Columbia University Apartheid Divest (CUAD), the organization that was led by Columbia graduate Mahmoud Khalil, has had its Instagram account suspended for promoting violence, Jewish Insider reported.
A spokesperson for Instagram's parent company Meta confirmed the group's suspension after CUAD claimed that the move was the result of a "long and concerted effort from corporations and imperial powers to erase the Palestinian people."
In October 2024, one year after the October 7 massacre, CUAD published an explicit endorsement of violence.
“We support liberation by any means necessary, including armed resistance,” the CUAD statement said. “In the face of violence from the oppressor equipped with the most lethal military force on the planet, where you’ve exhausted all peaceful means of resolution, violence is the only path forward.”
In the same statement, CUAD withdrew an apology for a Columbia student who expressed a desire to engage in "murder Zionists."
The student, Khymani James, said during a video posted in January 2024, “Be grateful that I’m not just going out and murdering Zionists.”
In October, CUAD stated that the apology for this violent rhetoric “does not represent Khymani or CUAD’s values or political lines."
CUAD is an alliance of student organizations led by Columbia’s chapters of Students for Justice in Palestine and the anti-Zionist Jewish Voice for Peace. Both groups were suspended from campus in late 2023 for violating Columbia’s protest policies, but have continued to operate via CUAD. Columbia JVP also posted the Tuesday statement on its Instagram page.
CUAD is now one of multiple student groups in the city that have used violent language in their protest of the Israel-Hamas war. In August 2024, weeks ahead of the beginning of the current school year, CUAD hailed the Oct. 7 attack and posted, “We are Westerners fighting for the total eradication of Western civilization.”
CUAD leader Mahmoud Khalil was arrested by ICE last month and faces deportation from the US for failing to disclose his work with UNRWA on his green card application and for distributing Hamas flyers during anti-Israel protests at Columbia.
