If your main sources for news are outlets like the New York Times and NPR—as many Americans leaning liberal tend to do—you frequently receive a skewed view of events both in the United States and around the world. The distortion often isn’t so much in outright misreporting as in the absence of important context and what those outlets choose not to cover.
Take, for example, the nearly uniform lack of attention given to the widespread, nationwide rioting that accompanied the Black Lives Matter protests in the summer of 2020. I still meet people who believe the core violence of that summer came from police wrestling protesters, entirely missing the deaths, injuries, and extensive property damage caused by rioters.
Similarly, I keep encountering individuals who have no awareness that campuses experienced significant antisemitic violence, intimidation, and threats after Oct. 7, 2023, and instead assume university officials and the Trump administration overreacted to what they view as peaceful “pro-Palestine” demonstrations. And that misperception comes, in part, from reports by the Times and NPR.
Case in point: in a flattering piece in yesterday’s New York Times about a lawsuit brought by Mahmoud Khalil alleging Columbia University discriminated against Palestinian students and their “pro-Palestine” allies, the Times writes: “The 2023 and 2024 protests divided the Columbia campus, with thousands joining in, and others, including some Jewish students, saying they were too disruptive or made them feel unsafe.”
Here, drawing on a recent piece I wrote, is a portion of what happened at Columbia, focusing on violence, threats, and intimidation—and limited to incidents that were publicly reported:
In October 2023, an Israeli Columbia student was assaulted outside Butler Library by a former student who was no longer affiliated with the university. The attacker allegedly struck the student with a stick; police later arrested and charged the suspect. During a separate “walkout for Palestine,” a Jewish student was allegedly shoved by a classmate wearing a keffiyeh and then surrounded by protesters.
Another incident outside Butler Library was more explicitly antisemitic. According to a subsequent civil-rights complaint, someone confronted a Jewish student while shouting “Free Palestine” and “Fuck the Jews.” The assailant reportedly stated the motive aloud, telling the student he had singled him out “because you are a Jew.”
More physical confrontations followed. Columbia student Jonathan Lederer was assaulted while carrying Israeli flags on April 20, 2024; the cited source notes a rock was thrown at him. Lederer was assaulted again on December 11, 2024, this time while bearing an Israeli flag; the attacker allegedly punched him and called him a “Nazi.” In another episode, a Jewish Columbia student wearing a kippah was spat upon and told, “I hope you guys suffer.”
These individual clashes occurred amid a backdrop of increasingly intimidating mass demonstrations. At Columbia, protesters shouted “Fuck the Jews,” “Death to Jews,” and “Fuck Israel,” attempted to provoke physical altercations, and even shouted at a rabbi who was praying with students.
At one rally, organizer Mohsen Mahdawi used a megaphone to urge protesters to push back a small group of pro-Israel students. University officials later acknowledged that the campus had experienced “threatening rhetoric and intimidation.”
Demonstrators also targeted a Columbia class on Israel by handing out flyers bearing slogans such as “The enemy will not see tomorrow” and “Burn Zionism to the Ground.” Jewish organizations described these messages as incitement.
Perhaps the most infamous moment involved Columbia student protest leader Khymani James. James publicly stated that “Zionists don’t deserve to live” and suggested that people should be “grateful that I’m not just going out and murdering Zionists.” Columbia suspended him, and even the White House condemned his remarks.
The post–incident developments are also telling. Columbia University Apartheid Divest (CUAD), the umbrella group for anti-Israel organizations on campus (with Khalid connected to it), initially apologized for James’s statements. It soon withdrew the apology and explicitly endorsed “armed resistance.” James likewise disavowed his own expression of regret.
Another notable facet of the protests was anonymity. On Columbia’s campus, as on many others, many demonstrators concealed their identities with masks, keffiyehs, and other face coverings while chanting phrases such as “Globalize the Intifada.”
Whatever one makes of that slogan alone, its impact can be amplified when it is shouted by people whose faces aren’t visible amid real incidents of assault and intimidation. Students confronting such protesters could not always tell whether the masked individuals backing violent “resistance” were strangers, fellow students, or residents of their own dormitories.
The tension surged again during the spring 2024 encampment, when protesters blocked a sizable portion of the campus.
The escalation culminated in the occupation of Hamilton Hall. Protesters broke into the building, vandalized it, and held two custodians against their will, referring to them as “Jew-lovers.”
Columbia’s own investigations yield important evidence about how this environment affected Jewish students.
The university’s Task Force on Antisemitism documented that Jewish students described not only verbal harassment and social ostracism, but also physical targeting and a sense of unsafety in their dormitories.
By April 2024, the situation had become so alarming that a Columbia campus rabbi urged Jewish students to leave campus and return home promptly due to safety concerns.
To recap, Jewish and Israeli students were assaulted; a student wearing a kippah was spat upon; a Jewish student was told he was targeted because he was Jewish. Demonstrators yelled “Death to Jews,” tried to provoke fights, and pushed pro-Israel students back. A prominent student leader had proclaimed that “Zionists don’t deserve to live” and suggested gratitude that he wasn’t actively murdering them. Protest organizations embraced “armed resistance.” Masked participants took part in increasingly lawless demonstrations. Ultimately, protesters breached a campus building, vandalized it, and held workers against their will. Columbia’s own antisemitism task force found that Jewish students reported physical targeting and feeling unsafe even within their dormitories.
With that in mind, the Times’ description—“The 2023 and 2024 protests divided the Columbia campus, with thousands joining in, and others, including some Jewish students, saying they were too disruptive or made them feel unsafe”—is not incorrect in itself. The omission of critical context is what leaves readers inadequately informed.
Bonus: The article also notes: “In a statement, Adam Guillette, the president of Accuracy in Media [a defendant], said his group had ‘repeatedly delivered accountability to Columbia’s pro-Hamas radicals,’ using language that echoed the Trump administration’s portrayal of pro-Palestinian campus protesters.”
The leaders of Columbia’s anti-Israel protests defended Oct. 7 within days, and were headed by Students for Justice in Palestine, a pro-Hamas organization. So while not every protester was a Hamas supporter, the broader protest movement carried a pro-Hamas orientation, yet the Times would have readers believe this is merely a Trump-era phenomenon.
