Columbia University’s campus was disrupted yet again on Tuesday when masked protesters invaded an Israeli studies class and distributed antisemitic literature to outraged students.
As students were reviewing the syllabus on the first day of their History of Modern Israel class – the only class on Israel at the university that’s taught by an Israeli historian – four masked demonstrators donning keffiyehs barged in while delivering an anti-Israel sermon as they filmed themselves.
“We’re giving you the inside scoop on Columbia University’s normalization of genocide,” said one masked protester.
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The disrupters then distributed antisemitic fliers to the students that showed a jackboot stomping on a Jewish star and what appeared to be a Hamas terrorist waving a burning Israeli flag, as Professor Avi Shilon attempted to bring stability back to his classroom.
“The enemy will not survive tomorrow,” said one threatening flier over an image of Hamas terrorists brandishing rifles on top of a vehicle.
“Burn Zionism to the ground,” read another.
Columbia University announced that they were “expediting” the investigation and working to identify the disrupters Wednesday, among other measures taken in response to the incident.
Professor Shilon, whose parents emigrated to Israel from Baghdad, told Fox News Digital he felt a responsibility to his students to maintain order, but did not want to “ignite a fight in class.” He said he tried to invite the demonstrators to join his class and engage in the issues intellectually, but they had no interest in doing so.
“I told those invaders, ‘Listen, if you want to talk about the conflict please join the class. Read the readings express your mind, let’s discuss it.’ This is the nature of the academy,” Shilon said. “They weren’t interested. They just shout ‘genocide.’ They took photos of themselves like they ‘conquered’ the class.”
“Yeah, we’re trying to learn, that’s why we’re in Columbia,” Lisha Baker, a junior at the university majoring in Middle East Studies, told Fox News Digital.
Baker said that he was “pumped” to take Shilon’s class, saying it was the only course offered at the university that is not taught by faculty that is “openly anti-Israel or antisemitic.”
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“Nothing is worse at Columbia than the Middle East studies department, it is an absolute trainwreck,” said President of Columbia Students Supporting Israel Eden Yadegar. Yadegar is a plaintiff in a Title VI discrimination suit against the university.
Yadegar said Shilon’s class is important because “ideological diversity” is sorely lacking on campus and Columbia has professors teaching courses on Israel who praised Hamas’ Oct. 7 terrorist rampage.
“No less awesome were the scenes… of Palestinian fighters from Gaza breaking through Israel’s prison fence or gliding over it by air,” wrote Columbia Professor Joseph Massad just one day after the heinous terrorist attacks which saw 1,200 Israelis killed, 250 kidnapped and thousands more wounded. Massad teaches a course on the development of Zionism.
Shilon said the protesters resembled Hamas members so strongly at first that he initially spoke to them in Arabic. Only on second glance did he realize they were protesters there to disrupt his class.
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“It was shocking to see students, at a prestigious Ivy League school, threatening other students. It felt like someone invaded my home,” Shilon said. “They don’t understand the conflict at all.”
Shilon said he prides himself on being an objective scholar, who exposes his students to both narratives surrounding the formation of Israel in 1948.
Baker said that the protesters’ true aim was to drown out intellectual discussion of the Arab-Israeli conflict at the university, because they are “insecure” in their own worldview.
“They are not educated on this issue … They can’t hang, they can’t keep up in a conversation,” Baker said. “I think there’s also a – I think it really stems from an existential war both in the Middle East, there’s a real war, but also a war in academia among these kinds of people to erase Israel from the narrative. And erase Israel from the map.”
Columbia is no stranger to allegations antisemitism.
The university was plagued by months-long anti-Israel encampments on its campus that culminated in the forceful takeover of Hamilton Hall, in which a university janitor was trapped by the angry mob. NYPD officers reclaimed the dormitory in May 2024.
Following the incident, Columbia University’s Interim President Katrina Armstrong released a statement saying “we strongly condemn this disruption, as well as the fliers that included violent imagery that is unacceptable on our campus and in our community.”
Shilon said that after the incident, Columbia offered to have his classroom guarded by security, which he declined.
Yadegar, who says she has been the victim of numerous antisemitic attacks on campus, is pessimistic that there will be any real change to protect the ability of Jewish students to learn and engage freely on campus.
“Words mean little without actions supporting them. When Columbia tolerates this behavior, there’s no reason we shouldn’t expect it to continue,” she said.
“The university’s responsibility is to stop these incidents before they happen,” Shilon said.
