Radical anti-Israel activists told Columbia students, “There is nothing wrong with being a Hamas fighter” — weeks before the campus erupted in pro-Palestinian protests.
In a two-hour tirade addressed to the hardest core of anti-Israel activists at Columbia and its sister university Barnard, Charlotte Kates, the international coordinator of Samidoun: Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network, said: “These are the people who are on the front line. defend Palestine and fight for its liberation.
The endorsement of a terrorist organization responsible for the mass murder of hundreds of Israelis on October 7 was given by Charlotte Kates who spoke with her husband Khaled Barakat to members of the Apartheid Disengagement Group Columbia University, during a seminar entitled “Resistance 101”.
Barakat and Kates advised Columbia students during the presentation of “Resistance 101” to ignore the press and continue protesting.
“Every protest in New York matters more than all this nonsense happening in the mainstream media,” Barakat told them. “Your work is more important than ever for the resistance in Gaza. »
Kates and Barakat introduced themselves as speaking on behalf of Samidoun, the “Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network,” at the meeting.
In reality, Barakat is a prominent member of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), a designated terrorist organization responsible for a series of attacks against Israeli civilians and closely allied with Hamas and Hezbollah.
Among the attacks for which he has claimed responsibility is the 2014 attack on a Jerusalem synagogue, in which assailants armed with meat cleavers killed four rabbis, including three Israeli-Americans.
The PFLP participated in the October 7 massacres and had already murdered a 17-year-old Israeli girl while she was hiking.
And Samidoun has campaigned for years for the release of Ahmad Sa’adat, the PFLP leader who oversaw years of deadly attacks, some of which were suicide bombings.
While giving a lecture on “resistance” to students at the $60,000-a-year Ivy League university, Barakat and Kates did not discuss the reality of life in the Gaza Strip , where Hamas persecuted LGBT Palestinians and killed its enemies without even the pretense of a trial.
Barakat also failed to mention that he had been banned from entering Germany for years in 2020 due to his anti-Semitic rants.
“Israelis and Nazis are almost identical in the way they look at the victim,” Barakat said in 2013, according to the Middle East Media and Research Institute, a Washington-based think tank, an insult that was followed by ‘Germany. government ban.
Barakat and Kates, an American who now lives in Vancouver, Canada, and has a law degree from Rutgers, didn’t just introduce themselves virtually at Columbia.
In November, Kates participated in a teaching session at CUNY in which she hailed the October 7 pogrom as a “crucial” moment for Hamas’ military wing, according to a social media post.
The “Resistance 101” session was organized by students who have become key figures in the mass protest that began last Thursday and which prompted Jewish students to say they did not feel safe.
Leading pro-Palestinian activist Nerdeen Kiswani, founder of Within Our Lifetime, one of the event’s sponsors, said at the event that she was “sitting at Columbia University.”
Within Our Lifetime has officially endorsed the October 7 attack on Israel and has openly supported Hamas at the frequent rallies it has held in New York since the attack.
The group that invited the terrorist group member, Columbia University Apartheid Divest, is not officially affiliated with the college.
It grew out of the Students for Justice in Palestine project, which was suspended by the college in November of last year.
Unlike many colleges, student groups at Columbia do not require sponsorship from a faculty member.
However, the college took action — at least initially — against some of the “Resistance 101” organizers, suspending them for holding an unauthorized event after refusing permission to hold it at the Barnard Center for Research on Women.
It is unclear whether the group of students admitted they were inviting a member of a banned terrorist group.
Three of the suspended students can be named by The Post as Aidan Parisi, a postgraduate social work student, 27; Maryam Alwan, 21, who studies comparative literature; and Cameron Jones, 19, of Jewish Voice for Peace, who will graduate in 2026.
There is uncertainty over the exact number of students suspended. The Columbia Spectator said six were disciplined but four were readmitted, but on Tuesday the students’ attorney, Stanley Cohen, told the Village Sun the total was 16, 12 of whom had their suspensions lifted.
Parisi, who uses they/them pronouns, is originally from Washington, D.C. and previously studied at the University of California, San Jose.
Their mother is Elizabeth Daugharty, 60, a former U.S. State Department official who is one of three officers who coordinate the government’s efforts for the safe use of nuclear energy around the world.
When The Post contacted Parisi for comment, Parisi called back to say we were not allowed to contact them and accused The Post of “harassment.” Parisi declined to comment on his support for the Palestinian movement even though he is not kind to LGBTQIA people.
“What these universities don’t understand is that you can suspend us, expel us, fire us, arrest us, do anything to us, but we will not stop fighting for Palestine. » Parisi posted to X — where their handle is “She’s Aidan’s Bitch” on Monday. “Your repression has only strengthened our commitment to liberation. With Palestine as our compass, we will never fail.
Alwan, who could not be reached for comment and is Palestinian-American, was also not disappointed, despite being arrested.
“Columbia University may have become a fascist police state, but it can’t stop our joy,” she posted after being kicked off the Columbia lawn by NYPD last week .
Jones, a sophomore history and urban studies major, describes himself as a “lead organizer” of Jewish Voice for Peace. He attended Fiorello H. LaGuardia High School of Music & Art and Performing Arts in Manhattan and was among the students arrested last week.
“As a Jew, I have immense privilege,” Jones told Al Jazeera earlier this year. “So even if I sacrifice my future, if I know that I am making even a small percentage of difference in the lives of Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank, I will continue to fight until my last breath .
Other key organizers of the group behind “Resistance 101” included Catherine Elias, a graduate student in the School of International and Public Affairs, who told Hyperallergic last week as the NYPD moved in on campus of Columbia and arrested more than 100 demonstrators, that “we created this encampment in honor of the martyrs of Gaza, following in the footsteps of all those who came before us.
It is unclear whether she was suspended.
Layla Saliba, a sophomore majoring in social work, was also an organizer with the group Apartheid Divest at Columbia University.
Although Jewish students have expressed fear over anti-Israel protests, she posted on“like I’m not even scared, I’m just a tired grad student.”
New York Post
