Rashid Khalidi

Rashid Khalidi’s Participation in the Pro-Hamas Encampment at Columbia University (Columbia), Support for Terrorism & Anti-Semitism

Rashid Khalidi participated in the pro-Hamas encampment at Columbia in May 2024. He has also expressed support for terrorism and justified the Hamas terror atrocities of October 7, 2023. Khalidi has also spread anti-Semitism and hatred of Israel.

Khalidi reportedly worked as a spokesman for the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) in the 1970s. During that decade, branches of the PLO executed multiple terror attacks killing dozens of Israelis, including the 1972 Munich Massacre.

Khalidi is a supporter of the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) movement.

As of February 2024, Khalidi was listed on the Columbia University (Columbia) website as a professor of modern Arab studies in the Department of History. Columbia is located in New York, New York.

As of the same date, he was also listed as a faculty member of Columbia’s Department of Middle Eastern, South Asian, and African Studies (MESAAS).

As of same date, Khalidi was listed online as the editor of the Journal of Palestine Studies and the co-director of Columbia’s Center for Palestine Studies (CPS).

As of February 2024, Khalidi served on the Senior Academic Advisory Board of the Cambridge Centre for Palestine Studies.

Khalidi received a PhD from Oxford University (Oxford) in 1974.

Support for Terrorism

On May 17, 2022, Khalidi gave an interview for Jewish Currents magazine, where he referred to Palestinian terrorists as “Palestinian resistance fighters.” He also labeled their terrorism against Israelis as “acts of spontaneous resistance” and claimed that the “occupation doesn’t have the right to call resistance ‘terrorists.’”

Anti-Israel activists use the term “resistance” to refer to violence and terror perpetrated against Israeli civilians and their allies. It is used to glorify and encourage anti-Israel and anti-Semitic violence. Anti-Israel activists chant slogans such as: “Resistance by any means necessary!” and “Resistance is justified when people are occupied!” in response to terror attacks.

On May 12, 2022, Khalidi gave an interview for “DemocracyNow!” in which he labeled [00:02:56] terrorists of the second intifada as “resistance fighters.” PLO suicide bombers and other PLO terrorists like Marwan Barghouti were part of the second intifada.

The second intifada took place from 2000 to 2005 where Palestinian terrorists carried out over 130 suicide bombings, murdering over 1,000 Israeli civilians and soldiers. Terrorists targeted city buses, shopping centers, dance clubs and cafes. Palestinian leadership encouraged children to carry out “martyrdom” operations against Israel.

On October 30, 2008, the Los Angeles Times reported that Khalidi had worked as a spokesperson for the PLO under the leadership of Yasser Arafat in the 1970s while teaching political studies at the American University of Beirut (AUB).

Yasser Arafat was the former leader of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) and is known by some as the “father of modern terrorism.” Under Arafat, the goal of the PLO was the violent destruction of Israel.

On February 28, 2005, the New York Times quoted Khalidi as saying: “Under international law, resistance to occupation is legitimate.”

On July 8, 2004, the Washington Times reported in an article titled: “Arafat minion as professor,” that Khalidi had been the director of WAFA, the PLO press agency, in 1982.

On June 7, 2002, Khalidi delivered a speech before the National Convention of the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee (ADC) in which he reportedly said: “Killing civilians is a war crime. It’s a violation of international law. They are not soldiers. They’re civilians, they’re unarmed. The ones who are armed, the ones who are soldiers, the ones who are in occupation, that’s different. That’s resistance."

Justifying Hamas Terror Atrocities

On October 18, 2023, less than two weeks after Hamas terrorists murdered 1,200 Israelis on October 7, 2023, Khalidi gave an interview for the “Amanpour and Company” YouTube channel.

Khalidi also said [00:10:02]: “Violence is bred by occupation. Anybody who doesn’t understand that doesn’t understand anything.”

On October 20, 2023, Khalidi gave an interview for El Pais International, where he said, referring to the Palestinians: “If you can’t go to the International Criminal Court or do a BDS…then you pick up a gun… [Israelis] kill babies and women and children. They are unadulterated evil.”

On Saturday, October 7, 2023, approximately 2,900 heavily armed Hamas terrorists breached Israel’s border with Gaza. They executed numerous war crimes on civilians, including mass murder, beheadings of children, rape of men and women, torture, kidnappings and mutilation.

Hamas broadcast videos of their butchery on social media, often to victims’ accounts for families to see. Israel retaliated with a war called “Swords of Iron.” As of November 10, 2023, approximately 1,200 Israelis, the vast majority of them civilians, were murdered during the attacks. Hamas kidnapped 242 Israelis, including at least 30 children. At least 3,500 people were wounded, many severely.

A terrorist detained by Israel admitted he raped an Israeli woman when he broke into a kibbutz house during the October 7, 2023 attack. In March 2024, a former hostage of Hamas publicly stated she was sexually abused and tortured while in captivity.

For more information on the October 7, 2023 terror attacks, see the Canary Mission page on Hamas.

Hamas is a designated terrorist organization founded in 1987 that is dedicated to destroying Israel and killing Jews. Since 2001, Hamas has launched thousands of rockets at Israel and on October 7, 2023, Hamas murdered approximately 1,200 Israelis and kidnapped over 200 hostages, including children and the elderly.

Anti-Semitism and Hatred of Israel

On December 20, 2023, during Israel’s Swords of Iron war against Hamas terrorists, Khalidi gave an interview for “DemocracyNow!” in which he said [00:00:01]: “Israel is both the result of a national project - Zionism, and the result of a settler-colonial project.”

Zionism is the belief that Jews have the right to self-determination in their own national home, and the right to develop their national culture. Zionism is a core part of the identity of most Jews.

