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    I spent decades at Columbia. I’m withdrawing my fall course due to its deal with Trump | Rashid Khalidi

    Dear Acting President Shipman,I am writing you an open letter since you have seen fit to communicate the recent decisions of the board of trustees and the administration in a similar fashion.These decisions, taken in close collaboration with the Trump administration, have made it impossible for me to teach modern Middle East history, the field of my scholarship and teaching for more than 50 years, 23 of them at Columbia. Although I have retired, I was scheduled to teach a large lecture course on this topic in the fall as a “special lecturer”, but I cannot do so under the conditions Columbia has accepted by capitulating to the Trump administration in June.Specifically, it is impossible to teach this course (and much else) in light of Columbia’s adoption of the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) definition of antisemitism. The IHRA definition deliberately, mendaciously and disingenuously conflates Jewishness with Israel, so that any criticism of Israel, or indeed description of Israeli policies, becomes a criticism of Jews. Citing its potential chilling effect, a co-author of the IHRA definition, Professor Kenneth Stern, has repudiated its current uses. Yet Columbia has announced that it will serve as a guide in disciplinary proceedings.Under this definition of antisemitism, which absurdly conflates criticism of a nation-state, Israel, and a political ideology, Zionism, with the ancient evil of Jew-hatred, it is impossible with any honesty to teach about topics such as the history of the creation of Israel, and the ongoing Palestinian Nakba, culminating in the genocide being perpetrated by Israel in Gaza with the connivance and support of the US and much of western Europe.The Armenian genocide, the nature of the absolute monarchies and military dictatorships that blight most of the Arab world, the undemocratic theocracy in Iran, the incipient dictatorial regime in Türkiye, the fanaticism of Wahhabism: all of these are subject to detailed analysis in my course lectures and readings. However, a simple description of the discriminatory nature of Israel’s 2018 Nation State Law – which states that only the Jewish people have the right of self-determination in Israel, half of whose subjects are Palestinian – or of the apartheid nature of its control over millions of Palestinians who have been under military occupation for 58 years would be impossible in a Middle East history course under the IHRA definition of antisemitism.It is not only faculty members’ academic freedom and freedom of speech that is infringed upon by Columbia’s capitulation to Trump’s diktat. Teaching assistants would be seriously constrained in leading discussion sections, as would students in their questions and discussions, by the constant fear that informers would snitch on them to the fearsome apparatus that Columbia has erected to punish speech critical of Israel, and to crack down on alleged discrimination – which at this moment in history almost invariably amounts simply to opposition to this genocide. Scores of students and many faculty members have been subjected to these kangaroo courts, students such as Mahmoud Khalil have been snatched from their university housing, and Columbia has now promised to render this repressive system even more draconian and opaque.You have stated that no “red lines” have been crossed by these decisions. However, Columbia has appointed a vice-provost initially tasked with surveilling Middle Eastern studies, and it has ordained that faculty and staff must submit to “trainings” on antisemitism from the likes of the Anti-Defamation League, for whom virtually any critique of Zionism or Israel is antisemitic, and Project Shema, whose trainings link many anti-Zionist critiques to antisemitism. It has accepted an “independent” monitor of “compliance” of faculty and student behavior from a firm that in June 2025 hosted an event in honor of Israel. According to Columbia’s agreement with the Trump administration, this “Monitor will have timely access to interview all Agreement-related individuals, and visit all Agreement-related facilities, trainings, transcripts of Agreement-related meetings and disciplinary hearings, and reviews”. Classrooms are pointedly NOT excluded from possible visits from these external non academics.The idea that the teaching, syllabuses and scholarship of some of the most prominent academics in their fields should be vetted by such a vice-provost, such “trainers” or an outside monitor from such a firm is abhorrent. It constitutes the antithesis of the academic freedom that you have disingenuously claimed will not be infringed by this shameful capitulation to the anti-intellectual forces animating the Trump administration.I regret deeply that Columbia’s decisions have obliged me to deprive the nearly 300 students who have registered for this popular course – as many hundreds of others have done for more than two decades – of the chance to learn about the history of the modern Middle East this fall. Although I cannot do anything to compensate them fully for depriving them of the opportunity to take this course, I am planning to offer a public lecture series in New York focused on parts of this course that will be streamed and available for later viewing. Proceeds, if any, will go to Gaza’s universities, every one of which has been destroyed by Israel with US munitions, a war crime about which neither Columbia nor any other US university has seen fit to say a single word.Columbia’s capitulation has turned a university that was once a site of free inquiry and learning into a shadow of its former self, an anti-university, a gated security zone with electronic entry controls, a place of fear and loathing, where faculty and students are told from on high what they can teach and say, under penalty of severe sanctions. Disgracefully, all of this is being done to cover up one of the greatest crimes of this century, the ongoing genocide in Gaza, a crime in which Columbia’s leadership is now fully complicit. – Rashid Khalidi

