College and University Monitor

A pro-Israel student group at Columbia University has called on the university's leadership to denounce a Facebook post by an Iranian studies and comparative literature professor in which he compared the Jewish state to the Islamic State (ISIS).

The since-deleted post by Hamid Dabashi, published March 30, asked: "What's the difference between ISIS and ISRAEL? ... ISIS murderous thugs conquered parts of Syria and declared a 'caliphate,' no decent human being on planet earth recognized their armed robbery or their 'caliphate' – their ISRAELI counterparts meanwhile conquered parts of Syria and declared it part of their Zionist settler colony – no decent human being on planet earth recognizes their armed robbery ..."

Dabashi then answered his own question: "ISIS does not have a platoon of clean shaven and well coiffured [sic] columnists at the New York Times propagating the cause of the terrorist outfit as the Zionists columnists do on a regular basis.

"All of Syria belong to all Syrian people," Dabashi concluded, " not an inch it either to ISIS or to ISRAEL".

"While we as a member of the Columbia community strongly believe in academic freedom and have the utmost respect for all educators, this kind of utterly despicable and repugnant statement is not to be expected from a tenured faculty holder in an Ivy League institution," the university chapter of Students Supporting Israel said in a statement Thursday that included a screenshot of Dabashi's post. "This is completely unacceptable and must be renounced."

Dabashi has a history of inflammatory comments about Israel and the Jewish people. Last May, after President Trump announced the U.S. was pulling out of the Iran nuclear deal, Dabashi posted a tweet blaming Israel for "every dirty treacherous ugly and pernicious act happening in the world."...