Here are the Columbia University professors ripped for anti-Israel remarks, pro-Palestinian indoctrination
Joseph Massad, a professor of modern Arab politics and history, has faced widespread calls to be fired ever since he referred to the Oct. 7 attack inflicted by Hamas terrorists as “awesome.”
Mohamed Abdou
Abdou was brought on as a visiting Columbia scholar for the spring 2024 semester and teaches a weekly class on “Decolonial-Queerness & Abolition.”
The bio on Columbia’s website describes Abdou as “a North African-Egyptian Muslim anarchist interdisciplinary activist-scholar of Indigenous, Black, critical race and Islamic studies, as well as gender, sexuality, abolition and decolonization.”
Just days after the Oct. 7 attack, Abdou controversially declared on social media, “Yes, I’m with Hamas and Hezbollah and Islamic Jihad.”
Katherine Franke
Franke, a law professor and activist, has been teaching at the school since 1999.
She was brought up during Wednesday’s hearing by Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-NY) for controversially saying, “All Israeli students who served in the I.D.F. [Israel Defense Forces] are dangerous and shouldn’t be on campus.”
It wasn’t immediately clear, though, where Franke made the remark.
Franke also recently penned an op-ed in The Nation criticizing Columbia, in part, for threatening academic freedom and “waging war on dissent.”
“The university is under pressure to root out any students or faculty critical of Israel — and it’s already caved,” the law professor wrote.
Hamid Dabashi:
Dabashi is a professor of Iranian studies and comparative literature at the Ivy League school. He is also the current director of undergrad studies within the MESAAS department, per his faculty bio.
He’s come under fire in recent years for a slew of controversial social media posts, including a since-deleted one in which he blamed Israel for every “dirty” problem in the world.
“Every dirty treacherous ugly and pernicious happening in the world just wait for a few days and the ugly name ‘Israel’ will pop up in the atrocities,” Dabashi wrote in the 2018 Facebook post, cited by the Jewish Journal.
His remark was in response to a New York Times article that accused Israeli intelligence of gathering dirt on President Barack Obama’s then-national security aide.
In a separate post, Dabashi also allegedly bashed Zionists as “hyenas” – sparking calls from a pro-Israel student group for the professor to be rebuked.
Kayum Ahmed:
Ahmed, a former-director at billionaire George Soros’ Open Society foundation, is now a law lecturer within Columbia’s school of public health, according to his bio.
He has previously been ripped for allegedly indoctrinating his students to hate Israel via his lectures, the Wall Street Journal reported.