In recent weeks, Columbia University and other academic institutions have taken disciplinary action against students and student groups whose protests have crossed the line from political activism to outright antisemitism. Amid the crackdown, Mahmoud Khalil, a former Columbia graduate student, was detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement because of an executive order targeting antisemitism.
The backlash to his detention and student suspensions is just the latest example of how selective activism exposes antisemitism. Some victims of the Oct. 7 attack have brought forth a federal lawsuit alleging Khalil and other student activists have ties to Hamas, an internationally recognized terrorist organization. However, his supporters argue he is being targeted for free speech.
Universities must ensure all students — including Jewish students — can learn in an environment free from intimidation and hate. These suspensions are not a suppression of free speech; they are a necessary response to actions that, if directed at any other minority group, would be widely condemned.
Some human rights activists have failed to properly acknowledge Hamas’s war crimes, the cruelty of holding innocent civilians hostage, and countless other humanitarian aid abuses. Former hostage Eli Sharabi even said, in his address to the U.N. Security Council, “I know you discuss the humanitarian situation in Gaza very often, but let me tell you as an eyewitness, I saw what happened to that aid: Hamas stole it.”
This hypocrisy is deeper than the campus protests; it reflects a larger issue in which activists fail to fight for the oppressed when it doesn’t fit their agenda of villainizing Israel.
Nothing highlights the hypocrisy of these so-called “human rights activists” more than their painting of Khalil as a “hostage,” while remaining silent about actual hostages held by Hamas in Gaza — innocent civilians including Americans like Keith Siegel, Hersh Goldberg-Polin, Omer Neutra (a Binghamton-admitted student) and Edan Alexander, just to name a few.
While Columbia University Apartheid Divest, a group that Khalil was a leader of, has advocated for racial justice and condemned the use of political imprisonment in apartheid South Africa, little activism has focused on Avera Mengistu, an Ethiopian-Israeli hostage with mental health issues who crossed into Gaza and was held captive by Hamas for over 10 years.
This kind of selective activism isn’t about human rights — it’s about attacking Jews.
Make no mistake about Khalil. He was not simply expressing a political opinion or criticizing Israeli policies; he was openly supporting and promoting terrorism. As a leader of Columbia University Apartheid Divest, he organized protests filled with antisemitic rhetoric. On Oct. 7, the group handed out papers saying “Glory to All Our Martyrs” and “Victory to the Resistance.”
Holding a rally on the first anniversary of the deadliest day for Jewish people since the Holocaust rather than on any other day shows an unwillingness to confront atrocities against Jewish people. At rallies Khalil led, activists also chanted “from the river to the sea,” a slogan deemed antisemitic by the overwhelming majority of the U.S. House of Representatives.
A senior U.N. official reported to the Security Council that Hamas weaponized rape during the Oct. 7 attack. But rape is not resistance, and slaughtering civilians is not martyrdom.
In addition, two leading women’s rights organizations in the United Nations and the international #MeToo movement have remained silent on the Israeli victims of Oct. 7 and have failed to condemn Hamas, according to reports.
Though the Columbia group aims at getting companies to divest from Israeli businesses, they paint their movement as a “vanguard for collective liberation.” But, if they truly cared about human rights, why haven’t they been as vocal about Alawite civilians being massacred in Syria by the new Assad regime, where the civilian death toll had reached 750 as of earlier this month? Why have there not been highly publicized divestment campaigns against China, which continues to imprison Uyghur Muslims in internment camps? What about the atrocities in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, where child labor and mass violence are rampant? Why is their attention not focused on Iranian women being subject to mock executions and other forms of psychological torture over rights, like their choice to refuse to wear the hijab?
With immeasurable atrocities around the world, the Israel-Palestine conflict is constantly placed at the forefront and subjected to an unfair degree of scrutiny. Time and time again, these so-called activists seem to only show up when Jews can be blamed. This alarming yet consistent pattern reflects antisemitism by overly criticizing Israel and ignoring countless other senseless acts of violence across the globe, including violence against Jews.
True human rights activists don’t pick and choose who to fight for because of political convenience. They don’t ignore atrocities simply because they don’t fit a particular narrative. By turning a blind eye to Hamas’ crimes while consistently vilifying Israel, these activists have exposed themselves for who they truly are — not justice warriors but plain antisemites.
Selective activism doesn’t just undermine Jewish safety; it delegitimizes human rights movements as a whole. The crackdowns on students like Khalil are far from an attack on free speech; they are a crucial measure to ensure student safety and shut down those who promote antisemitism under the mask of activism.
If we want real justice, we must demand consistency. Anything less is hypocrisy.
Rebecca Szlechter is a junior with an individualized major in journalism and public relations.
Views expressed in the opinions pages represent the opinions of the columnists. The only piece that represents the view of the Pipe Dream Editorial Board is the staff editorial.