    Rashid Khalidi is the Edward Said professor emeritus of modern Arab studies at Columbia University and author of The Hundred Years’ War on Palestine More

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    US ambassador to Israel says US no longer pursuing goal of independent Palestinian state

    Mike Huckabee, the US ambassador to Israel, has said that the US is no longer pursuing the goal of an independent Palestinian state, marking what analysts describe as the most explicit abandonment yet of a cornerstone of US Middle East diplomacy.Asked during an interview with Bloomberg News if a Palestinian state remains a goal of US policy, he replied: “I don’t think so.”The former Arkansas governor chosen by Donald Trump as his envoy to Israel went further by suggesting that any future Palestinian entity could be carved out of “a Muslim country” rather than requiring Israel to cede territory.“Unless there are some significant things that happen that change the culture, there’s no room for it,” Huckabee was quoted as saying. Those probably won’t happen “in our lifetime”, he told the news agency.When pressed on Palestinian aspirations in the West Bank, where 3 million Palestinians live under Israeli occupation, Huckabee employed Israeli government terminology, asking: “Does it have to be in Judea and Samaria?”Trump, in his first term, was relatively tepid in his approach to a two-state solution, a longtime pillar of US Middle East policy, and he has given little sign of where he stands on the issue in his second term.The state department did not immediately respond to requests for comment. Middle East analysts said the comments made explicit a shift that has been broadly expected.“This is not at all surprising given what we’ve seen in the last four-plus months, including the administration’s open support for expelling the population of Gaza, the legitimization of Israeli settlement and annexation policies,” said Khaled Elgindy, a scholar at Georgetown University’s Center for Contemporary Arab Studies and former adviser to Palestinian negotiators.“This is an administration that is committed to Palestinian erasure, both physical and political,” Elgindy said. “The signs were there even in the first Trump term, which nominally supported a Palestinian ‘state’ that was shorn of all sovereignty and under permanent Israeli control. At least now they’ve abandoned the pretense.”Yousef Munayyer, head of Palestine/Israel Program at the Arab Center Washington DC, said Huckabee was merely articulating what US policy has long demonstrated in practice. “Mike Huckabee is saying out loud what US actions have been saying for decades and across different administrations,” he said. “Whatever commitments have been made in statements about a Palestinian state over time, US policy has never matched those stated commitments and only undercut them.”The ambassador’s position has deep roots in his evangelical Christian beliefs and longstanding support for Israeli settlement expansion. During his 2008 presidential campaign, Huckabee said: “There is no such thing as a Palestinian.” In a 2017 visit to the occupied West Bank, he rejected the concept of Israeli occupation entirely.“I think Israel has title deed to Judea and Samaria,” said Huckabee at the time. “There are certain words I refuse to use. There is no such thing as a West Bank. It’s Judea and Samaria. There’s no such thing as a settlement. They’re communities, they’re neighborhoods, they’re cities. There’s no such thing as an occupation.”What distinguishes Huckabee, Munayyer argued, has been his willingness to be explicit about objectives that previous officials had kept veiled. “What makes Huckabee unique is that he is shameless enough to admit out loud the goal of erasing the Palestinian people.”skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionThe analysts add that Huckabee’s explicit rejection of Palestinian statehood, which comes as the war in Gaza has killed tens of thousands of Palestinians and displaced most of the territory’s more than 2 million residents, would also create diplomatic complications for US allies.“This will put European and Arab states in a bind, since they are still strongly committed to two states but have always deferred to Washington,” Elgindy said.Hours after Huckabee’s comments were reported, the US imposed sanctions on a leading Palestinian human rights organization, Addameer, as well as five charity groups in the Middle East and Europe, claiming that they support Palestinian militants.The US treasury department alleged that Addameer, which provides legal services to Palestinians detained by Israel or the Palestinian Authority in the occupied West Bank, “has long supported and is affiliated” with the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), a militant group classified as a terrorist organization by the US and EU.Israel raided the West Bank offices of Addameer and other groups in 2022 over their alleged PFLP links. The United Nations condemned that raid at the time, saying that Israeli authorities had not presented to the UN any credible evidence to justify their declarations.The Guardian later reported that a classified CIA report showed the agency had been unable to find any evidence to support Israel’s description of the group as a “terrorist organization”. More

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    Palestinian Authority President Says Hamas Must Exit Gaza

