RASHID KHALIDI, author and American historian of the Middle East, the Edward Said Professor of Modern Arab Studies at Columbia University in New York City, speaks at Brooklyn Law School for an event hosted by the National Lawyers Guild, Jan. 23, 2009. Photo courtesy of Thomas Good/Next Left Notes via Wikimedia Commons.

By MITCHELL BARD

JNS

While student protests dominate the headlines, the true menace on college campuses lies within the faculty. Professors hold the power to shape young minds, using their authority to push personal agendas under the guise of education, while their control over grading can pressure students into ideological conformity. If there is one silver lining to the turmoil since Oct. 7, it is the exposure of thousands of professors who are not merely anti-Israel but often overtly anti-Semitic.

Nowhere is this corruption of academia more blatant than at Columbia University, where the toxic influence of Edward Said set the tone for a generation of pseudo-scholars that have all but destroyed the field of Middle East Studies as a serious discipline. Columbia established a chairmanship named after Said and gave it to Rashid Khalidi, a former PLO spokesman. Khalidi, a propagandist masquerading as a historian, has spent decades rewriting Middle Eastern history to fit the Palestinian narrative. After more than 20 years at Columbia, he retired in 2024, but not before openly praising the pro-Hamas mobs that have terrorized Jewish students since the Hamas-led terrorist attacks that killed 1,200 people in southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023.

Downplays Terrorism

The title of a profile in the Chronicle of Education reveals Khalidi’s extremism: “‘When Someone Says I’m a Terrorist, My Feelings Are Not Hurt.’” The article by Evan Goldstein starts with Khalidi addressing students and faculty after the police removed protesters who took over Hamilton Hall and camped out on the campus. Absurdly comparing protests against Israel to movements against racism and the Vietnam War, Khalidi has downplayed the violent nature of Hamas, calling it a “political-military-ideological entity” rather than a terrorist group committed to Israel’s destruction.

Khalidi has grown more radical with age as he came to view the PLO as too moderate and a two-state solution as “a cruel Orwellian hoax.” He is a propagator of the “settler-colonialist” drivel to describe Israel and to rationalize terror like the Hamas massacre as “Palestinian resistance.” In an article for the London-based Guardian, he regurgitates Hamas’s talking points about “ethnic cleansing,” “famine” and “genocide,” deliberately ignoring the facts.

A historian who apparently doesn’t know history, he distorts the number of Palestinians who became refugees in 1948 and falsely claims they were “ethnically cleansed.” Like most Palestinians, he ignores the 19 years that the Gaza Strip was occupied by Egypt and the West Bank by Jordan when the world was silent and the Palestinians made no demands on their overlords for independence.

Khalidi admits that teaching has evolved to increasingly favor the Palestinian narrative. This shift is fueled by post-Zionist Israeli academics who, as political scientist Shlomo Avineri put it, “are simply anti-Zionists” seeking Israel’s destruction.

Denial Of Anti-Semitic Violence

Khalidi dismisses reports of on Columbia’s campus as “utterly false,” claiming such allegations are a fabrication of “Republican, right-wing, anti-education yahoos.” But Columbia’s task force on anti-Semitism documented a starkly different reality: Jewish students have faced harassment, verbal abuse, ostracism and even physical violence.

The report highlighted chilling examples: a Jewish student physically pinned against a wall, another threatened with a sign reading “Al Qassam’s next targets,” and the rampant display of Hamas symbols and slogans, which to Jews on campus are clear incitements to violence. But to Khalidi, none of this constitutes a problem. Instead, he defends the use of genocidal chants like “From the river to the sea” under the guise of free speech while simultaneously dismissing pro-Israel perspectives as “pitifully weak.”

Academic Malpractice

Khalidi insists that the classroom should be a space where “anything can be said and challenged.” Yet, students are not free to challenge his distortions without risking their academic standing. A geography professor wouldn’t be allowed to teach that the earth is flat, and a Middle East Studies professor shouldn’t be permitted to present anti-Israel propaganda as fact. This is academic malpractice.

Khalidi criticized Columbia’s anti-Semitism task force, dismissing its members as unqualified. His real grievance? That its members are Jews who dare to defend Israel and Jewish students. His rejection of their definition of anti-Semitism is unsurprising. Anti-Semites always reject definitions that expose their own bigotry.

Restoration Of Scholarship

He portrays himself as a victim, whining that critics of Israel are being silenced, even as he continues to write, publish and speak without restraint. Like so many left-wing anti-Semites, he blames the right for campus anti-Semitism when the far right is nearly nonexistent in academia. The true danger comes from the left, which dominates the faculty and student organizations.

Despite retiring, Khalidi’s impact endures, with current faculty such as Joseph Massad continuing to disseminate extremist views. The celebration of terrorism and the normalization of anti-Semitism on campus are direct consequences of the intellectual corruption Khalidi championed. His career serves as a grim warning: Universities become breeding grounds for hatred when ideology replaces scholarship.