Hail Columbia?

The Chicago Trib says the Israel-Palestinian conflict has a new annex--114th Street in New York City:

Jewish students charge that three professors in [Columbia] university's Middle East & Jewish Studies department have ridiculed and intimidated them for making pro-Israel remarks, violating their rights as students to express opinions contrary to those of their professors.

The allegations reflect the growing scrutiny that Middle East studies departments across the country are facing from pro-Israel groups that claim Arab or Islamic professors are slanting their courses to favor the Palestinian side, sometimes to the point of challenging Israel's right to exist. . .

Far from being treated as colleagues, some students of professor Joseph Massad, one of the faculty members under scrutiny, say he berates and humiliates those who challenge him.

A female student who asked him whether Israeli authorities warned Palestinians before destroying the residences of suspected terrorists said he cut her off and told her that he would not allow her to deny Israeli "atrocities" in his class.

Massad, a professor of modern Arab politics, reportedly asked another student who identified himself as a former Israeli soldier how many Palestinians he had killed.

Another faculty member at the center of the controversy is professor George Saliba, a specialist in the history of Arabic and Islamic science, who reportedly told a student that her opinion about Israel was not valid because she had green eyes and was not a "true Semite."

These accounts of professors' politics and actions are from Columbia Unbecoming, a 20-minute documentary produced by the David Project, a group that says its mission is to ensure the Israeli position is fairly represented in college classes. The professors named in the film deny the claims:

"What seems to have happened is probably a misquotation of an argument I sometimes make," wrote Saliba, who was unavailable for an interview. "The gist of it would be to say that being born in a specific religion, or converting to one, is not the same as inheriting the color of one's eyes from one's parents and thus does not produce evidence of land ownership of a specific real estate."

(via LGF)