One of leading figures in the protests against the war in Gaza at Columbia University, who caused controversy for saying “Zionists don’t deserve to live” in a resurfaced video, has hit out at New York congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez for visiting the encampment.
Khymani James, 20, re-shared a post on X, formerly Twitter, which criticized Ocasio-Cortez after she and other members of the progressive Democratic group known as “the Squad” visited the pro-Palestinian campus protest on Friday.
“If you are letting in politicians to your encampment who condemn the Palestinian resistance and endorse Genocide Joe, you have fully lost the plot,” the post from a fellow student protester read. “Encampments should be sites of resistance, not Democratic Party photo-ops. BEWARE OF CO-OPTATION.”
President Joe Biden, who has been endorsed by Ocasio-Cortez, has long faced criticism for his response to Israel’s war on the militant group Hamas in the wake of the October 7 attacks, including accusations he is helping support a genocide against Palestinians.
Adam Gray/Getty Images
Ocasio-Cortez’s office has been contacted for comment via email.
The comment James re-shared was the first post he made since he issued a lengthy statement on X apologizing for inflammatory and antisemitic remarks he made during a meeting in January with a school administrator, which reemerged on social media.
The video showed James and the administrator discussing a social media post where he offered to “fight to kill” Zionists who had been threatening him online, adding in the meeting “be grateful that I’m not just going out and murdering Zionists.”
The student received widespread condemnation over the video, including being banned from Columbia University and the White House issuing a statement condemning the “dangerous, appalling” statements which “turn the stomach and should serve as a wakeup call.”
On Friday, James posted an apology online stating “what I said was wrong” and the words “do not represent me.” James added he made the comments after being “unusually upset after an online mob targeted me because I am visibly queer and Black.”
“I am frustrated that words I said in an Instagram Live video have become a distraction from the movement for Palestinian liberation,” James said. “I misspoke in the heat of the moment, for which I apologize.”
James goes on to stand by his critical viewpoint on Zionism, suggesting it is an ideology that “necessitates the genocide” of the Palestinian people.
“I oppose that in the strongest terms. All people deserve to be safe from physical harm. Palestinians have been subjected to decades of brutal violence and now genocide by Israel,” James added. “The Israeli government and military should be held accountable for their actions.”
Multiple other social media users condemned James for his apology.
Dan Elbaum, head of North America at The Jewish Agency for Israel, posted on X: “It is difficult to believe that this needs to be stated: There is no proper context to call for murder.
“There is no bad mood that justifies saying that a class of people don’t deserve to live. There is no university that should allow a person like this to be a student there.”
David Bernstein, author and law professor at the George Mason University School of Law in Arlington, Virginia, added: “Misspoke in the heat of the moment, yet left his desire to murder Zionists on his Instagram page for over three months.”
James has been contacted for comment via social media.
Banned from Columbia University
In a joint-statement, leading officials at Columbia University confirmed that a student, known to be James, has been banned from campus for “unacceptable” social media posts.
“The antisemitism being expressed by some individuals is intolerable and the safety situation has become concerning, particularly with the involvement of individuals not associated with Columbia,” the statement said.
“Chants, signs, taunts, and social media posts from our own students that mock and threaten to ‘kill’ Jewish people are totally unacceptable, and Columbia students who are involved in such incidents will be held accountable,” it said. “We can report that one individual whose vile videos have surfaced in recent days is now banned from campus.”
As well as the video on his Instagram, James was also behind an organized human chain at the pro-Palestinian encampment at the New York university that attempted to block a group of what they said were Zionists from entering.
“We are going to slowly walk and take a step forward,” the crowd chanted in unison. “So that we can start to push them out of the camp.”
Similar encampment protests against the war in Gaza have also emerged at campuses across the country, including Yale, Harvard and the University of Texas at Austin.
Uncommon Knowledge
Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.