Amid fierce criticism of Columbia University’s management of weeks of anti-Israel demonstrations, the prestigious New York institution has come under fire for hiring a Modern Arab Studies professor who voiced support for Hamas and other terror groups.
Hired as the Arcapita visiting professor in Modern Arab Studies on January 16, Mohamed Abdou lauded the Palestinian terror group’s October 7 massacre in southern Israel days after the onslaught.
In an October 11 post on Facebook, Abdou wrote, “I’m with the muqawamah (the resistance) be it Hamas and Hezbollah and Islamic Jihad but up to a point – given ultimate differences over our ethical political commitments; that’s the difference between a strategy and tactic too,” according to the UK’s Daily Mail.
In a podcast interview on January 5, a week before he began his temporary role at Columbia, Abdou commented as part of a discussion about homophobia in Islam that he was “with Hamas” and supports “the resistance, absolutely.”
When questioned at a Congressional hearing on antisemitism in mid-April about hiring the professor, Columbia University president Nemat (Minouche) Shafik said that Abdou had been terminated.
“He will never work at Columbia again,” she stated in response to a question from Republican Rep. Elise Stefanik.
Four other professors were also mentioned during the nearly four-hour-long hearing, including Prof. Joseph Massad, who called the brutal October 7 onslaught “awesome” and “astounding.” Shafik stated that Massad was “under investigation” and no longer held his role as chair of the academic review committee.
But the details of Abdou’s supposed termination were unclear, with Shai Davidai, an assistant professor at the Columbia University Business School and an outspoken advocate for Jewish and Israeli students at Columbia since October 7, claiming that Shafik made several false statements during her testimony.
Approached by The Times of Israel after the congressional hearing, Davidai claimed that Shafik had “lied about Prof. Abdou being terminated — he’s still on the Columbia website.”
Abdou appeared to confirm the allegations in an interview posted by The Electronic Intifada, a US-based Palestinian publication, on April 27, saying, “I am not terminated. My contract is coming to an end on May 30.”
Posts on social media since also appear to show Abdou walking freely around campus, with one photo posted on Wednesday apparently showing the professor entering a Columbia building with a security guard standing watch, while videos from the previous week show him walking around the protest encampment unimpeded by campus security.
The wave of anti-Israel protests has sent shockwaves through college campuses across the US and elsewhere, with hundreds of arrests and student suspensions in recent weeks.
New York City Mayor Eric Adams said on Wednesday that some 300 people had been arrested after police entered Columbia’s campus Tuesday to clear a tent encampment on the school’s grounds.
Police also cleared Hamilton Hall, with a stream of officers using a ladder to climb through a second-floor window. Protesters had seized the hall at the Ivy League school about 20 hours earlier.
The war in Gaza erupted after Hamas’s October 7 attack, which saw some 3,000 terrorists burst across the border into Israel by land, air and sea, killing some 1,200 people and seizing 253 hostages, mostly civilians, many amid acts of brutality and sexual assault.
Jordana Horn and agencies contributed to this report.