Khalidi further discussed [00:00:12] the war and addressed Israeli Jews, saying: “This is a colonial war fought in order to maintain the supremacy of this group, which has taken the country over at the expense of the indigenous Palestinian population.”

One way that anti-Israel activists spread anti-Semitism is by claiming that Jews have no connection to the Land of Israel.

On November 22, 2023, Khalidi published an article where he accused Israel of “mass murder and ethnic cleansing.” He also defended the use of the phrase: “From the River to the Sea,” which he claimed was “a phrase demanding freedom…”

“From the River to the Sea, Palestine will be Free” is a chant used [00:02:47] to call for the elimination of the State of Israel. It has also been employed by Hamas leader Khaled Mashal to call for the replacement of Israel with an Islamic state. In April 2024, the U.S. House of Representatives passed a resolution condemning the chant as antisemitic.

On November 18, 2023, Khalidi wrote an article for the anti-Israel news site Mundoweiss titled: “A paradigm shift in the hundred years’ war on Palestine?” In the article, he alleged that the conflict was a “war between colonizer and colonized, between oppressor and oppressed.”

On May 17, 2022, Khalidi gave an interview for Jewish Currents, where he claimed: “Israel polices the [American] media to make sure that its own mendacious narrative is prominently included.”

Popular anti-Semitic conspiracy theories claim Jews control the world’s finance, media and governments. Some anti-Semites use the term “Zionists” as a euphemism for “Jews” to express supposed Jewish global power.
On May 28, 2021, Khalidi gave an interview to National Public Radio (NPR), where he claimed that Israel committed “ethnic cleansing” and “depopulation” during its war of independence in 1948.

On January 17, 2017, Khalidi participated in a WBEZ Chicago public radio station program titled: “Scholars On Israel And The United Nations.”

During the discussion, Khalidi claimed [00:05:19] that a “group of people, a lot of them in Israel and some of them in the United States…[are] going to infest our government.”

Anti-Israel Activism (BDS)

On March 2, 2016, the Forward news site reported that Khalidi was one of 40 Columbia professors who signed a petition supporting BDS against Israel. The petition was released to coincide with the first day of Israel Apartheid Week (IAW) at Columbia.

Israeli Apartheid Week (IAW) is presented internationally as a “series of events that seeks to raise awareness of…Israel’s settler-colonial project and apartheid system over the Palestinian people.” One of its goals is to build support for the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) movement. IAW has been renamed Palestine Awareness Week.

The petition affirmed the signatories “stand with” anti-Israel groups Columbia University Apartheid Divest (CUAD), as well as Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) and Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP), “in calling upon the University to take a moral stance against Israel’s violence in all its forms.”

Participating in the Pro-Hamas Encampment at Columbia

On May 2, 2024, Khalidi was featured [00:00:01] in an Instagram video speaking at the Columbia encampment. The post featuring Khalidi said: “Columbia University Professor and historian Rashid Khalidi addressed the repression of anti-war student protests at Columbia University…”

In his speech, Khalidi said [00:01:42]: “...when...finally the American people...who’ve already opposed this genocide, are able to force their craven politicians to stop it, which we can do, the United States is part of this war… Shame on them! And shame on the administration of this university! They will go down in infamy…”

Khalidi continued [00:04:57]: “This is not about safety and comfort. This is about a genocide being carried out with American money and with American weapons against a people that has been living under occupation for generation after generation after generation…"

On April 17, 2024, Columbia students and anti-Israel activists set up a pro-Hamas encampment on campus to protest Israel’s war against Hamas and promote BDS. The encampment was forcibly dismantled and approximately 80 Columbia students were arrested.

A new Columbia encampment was erected, during which participants forced their way into the university’s Hamilton Hall, vandalizing [00:00:55] and destroying university property. They barricaded themselves in the building, taking three Columbia custodians hostage. An NYPD raid on the building found knives, gas masks, ropes and literature that read: “...DESTROY zionist business interests everywhere!...DEATH TO AMERICA!...”

The encampment was also in support of the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) movement.

BDS

The Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) movement was founded by Omar Barghouti in 2005 to challenge “international support for Israeli apartheid and settler-colonialism.” BDS is an allegedly “Palestinian-led movement,” although leading BDS activists have admitted [00:01:01] this is not true.

One of the demands of BDS includes [point 3] what is generally known as the “right of return,” a demand discredited as a way to eliminate Israel. Barghouti said the “right of return” is a means to “end Israel’s existence as a Jewish state.”

Barghouti has said that BDS “aims to turn Israel into a pariah state, as South Africa once was.”

In his activism, Barghouti has also said [00:05:55] regarding Israel: “Definitely, most definitely, we oppose a Jewish state in any part of Palestine. No…rational Palestinian, not a sellout Palestinian, will ever accept a Jewish state in Palestine.”

The movement has been linked to numerous terrorist organizations and received a public endorsement from Hamas in 2017.

BDS initiatives include calling on institutions and individuals to divest from Israeli-affiliated companies, promoting academic and cultural boycotts of Israel, and organizing anti-Israel rallies, protests and campaigns.

The movement’s most notable achievement has been the infiltration of university campuses through lobbying for “BDS resolutions.” In these cases, student governments and student groups, backed by their own anti-Israel members and affiliates, have proposed resolutions on some form of boycott of, or divestment from, Israel and Israeli-affiliated entities.

Boycott resolutions, although non-binding, have been passed by student governments on numerous North American campuses.

BDS activity is often aggressive and disruptive. It has been noted that universities that pass BDS resolutions see a marked increase in anti-Semitic incidents on campus. On one campus, when the student government debated a BDS resolution, reports emerged of violent threats against those opposing it.