    Mahmoud Abbas gave assurances to President Emmanuel Macron of France, who has set conditions for possible recognition of a Palestinian state at a U.N. conference next week.Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian Authority president, has called for Hamas to “hand over its weapons,” immediately free all hostages and cease ruling Gaza, the French presidency said on Tuesday after receiving a letter from him.The letter was addressed to President Emmanuel Macron of France and Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman of Saudi Arabia, who will jointly chair a U.N. conference in New York next week to explore the creation of a Palestinian state. Mr. Macron has set a number of conditions for the possible French recognition of such a state at that meeting, including the disarmament of Hamas.“Hamas will no longer rule Gaza and must hand over its weapons and military capabilities to the Palestinian security forces,” Mr. Abbas said in the letter, according to a statement from the Élysée Palace. He added that the Palestinian forces would oversee the removal of Hamas with Arab and international support, an undertaking that is certain to provoke skepticism in Israel, and probably also in Washington.“Hamas must immediately release all hostages and captives,” the letter said, reiterating a demand that Mr. Abbas has made before.A bitter feud has divided Mr. Abbas’s Palestinian Authority, which administers parts of the West Bank, and Hamas in Gaza for many years. The rival factions in the two Palestinian territories have defied several attempts at reconciliation, something that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel has seized on to dismiss a two-state solution.Mr. Abbas condemned the Oct. 7 Hamas-led attack on Israel that killed about 1,200 people in some of the strongest terms that he has used, calling it “unacceptable and reprehensible.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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    In Israel’s Demolition Path, West Bank Residents Pack Up Their Lives

    When Israel informed the Palestinian Authority that it planned to demolish dozens of buildings in crowded parts of a border city in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, the notification set off a panic.Hundreds of Palestinians in the border city, Tulkarm, learned that they would likely not be returning to their homes at the end of a sweeping Israeli offensive in the northern West Bank.“They’re causing a disaster,” said Nihad al-Shawish, the head of the services committee in the Nur Shams camp in Tulkarm.Since January, the Israeli military has conducted a large-scale military operation in three camps in the northern West Bank, displacing tens of thousands of people and causing widespread destruction. Israeli officials, who say the purpose of the campaign is to target militants and their weapons, have said the military should be prepared to remain in the camps for a year.The military has said the latest demolition of homes in Tulkarm was meant to make the city’s two camps, Tulkarm and Nur Shams, more accessible to Israeli forces and to prevent militants from regrouping there.Many Palestinians believe Israel is seeking to transform the camps, which have housed refugees and their descendants, into neighborhoods like the rest of Tulkarm.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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    ‘What is left of our democracy?’: freed Palestinian human rights advocate warns of US authoritarian rule

    Mohsen Mahdawi, the Palestinian green-card holder and Columbia University student freed on Wednesday after more than two weeks in immigration detention, has issued a stark warning about the US’s descent into authoritarianism.“Once the repression of dissent, in the name of security, becomes a key objective of a government, authoritarian rule and even martial law are not far off. When they look at my case, all Americans should ask themselves: what is left of our democracy, and who will be targeted next?” said Mahddawi in an op-ed for the New York Times.Mahdawi, a Palestinian human rights advocate based in Vermont, was detained and ordered deported by the Trump administration on 14 April despite not being prosecuted of any crime – and without due process. The philosophy student was arrested by masked Ice agents in Colchester, Vermont, during what should have been his citizenship naturalization interview.He is among a growing number of international students who have been ordered deported for their Palestinian rights advocacy by the Trump administration, which is using an obscure law to accuse these individuals of posing a threat to US foreign policy interests. Unlike the others, Mahdawi avoided being sent to a Louisiana detention facility after the Ice agents narrowly missed the flight, allowing his attorneys to challenge the deportation order in Vermont.“Despite spending 16 nights in a jail cell, I never lost hope in the inevitability of justice and the principles of democracy. I wanted to become a citizen of this country because I believe in the principles that it enshrines,” writes Mahdawi.“The American government accuses me of undermining US foreign policy, a patently absurd pretext for deportation for political speech that the Trump administration dislikes. The government is scraping the bottom of the barrel in its attempts to smear me. My only ‘crime’ is refusing to accept the slaughter of Palestinians, opposing war and promoting peace. I have simply insisted that international law must be respected. I believe the way to a just and long-lasting peace for Palestinians and Israelis is through diplomacy and restorative justice.”Mahdawi was born and raised in a refugee camp in the occupied West Bank, where as a child he bore witness to the death of his brother after he was denied access to medical care, and the detention and imprisonment of multiple close relatives including his grandfather and father by Israeli forces.Moving to the US in 2014 was his first experience of freedom, he said.“Ultimately, I sought American citizenship not only because I did not want to lose the freedom I enjoyed as a permanent resident but even more so because I believe in the principles and values of democracy, which this country stipulates in its founding documents,” he wrote in the Times.“These very freedoms are under attack today, both for me and for others like me. The Trump administration is hewing to Israel’s playbook: Under the thinly veiled guise of security, rights are being denied and due process eliminated.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotion“By seeking to deport me, the Trump administration is sending a clear message: There is no room for dissent, free speech be damned. It seems willing to shield an extremist Israeli government from criticism at the expense of constitutional rights, all while suppressing the possibility of a peaceful future for both Palestinians and Israelis, a future free of trauma and fear.”Israel’s war on Gaza since the 7 October 2023 Hamas attack has killed at least 52,000 Palestinians, mostly women and children, according to Palestinian health authorities. Thousands more people are missing and feared dead, while tens of thousands have suffered injuries and preventable diseases including acute malnutrition.In the ruling ordering Mahdawi’s release on bail on Wednesday, Judge Geoffrey W Crawford wrote: “Legal residents not charged with crimes or misconduct are being arrested and threatened with deportation for stating their views on the political issues of the day.” He likened the Trump administration’s crackdown on students and free speech to the red scare and the McCarthy era.Upon his release, Mahdawi told supporters and the media: “I am saying it clear and loud. To President Trump and his cabinet: I am not afraid of you.” More

