Students react after Columbia succumbs to Zionist donor pressure

The Columbia University students who are at the centre of anti-war protests that have taken campuses across the United States by storm are pressing the management of their university to push back against pro-Israel donors.

For weeks, student-led peaceful demonstrations have set up camps and taken out rallies at major American universities as they press the institutions to cut ties with Israel, which is accused of carrying out genocide in Gaza.

On the other hand, wealthy Jewish businessmen have threatened to cut back funding to the universities if they don’t clamp down against the pro-Palestine demonstrators.

Columbia University on Tuesday informed students that it was moving all classes online until the end of the spring term. The decision came a day after Robert Kraft, one of the school's major donors, announced that he will cease funding the university until “corrective action is taken.”

Kraft, a sports executive with interests in real estate and packaging, also influenced other donors who gave millions of dollars to the school for building projects and scholarships.

“(Columbia) administration is evidently prioritising their own interests, to our dismay. They are giving more weight to the voices of their donors rather than listening to students and faculty,” says Maliha, a master’s student at Columbia.

Maliha, who has been actively participating in the protests, tells TRT World that Columbia has a significant presence of powerful Zionist entities, which exert similar influence as powerful lobbies do over the White House.

Some university donors have directly attacked students and faculty for exercising their right to protest against blatant human rights violations in Gaza where Israel has killed more than 33,000 people.

Leon Cooperman, a hedge fund manager, who cut off donations shortly after Israel attacked Gaza on October 7, drawing condemnation from human rights activists, said in a recent interview that he will continue with a pause on donations to the school.

“These kids are f****g crazy. They don’t understand what they’re doing or what they’re talking about,” Cooperman said, expressing support for the university president for “finally responding properly.”

He said that he had directly communicated with President Minouche Shafik, telling her to "stop hiring these left-wing professors that fill kids with hate," and added, "this diversity, equity, and inclusion is all b******t."

Shafik has faced criticism for calling the police on April 18th to dismantle solidarity encampments on campus gardens.

This was the first time in over 50 years that police entered the Columbia campus. The last time something like this happened was in 1968, when students staged anti-war protests against the US army's involvement in the Vietnam War.

The university administration's heavy-handed response was evidently driven by fear of losing its largest funders, many of whom are billionaire Zionists, rather than genuinely prioritising “both the right to expression and the safety and functioning of the university,” as it claimed.

Besides the pressure coming from above, Zionist groups within the campus have also tried to discredit the protestors.

Maliha says some people among the student body have been taught Zionist values from a young age and they genuinely believe in the Israeli military action,

“What we're witnessing on campus is a blend of both institutionalised and grassroots Zionism, with lobbying and advocacy in action.”

Pro-Israeli lobbying groups American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) and the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) are highly active in academic institutions across the US.

These groups reportedly played a role in resignations of University of Pennsylvania President Liz Magill and Harvard President Claudine Gay after they took the side of the students who were protesting against the Israeli aggression.

Zionist harassment ignored

After Kraft, the billionaire businessman, went on a media tour to condemn the students' protests, a Columbia University spokesperson gave an apologetic response, saying in an interview that the institution was "grateful" for Kraft’s long standing support.

While displaying tolerance towards the hateful remarks of its financial backers and promptly addressing their concerns, the university failed to take any significant steps to ensure the safety of its students.

Students of Columbia, like several other US universities, have been harassed by pro-Israeli groups. Some of these Zionist groups put pictures and names of the protesting students on trucks that went around the streets portraying them like they are anti-Semitic.

Some students say that their peers were doxxed even if they didn't actively participate in the protests.

“The trucks roamed the streets around the campus for days, yet no real action was taken,” says a master’s student at Columbia, who prefers to remain anonymous due to security concerns.

“A professor who openly assisted in these blacklistings was not expelled or faced any consequences from investigations against him,” she told TRT World.