Weeks before pro-Palestinian protests erupted on campus, radical anti-Israel activists told Columbia University students there was “no problem with being Hamas fighters.”
Charlotte Cates, international coordinator of Samidoun: Palestine POW Solidarity Network, said during a fierce two-hour attack on some of the most core anti-Israel activists at Columbia University and its sister school, Barnard College. Defending Palestine and fighting for its liberation. ”
She told members of the Columbia University Apartheid Divest Group, along with her husband Khalid Barakat, at a seminar called “Resistance 101” that she supported the terrorist organization that killed hundreds of Israelis on October 7. It was Charlotte Cates.
Barakat and Kates advised Columbia students during their “Resistance 101” presentation to ignore the press and continue demonstrating.
“All the protests in New York are more important than all this nonsense going on in the mainstream media,” Barakat told them. “Your work is more important than ever to the Gaza resistance.”
Cates and Barakat spoke at the meeting on behalf of Samidoun, the Palestine POW Solidarity Network.
In fact, Barakat is a senior 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 aligned with both Hamas and Hezbollah. .
Among the outrageous acts the agency has claimed responsibility for is the 2014 attack on a Jerusalem synagogue in which an assailant armed with a butcher knife killed four rabbis, three of them Israeli-Americans. was.
The PFLP took part in the October 7 massacre and previously killed a 17-year-old Israeli girl while hiking.
Samidoun has long campaigned for the release of PFLP leader Ahmad Sa’adat, who oversaw suicide bombings and other murders over the years.
While lecturing students at their $60,000-a-year Ivy League university about “resistance,” Mr. Barakat and Mr. Cates did not discuss the realities of life in the Gaza Strip. In the Gaza Strip, Hamas persecuted LGBT Palestinians and killed its opponents without the pretext of trial.
Barakat also failed to mention that he was banned from entering Germany for years in 2020 for anti-Semitic abuse.
According to the Middle East Media and Research Institute, a Washington-based think tank, Barakat said in 2013 that “Israelis and Nazis are pretty much the same in terms of how they view victims.” This slander is said to have been followed by the Germans. Government ban.
Barakat and Kates are Americans who currently live in Vancouver, Canada, and are pursuing law degrees from Rutgers University, but they didn’t just show up to Columbia University virtually.
Cates attended a “teaching” session at the City University of New York in November and praised the October 7 pogrom as a “pivotal” moment for Hamas’ military wing, according to social media posts.
The “Resistance 101” sessions were organized by students who were at the center of mass protests that began last Thursday, with Jewish students saying they felt unsafe.
One of the event’s sponsors, Within Our Lifetime founder and ubiquitous pro-Palestinian activist Nerdeen Kiswani, said he was “sitting at Columbia University” during the event.
Within Our Lifetime publicly supported the October 7 attack on Israel and has vocally supported Hamas at frequent rallies in New York City since the attack.
The group that invited members of the terrorist organization, Columbia University Apartheid Divest, is not officially affiliated with the university.
It grew out of the Student Movement for Justice in Palestine, which was suspended by the university last November.
Unlike many universities, Columbia University’s student organizations do not require faculty sponsorship.
But the university, at least initially, took action against some of the Resistance 101 organizers, denying them permission to hold the event at the Barnard Center for Women’s Studies, and then suspending them for hosting an unauthorized event. did.
It is unclear whether the student group admitted to inviting members of a banned terrorist organization.
The Post may name three of the suspended students as Aidan Parisi, 27, a social work graduate student. Mariam Alwan (21), a senior studying comparative literature. and Cameron Jones, 19, of Jewish Voice for Peace, who is scheduled to graduate in 2026.
The exact number of students who have been suspended is unknown. The Columbia Spectator said: Six people were disciplined and four were readmitted, student attorney Stanley Cohen said Tuesday. told the Village Sun There were 16 players in total, 12 of whom had their suspensions lifted.
Parisi, who uses they/them pronouns, is from Washington, D.C., and previously studied at the University of California, San Jose.
Their mother is Elizabeth Dougherty, 60, a veteran U.S. State Department official and one of three officials coordinating the government’s efforts to ensure the safe use of nuclear energy around the world.
When the Post contacted Parisi for comment, Parisi called back and said we had no right to contact them and accused the Post of “stalking.” Parisi declined to comment on supporting the Palestinian cause, even if it is not kind to LGBTQIA people.
“What these universities don’t understand is that you can suspend us, evict us, fire us, arrest us, do whatever you want, but we will not stop fighting for Palestine.” Parisi posted to X on Monday. His handle is “It’s Aidan bitch.” “Your repression has only further strengthened our commitment to liberation. With Palestine as our compass, we will never fail.”
Alwan, a Palestinian-American who could not be reached for comment, also persevered despite his arrest.
“Columbia University may have turned into a fascist police state, but that can’t stop us from celebrating,” she posted after it was removed from Columbia University’s lawn by the NYPD last week.
Jones, a sophomore majoring in history and urban studies, calls herself the “lead organizer” of Jewish Voice for Peace. He attended the Fiorello H. LaGuardia High School of Music, Arts and Performing Arts in Manhattan and was one of the students arrested last week.
“As a Jew, I have immense privilege.” Jones told Al Jazeera earlier this year.. “So even if it means sacrificing my future, if I know I am making even the slightest difference in the lives of Palestinians in Gaza or the West Bank, I will continue to fight until my last breath. intend to.
Other key organizers of the group behind “Resistance 101” are Katherine Elias, a graduate student in the School of International and Public Affairs, who said: Highly allergic l“In the footsteps of our predecessors, we created this encampment in honor of the martyrs of Gaza,” the same week that New York City police entered the Columbia campus and arrested more than 100 protesters. ” he claimed.
It is unclear whether she has been suspended.
A second social work graduate student, Leila Saliba, was also an organizer with the Columbia University Apartheid Divest Group.
Even as Jewish students spoke of their fear of anti-Israel protests, she Posted in X“As if I’m not scared, I’m just a tired grad student.”
