By Sandy Fitzgerald
(May 5, 2024 / Newsmax) A call from Columbia University’s chapter of the American Association of University Professors for a vote of no confidence in university President Minouche Shafik and other officials for calling in the New York Police Department to clear out an occupied building at the school was an “extraordinary request” but not enough, Morton Klein, the president of the Zionist Organization of America, said on Newsmax Sunday.
“We are also very unhappy with Shafik for different reasons because she has refused to expel students that were violating the law and violating Columbia University policies,” Klein told Newsmax’s “Wake Up America.” “We’re angry at the board for not making it clear that Shafik better change and get rid of these terrible students or they’ll fire her.”
The school’s chapter of the AAUP last week included the co-chairs of the board of trustees and Chief Operating Officer Cas Holloway in its call for a no-confidence vote after the NYPD was called to sweep Hamilton Hall and the campus from protesters, reports The Columbia Spectator.
The chapter said the decision was “made without consultation with the University Senate, in violation of established procedures, by recourse to so-called emergency powers.”
Klein, meanwhile, criticized the Biden administration in part over the actions of Hamas and Hezbollah, saying that the Trump administration had left Iran, the country that funds the terrorist organizations, with almost no money.
“President [Joe] Biden and [Antony] Blinken and [Barack] Obama behind the scenes have funded Iran to the tune of $26 billion, this terrorist regime, and ignored sanctions, allowing Iran to earn another $40 billion, to $50 billion, to $100 billion. This is the money they’ve used to fund Hamas and Hezbollah.”
Meanwhile, Columbia and universities that have allowed anti-Israel protests to continue violate the Civil Rights Act, which requires universities to have a safe environment for all students, including Jews, said Klein.
“Of course, they should have brought in the National Guard or the police immediately,” Klein said. “This is what [Dwight] Eisenhower did in 1957 when Black students wanted to enter different universities in the country and they were being stopped by white racists. Eisenhower brought in 1,000 U.S. troops to protect these Black students, rightfully so they could go to school.”
Biden should be calling in troops and the university should have been calling in the police, said Klein.
“The problem with Shafik and other presidents and Biden is they are not calling out specifically the horrible statements and chants of these students,” said Klein. “They’re calling for an Intifada revolution which means kill all the Jews.
“They’re calling for ‘The river to the sea, ‘Palestine will be free,’ meaning Israel shouldn’t exist. They’re saying, ‘We are Hamas.’ If they were saying we are the Ku Klux Klan, would we be calling it out? It is exactly the exact same thing.”
This article was originally published by Newsmax and can be viewed here.