Student groups at Columbia and other U.S. colleges are gearing up for further demonstrations on Monday, which marks one year since Hamas’s Oct. 7 terror attack on Israel.
By Jessica Costescu, The Washington Free Beacon
A Columbia University student group praised Tuesday’s Tel Aviv terrorist attack that killed seven innocent Israelis, including a mother who died while shielding her 9-month-old baby.
That “bold attack,” Columbia University Apartheid Divest (CUAD) wrote in an essay, “serves as a reminder that the struggle is not confined to Gaza or Lebanon.”
“On October 1, in a significant act of resistance, a shooting took place in Tel Aviv, targeting Israeli security forces and settlers,” the group wrote Thursday on its Substack.
“This bold attack comes amid the ongoing escalation of violence in the region and highlights the growing resolve of those resisting Israeli occupation. The shooting serves as a reminder that the struggle is not confined to Gaza or Lebanon but has now reached deep into the heart of settler-colonial territory, further destabilizing the Zionist regime’s claims to security and control.”
The pro-terror rhetoric reflects the radical nature of CUAD, which helped organize the anti-Israel and anti-Semitic protests that plagued Columbia in the spring, including the illegal encampments and violent campus building takeover.
Student groups at Columbia and other U.S. colleges are now gearing up for further demonstrations on Monday, which marks one year since Hamas’s Oct. 7 terror attack on Israel.
CUAD has promoted an “October 7th Flood New York City for Palestine” rally organized by Within Our Lifetime, a notorious anti-Semitic group that routinely praises Hamas and Hezbollah.
“Stand with Gaza and uplift the Palestinian people resisting genocide by any means necessary since 1948,” the group wrote in a tweet announcing the protest.
Though CUAD’s Thursday post says the Tel Aviv terror attack, which Hamas took credit for, targeted “Israeli security forces and settlers,” it actually killed innocent Israelis and others, including Jonas Chrosis, a Greek citizen living in Jerusalem to study architecture.
“He expressed infinite optimism in the face of every difficulty that came his way,” one of Chrosis’s classmates said after his death. “He was talented, funny, and humble. He was always kind to the people around him and was a loyal friend who saw the good in everyone. He was a talented piano player.”
Another victim, 33-year-old mother Inbar Segev-Vigder, was murdered while shielding her 9-month-old son Ari, saving his life.
CUAD also praised Iran’s massive missile attack on the Jewish state that began just after the deadly terrorist attack.
“Later on the night of October 1, a significant leap in the resistance occurred when Iran launched ballistic missile strikes directly targeting Tel Aviv, marking a critical escalation in the confrontation with the Zionist regime.
This bold move signifies a turning point in the region’s resistance to Israeli occupation and aggression,” CUAD wrote before declaring former Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah a “martyr” killed “in service of the liberation of Palestine.”
Eden Yadegar, a Columbia senior who leads the school’s Students Supporting Israel group, questioned “why Columbia has become a hotbed for the glorification of terror and what university leadership is doing about it.”
“It’s no surprise that the students and faculty aligned with CUAD are cheering on the IRGC and the Palestinian terrorists that murdered seven Israeli civilians at a train station,” Yadegar told the Washington Free Beacon, “when Columbia has enabled a culture in which support for terrorism is normalized.”
Columbia did not respond to a request for comment.