The Zionist Lobby Has Toppled Academic Freedom In The US
The crackdown on student protests against the Gaza war has escalated into an unprecedented assault on academic freedom, driven by pro-Israeli lobbying and government repression.
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In response to the peaceful students encampment, the President of Columbia University, Minouche Shafik, decided that a violent crackdown would be the solution (Illustrated by Mahdi Rteil to Al Mayadeen English)
What began with the US Biden administration as the largest assault on academic freedom in US history, has escalated under the Trump administration to unprecedented levels that surpass the Cold War era crackdowns against dissidents under. All of this because the American Zionist Lobby refuses to allow college students to protest the Gaza genocide.
For decades it has been evident that the United States government is willing to sacrifice its image in order to safeguard its shared interests with the Israelis, yet since the beginning of the Zionist regime’s genocide in Gaza it has taken its “unconditional support” to a whole other level.
In 1963, revolutionary African American leader Malcolm X asserted that “the chickens are coming home to roost” in response to the assassination of John F. Kennedy. The message was controversial, but extremely clear, that the ills of those who perpetrated them will end up being on the receiving end themselves eventually. Another iteration of this saying came following the September 11 attacks, this time when Pastor Jeremiah Wright was giving an example of what a US ambassador had said addressing fox news, exclaiming “America’s chickens are coming home to roost”.
In both cases, when these controversial political speeches were given, the outrage drowned out the essence of the message, inherent to the statements delivered. What both Malcolm X and Jeremiah Wright were attempting to do is address the issue of blow back, that is that all crimes have consequences. As Pastor Wright asserted in September of 2001, “violence begets violence. Hatred begets hatred. And terrorism begets terrorism.” Although the language may be provocative, it was employed with the strategic purpose for reflection on foreign policy.
To this effect, Universities across the United States and throughout the collective West have continually invested in weapons companies that have aided Israeli war crimes against the Palestinian people. While for some time they did allow for a certain level of criticism against the Zionist entity and Washington’s role in backing it, believing perhaps that they would never have to deal with the consequences of their own roles in aiding Israeli crimes against humanity, that belief has collapsed.
The Public Execution Of Academic Freedom In The US
In April of 2024, a historic anti-war movement erupted at college campuses across the United States, beginning at Columbia University with a student encampment demanding their academic institution divest from investments in weapons companies and sever any Israeli ties; in protest of the Gaza Genocide. Suddenly, the AIPAC Lobby’s paid Congress members, the US corporate media and Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu had begun portraying the students, many of whom were Jewish, as the modern day equivalent of Nazis. The Zionist Lobby fully mobilised in New York and across North America.
In response to the peaceful students encampment, the President of Columbia University, Minouche Shafik, decided that a violent crackdown would be the solution. The NYPD were called in to disperse the students, yet the student resistance to the authorities only inspired the protests to grow and spread across ivy league universities.
The pro-Israeli Lobby went into overdrive, inventing cases of anti-Semitism and physical attacks that never occurred. In fact, one Zionist student even claimed she was stabbed in the key with a Palestinian flag - which a video of the incident later debunked - leading to her receiving nationwide media interviews, with no pushback or requests for proof.
Then, when Zionist vigilantes, security guards and police forces decided to physically assault pro-Palestine students, professors and even the pro-Palestine Jewish Presidential candidate Jill Stein, the media pretended none of this even occurred. Various incidents were recorded on camera of Black pro-Palestinian students being called the N Word, yet criticism still didn’t come for the Zionists.
While this was happening, the vast majority of University Presidents refused to even consider the demands their students were making, opting to permit violent dispersals of their encampments instead. But this was not enough for the Zionist Lobby and the Zionist Billionaires who were threatening to pull funds from the Universities, in addition to working overtime to topple the Presidents.
Elise Stefanik - who is now Donald Trump’s UN ambassador - received $796,829 from pro-Israelo donors between 2023 and 2024. She was one of the most prominent elected officials to lead the charge against the student movement, even bragging about helping to topple five University Presidents. These College Presidents and the decision makers at their academic institutions did in fact crack down on the protests, refusing to bow to their demands, but this simply wasn’t good enough for the Zionist Lobby.
The elimination of five University Presidents is unprecedented in US history, not even in the Cold War did such an event occur. This also occurred solely because of the Zionist billionaire class in the United States and the pro-Israeli Lobby, all in order to repress the free speech of students who are appalled at an ongoing genocide in Gaza.
This process all began under the watch of former US President Joe Biden, but is now escalating at a rapid pace under Donald Trump’s rule. “Free speech is back,” said the President shortly after his inauguration in January, after which he proceeded to burn the First Amendment of the US constitution through a nearly unparalleled assault on free speech.
Beginning with the ICE detention of legal permanent resident and former Columbia student, Mahmoud Khalil, the Trump administration has been carrying out a crusade against college students who committed no crime, but instead exercised their right to free speech. The US government is smearing peaceful anti-genocide protesters as “Hamas supporters” and “anti-Semites”, seeking their deportation.
Trump has also threatened to strip 400 million dollars in Federal funding for Columbia University, demanding that its Middle East and African American studies program be placed under government jurisdiction. These threats to withdraw funds extended beyond Columbia too, as the White House openly threatened to gut Universities that permitted what the President has called “illegal protests”, referring to protests against Israeli war crimes.
As Malcolm X and Jeremiah Wright had warned us, sins beget consequences. This is exactly what these Universities are finding out and still fail to realise that by continuing to side against their own students, they are not saving themselves, but rather are choosing to aid those that will stop at nothing to overhaul academic freedom. The Universities themselves are beginning to feel the blow back of their decisions to invest in evil.
Palestine may be the issue that the US government is using, with the help of the powerful Zionist Lobby, to commit a public execution of free speech on college campuses, but it is not going to end with protests against Israeli apartheid and war crimes. If so, then why are other departments being eyed for strict government supervision?
Alex Karp, the CEO of CIA-backed analytics company Palantir Technologies, was a vocal opponent of the student encampments and continues to criticise the new ideas prominent on college campuses. Karp revealed the real reason why he cannot stand the protests, proclaiming that “If we lose the intellectual debate, you will not be able to deploy any army in the West, ever.”
Of course, the Zionist Lobby is not interested in debating as it understands it has lost the argument, so now we are seeing their “Plan B”, that is to use all possible resources to destroy the protests, expel and deport the students, use violence against them and rob them of their free speech rights. This trend may have become most newsworthy in the United States, but the Zionist Lobbies that exist throughout the West are behaving in similar ways.