College and University Monitor

According to a report by the Times of Israel, Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad used his visit to Columbia University to spread Holocaust denial. At one point in the lecture, Mohamad told a student that the number of Holocaust victims is still debatable.

Breitbart News reported this week that Columbia University was scheduled to host the prime minister Malaysia. The prime minister, Mahathir Mohamad, is known, in part, for his history of anti-semitic comments. Mohamad has said in the past that Jewish people are “hooked nosed” and that they “rule the world by proxy.” At one point in the past, Mohamad even said that he was “glad to be labeled anti-Semitic.”

Despite his comments, Columbia University President Lee Bollinger defended their decision to have Mohamad speak on campus. He said, “This form of open engagement can sometimes be difficult, even painful. But to abandon this activity would be to limit severely our capacity to understand and confront the world as it is, which is a central and utterly serious mission for any academic institution,” Bollinger said in a short comment....