Columbia prez won’t call anti-Israel cry antisemitic

Columbia University president Minouche Shafik refused to tell lawmakers Wednesday whether “from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free” counts as an antisemitic phrase — instead only calling it “hurtful” and adding that she would “prefer” not to hear it around the Ivy League campus.

Shafik — appearing alongside Columbia Law dean emeritus David Schizer and two members of the Morningside Heights university’s board of trustees, Claire Shipman and David Greenwald — faced an onslaught of questions from members of the House Education and Workforce Committee in Washington about her handling of anti-Jewish demonstrations and violence since the Hamas terror group’s Oct. 7 attack against Israel.

The president defended her work by citing a letter sent to students outlining appropriate language to use as well as the creation of specific places for protests to take place in order to protect students from having to hear the “chants.”

Back-&-forth garble

But across several heated back-and-forths, Shafik refused to say whether the phrase “from the river to the sea” was actually allowed under school policy, saying it’s a “difficult issue.”

“Some of those expressions that you have said — ‘River to the sea,’ ‘Intifada’ — are incredibly hurtful,” said Shafik at one point, without clarifying whether those statements violated Columbia’s code of conduct.

“I’m glad that Professor Schizer was able to give us a very clear answer, ‘Yes,’ but you weren’t able to do so,” Rep. Kevin Kiley (R-Calif.) said. “And I think if I were to go through another number of racial slurs and ask you if those are offensive, if those are racist, I don’t think you’d say, ‘I hear them as such, some people don’t,’ would you?”

“I’m happy to give you my personal opinion, but I think the question that you’re really asking me is: Are they forbidden to be said at Columbia?” Shafik said, sidestepping the question.

“That’s not what I’m asking actually. I’m wondering, who are you worried about offending? That’s my question,” Kiley pressed, prompting Shafik to double down on her evasion.

The congressman went on to probe how many hours the Columbia president had spent preparing for the hearing, pointing out she had offered “very divergent responses as to some of the worst offending professors about how they’ve been handled.”

“Why is that? Why can’t you just give us the facts?” Kiley demanded. “Would you be willing to make just a statement right now to any members of the faculty at your university, that if they engage in antisemitic words or conduct that they should find another place to work?”

“Any faculty member at Columbia who behaves in an antisemitic way or in any discriminatory way should find somewhere else to go,” Shafik repeated.

She did admit the school was “not up” to handling the protests, antisemitism and Jewish students’ safety concerns after Oct. 7.

“When I first started at Columbia, our policies, our systems and our enforcement mechanisms were not up to the scale of this challenge,” she said.

“They were designed for a very different world.”

We would prefer not to hear it.

— Columbia University president Minouche Shafik, on students chanting: “From the river to the sea . . .”

‘Gross negligence’

Committee Chair Virginia Foxx accused Shafik of “gross negligence” at the top of Wednesday’s hearing, calling attention to the environment on campus following the Oct. 7 massacre, which killed 1,200 people including 33 Americans.

“Columbia stands guilty of gross negligence at best — and at worst has become a platform for those supporting terrorism and violence against the Jewish people,” said Foxx (R-NC).

Shafik also acknowledged that “trying to reconcile the freespeech rights of those who wanted to protest and the rights of Jewish students to be in an environment free of discrimination and harassment has been the central challenge on our campus.”

That challenge became clear at the start of the hearing, as self-described “anti-Zionist” Columbia students shouted to be let in — and Republican lawmakers grilled the panel about the university’s fostering of antisemitic faculty and permissive approach to violations of its code of conduct.