Watch for Columbia to host a class by Charles Murray on race and intelligence this fall; not.
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“Columbia University is committed to free expression and the open exchange of viewpoints and perspectives."
'A Bogus Claim': Columbia Professor Who Praised Oct. 7 Says Jews Not Descendants of Ancient Hebrews
The professor, Joseph Massad, is set to teach an upcoming course on Zionism at the Ivy League school
Columbia University professor Joseph Massad, who is slated to teach a course on Zionism, accused Jews of engaging in a "Hitlerian project" for claiming descent from ancient Hebrews during an appearance on a podcast hosted by a professor at Pakistan's University of Lahore.
Massad said the idea that Jews are descended from ancient Hebrews is a "bogus claim" and called them a "strange European group" during a March 25 episode of InFocus with Ejaz Haider titled "Busting Zionist Myths." Both Massad and the host, Ejaz Haider, a senior resident fellow at the University of Lahore's Center for Security, Strategy, and Policy Research, have praised Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023, terror attack. The podcast is hosted on a platform sponsored by the university, which itself endorsed "the Palestinians' fight for freedom" in a statement issued one month after the attack.
"The idea that European Jews are somehow direct descendants of the ancient Hebrews is, of course, a bogus claim," Massad said. "Even if Jews believed somehow [they had] some lineage, at least a religious or spiritual lineage [to ancient Hebrews], by the 17th and 18th centuries, this idea amongst European Christians would become important, especially to estrange European Jews from Europe, and they begin to cast them as ‘Asiatics’—people who have come from Asia originally."
"What is special here about Zionism is not only the invention of ancient Israel and the invention of Jews as descendants of the ancient Hebrews, it’s almost like a Hitlerian project to speak of Jews genetically in this fashion," Massad added. "And it only becomes fashionable, of course, in the 19th century, with the rise of racial science and the biological sciences."
Massad also said ancient Israel was an invention of archaeology, a field he tied to colonialism.
"Of course, the mythology also includes aspects of the invention of ancient Israel," he said. "This is all a game of archaeology, and we know archaeology, of course, is part of colonialism. This is a science that begins in the late 18th century and early 19th century as part of the colonial venture."
… A day after Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023, attack on Israel, Massad called the assault "incredible" and "awesome" in an Electronic Intifada op-ed titled "Just another battle or the Palestinian war of liberation?" He’s also set to teach a spring course covering the "History of the Jewish Enlightenment (Haskala) in 19th century Europe and the development of Zionism through the current peace process between the state of Israel and the Arab states and the Palestinian national movement," according to a description on Columbia’s website. The course aims to provide "a historical overview of the Zionist-Palestinian conflict to familiarize undergraduates with the background of the current situation."
Lawrence Rosenblatt, an adjunct professor at Columbia’s School of International and Public Affairs, resigned in protest of the university’s decision to offer the course. Columbia defended its position, arguing that it was committed to "free expression and the open exchange of viewpoints and perspectives."
Haider, meanwhile, has repeatedly justified Hamas’s terrorist attacks. Two days after the assault that claimed the lives of over 1,200 Israelis, Haider argued that "Hamas’ offensive [was] taken out of context." On Oct. 12, 2023, he posted on X that "Hamas is justified in doing what it did on the basis of the slow, structural violence Israel has perpetrated against the Palestinians since the nakba."
Haider also compared Zionists to Nazis in a Sept. 17, 2024, X post, writing, "while I despise the Zionazis, to know the enemy it’s imp[ortant] to know his capabilities." In May, he celebrated the death of Israel Defense Forces troops.
On Jan. 9, 2024, he argued that Israel, and not Hamas, was the real terrorist group.
"Hamas is NOT a terrorist group; it is a resistance group. Israel is a terrorist, genocidal, apartheid state. no conscientious human being would disagree with that. we must fight against this narrative. there are UNGA resolutions on occupation & armed resistance & they are clear," Haider wrote.