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    A Columbia Activist Sought Middle Ground on Gaza. The U.S. Detained Him.

    Mohsen Mahdawi was arrested at a citizenship interview in Vermont. He had spent a decade trying to understand the conflict that shaped his life, his supporters say.As Columbia University’s student protest movement careened toward the center of the nation’s political discourse last year, one of its most ardent leaders suddenly fell quiet.Mohsen Mahdawi had been a key organizer of pro-Palestinian demonstrations, but he said he walked away from that role in March 2024 — well before the rallies reached a fever pitch as students set up encampments and broke into a campus building.A fissure had been growing. By the fall of 2024 it had widened: Parts of the movement were becoming more radical, and some students were distributing fliers during a campus demonstration glorifying violent resistance. Mr. Mahdawi, meanwhile, was approaching Israeli students, hoping to find middle ground in the divisive Israeli-Palestinian conflict that, for decades, had unleashed horrors on both sides and in his own life.He told friends that he was being sidelined in part because he wanted to engage in dialogue with supporters of Israel, a stance many pro-Palestinian activists reject.His calls for compassion did not protect him from President Trump’s widening dragnet against pro-Palestinian student organizers on campus.At an appointment to obtain U.S. citizenship on Monday in Vermont, Mr. Mahdawi, who is expected to graduate next month from Columbia, was taken into custody by immigration police.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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    Death of Palestinian American Boy in West Bank Sparks Outcry

    Amer Rabee, 14, was fatally shot Sunday by Israeli forces in the West Bank, according to his family. On Tuesday, community leaders gathered in New Jersey to demand justice.Members of northern New Jersey’s Palestinian community gathered on Tuesday to condemn the recent killing of a Palestinian American boy by Israeli soldiers in the West Bank.The boy, Amer Rabee, 14, was shot and killed in the town of Turmus Aya on Sunday, his family said. Two other Palestinian American teenagers who were with Amer at the time were shot and injured by the soldiers, the family said.Amer, who was originally from Saddle Brook, N.J., moved with his family to the West Bank around 2013. The family said that since then, it had divided its time between the West Bank and New Jersey.At a news conference on Tuesday, community leaders stood at a small wooden lectern at the Palestinian American Community Center in Clifton, N.J., to decry Amer’s death and call on the U.S. government to investigate the shooting. They were joined by Rami Jbara, an uncle of Amer’s, and by Amer’s father, Mohammed Rabee, who called in remotely from the West Bank.“We cannot let this horrific crime be swept under the rug,” said Rania Mustafa, the center’s executive director.“Our stories are consistently ignored,” she added. “Our people are consistently dehumanized. Our deaths are repeatedly ignored.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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    What We Know About the Detentions of Student Protesters

    The Trump administration is looking to deport pro-Palestinian students who are legally in the United States, citing national security. Critics say that violates free speech protections.Secretary of State Marco Rubio said that the State Department under his direction had revoked the visas of more than 300 people and was continuing to revoke visas daily.Pool photo by Nathan HowardThe Trump administration is trying to deport pro-Palestinian students and academics who are legally in the United States, a new front in its clash with elite schools over what it says is their failure to combat antisemitism.The White House asserts that these moves — many of which involve immigrants with visas and green cards — are necessary because those taken into custody threaten national security. But some legal experts say that the administration is trampling on free speech rights and using lower-level laws to crack down on activism.Secretary of State Marco Rubio said on Thursday that the State Department under his direction had revoked the visas of more than 300 people and was continuing to revoke visas daily. He did not specify how many of those people had taken part in campus protests or acted to support Palestinians.Mr. Rubio gave that number at a news conference, after noting that the department had revoked the visa of a Turkish graduate student at Tufts University. He did not give details on the other revocations.Immigration officials are known to have pursued at least nine people in apparent connection to this effort since the start of March.The detentions and efforts to deport people who are in the country legally reflect an escalation of the administration’s efforts to restrict immigration, as it also seeks to deport undocumented immigrants en masse.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More