitan Police Department (MPD) in the investigation of this crime,” the message continued. “This incident, and a similar act that occurred on campus on Sept. 20, 2024, are unacceptable and are contrary to our values as a university community. Anyone found responsible will be held accountable.”

The vandalism included graffiti that read “US Army = Terror org” and inverted red triangles. The inverted red triangle has become a common symbol at pro-Hamas rallies. The Palestinian terrorist group, which rules Gaza, has used inverted red triangles in its propaganda videos to indicate Israeli targets about to be attacked. According to the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), “the red triangle is now used to represent Hamas itself and glorify its use of violence.”

The building that was vandalized is named after Rafik. B Harari, a former prime minister of Lebanon who was assassinated by a Hezbollah suicide bomber in Beirut in 2005.

An Instagram account called GeorgetownIntifada posted pictures of the vandalism with the caption, “NO WAR CRIMINALS ON CAMPUS,” and added, “THE US ARMY IS A TERRORIST ORGANIZATION.”

The group also claimed the vandalism was done by “autonomous actors.”

Jewish on Campus, a group that documents anti-Jewish incidents on college campuses, asked rhetorically on X/Twitter, “When our campuses look like this, how are Jewish and Israeli students meant to be safe?”

“Antisemitism is rising. Wake up,” it added.

ADL Regional Director Meredith Weisel wrote in a statement that it is “horrifying that students woke up this morning and were faced with pro-terror graffiti defacing Georgetown University’s Business School. The red triangle is a pro-terror symbol that in some cases signifies support for violent Palestinian resistance against Israel. This hate has no place anywhere and certainly not on a college campus.”

She continued, “Jewish students, and all students, deserve to feel safe in their place of learning.”

Since the outbreak of the Israel-Hamas war — when Hamas invaded Israel, killed 1,200 people, and took 251 hostages last Oct. 7 — college campuses have become a hotbed of anti-Israel and pro-Hamas protests. In the spring, “Gaza solidarity encampments” began to pop up on campuses across the country. The Algemeiner documented dozens of statements just within the first week of the movement that were explicitly pro-terrorist.

Some encampments had to be forcefully removed after protesters got violent, invaded school buildings, and/or resisted the police when asked to disperse.

The post ‘US Army = Terror Org’: Georgetown University Building Vandalized With Anti-American, Pro-Hamas Graffiti first appeared on Algemeiner.com.