Racial Tensions Split Leading Pro-Hamas Group at Columbia University

Identity politics has sundered Columbia University’s leading pro-Hamas student group, CU Apartheid Divest (CUAD), pitting progressive advocates of secular humanism against those who believe that ethnic identity should be the main determiner of who leads the anti-Israel student movement.

First reported by The Columbia Spectator, the split has led to the formation of a new group, Columbia Palestine Solidarity Coalition (CPSC), and in its first public statement, it accused unnamed racial groups of crowding out Palestinian voices.

“We regret CUAD has shifted from a horizontally structured coalition founded on Palestinian liberation to a nebulous organization that is not led by the affinity group of Palestinian student organizers,” CPSP said, according to an op-ed published by the Spectator on Oct. 19. “As a people already denied the right to narrate our struggle, let alone the right to exist, we refuse to have our liberation dictated for us. We refuse to allow anyone to speak over us any longer.”

With its announcement, CPSC specified that a Palestinian “affinity” group will head the new organization.

Affinity groups, which first emerged on college campuses following the advent of racial preferences, are segregated student groups which admit, and sometimes exclude, members based on racial and ethnic origin. Columbia University has authorized dozens of such groups, including the Black Student Organization (BSO), Student Organization of Latinxs (SOL), and the Asian American Alliance (AAA). Some groups have designated “community spaces” on campus. For example the university describes the Malcolm X Lounge as a “safe space for students of African descent” that is “operated by the Black students Organization.”

CUAD has proven to be one of the most disruptive pro-Hamas student groups in the country since last academic year, when Hamas’s Oct. 7 massacre across southern Israel set off an explosion of anti-Zionist activity.

In April, its members commandeered a section of campus and, after declaring it a “liberated zone,” lit flares and chanted pro-Hamas and anti-American slogans, according to numerous reports. When the New York City Police Department (NYPD) arrived to disperse the unauthorized gathering, hundreds of students reportedly amassed around them to prevent the restoration of order.

“Yes, we’re all Hamas, pig!” one protester was filmed screaming during the fracas, which saw some verbal skirmishes between pro-Zionist and anti-Zionist partisans. “Long live Hamas!” said others who filmed themselves dancing and praising the al-Qassam Brigades, the military wing of the Hamas terrorist organization. “Kill another soldier!” they also shouted.

In September, during the university’s convocation ceremony, CUAD distributed literature calling on students to join the Palestinian terrorist group’s movement to destroy Israel.

“This booklet is part of a coordinated and intentional effort to uphold the principles of the thawabit and the Palestinian resistance movement overall by transmitting the words of the resistance directly,” said a pamphlet distributed by CUAD, a Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) spinoff, to incoming freshmen. “This material aims to build popular support for the Palestinian war of national liberation, a war which is waged through armed struggle.”

Other sections of the pamphlet were explicitly Islamist, invoking the name of “Allah, the most gracious” and referring to Hamas as the “Islamic Resistance Movement.” Proclaiming, “Glory to Gaza that gave hope to the oppressed, that humiliated the ‘invincible’ Zionist army,” it said its purpose was to build an army of Muslims worldwide.

CPSC now argues that CUAD has “lost focus” of its true aim.

“Statements and actions by CUAD in recent months have alienated and abandoned Palestinian students in the name of pursuing ideology,” it said in last month’s op-ed. “By forming a new Palestinian-led coalition dedicated to divestment, we evolve and redirect: Palestine will be the compass of the pro-Palestinian movement on campus, with Palestinian students its bearers. To do so, we universally uphold two political tenets: the right to return and the right to resist.”

The organization will likely be more extreme than its predecessor, Columbia University freshmen Shoshana Aufzien told The Algemeiner on Thursday.

“The schism was inevitable. CUAD leverages students’ ignorance, exploiting [social justice warriors] and sheeple alike” Aufzien said. “While CPSC claims to ‘center Palestinian’ voices,’ their rhetoric remains virtually indistinguishable from CUAD’s. Both groups propagate misinformation, foment antisemitism, and condone terror.”

Dion J. Pierre @DionJPierre.

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