Columbia Pulitzer Board Member Explicitly Advocated Killing Palestinian Journalists. Does This “Threaten the Safety” of Palestinian Students?

Why does the “safety” framework never apply to Arab students?

In 2002, Columbia University Pulitzer Prize board member, alleged “anti-authoritarian” expert, and Atlantic Magazine columnist Anne Applebaum explicitly advocated in Slate magazine that Israel kill Palestinian journalists for the crime of making Israelis and Americans look bad. In her article, “Kill The Messenger,” there is little subtlety or equivocation about not only Israel’s right to blow up Palestinian media infrastructure, but to kill reporters for simply doing their job:

“...the official Palestinian media is the right place for Israel to focus its ire. In fact, in the reporting of the Middle East conflict, which almost always focuses on yesterday’s violence and today’s body count, the crucial role of the Voice of Palestine—the official broadcasting arm of the Palestinian Authority—has often been overlooked. Nor is the problem just radio and television. If you want to understand why the Oslo peace process failed, or where suicide martyrs come from, it is worth taking a closer look at all the Palestinian Authority’s official media…

Until then, the Voice of Palestine will remain what it has become: a combatant—and therefore a legitimate target—in a painful, never-ending, low-intensity war.”

This article, which Applebaum has never explained or renounce, is useful when contextualizing the current witch hunt on college campuses targeting anti-Gaza genocide protestors under the Planck Length-thin auspices of promoting “student safety” and “combatting anti-semitism.”

What’s especially noteworthy is that Applebaum never even bothers laundering her promotion of the execution of Palestinians media workers in the language of “terrorism” or “material support for terrorism”—she is simply lobbying Israel kill Palestinian media workers for the mere fact that they are making Israel and the US look bad. Indeed, a key example of coverage justifying their killing Appelbaum cites is an extremely banal political cartoon. As she writes:

…they are subtly, and sometimes not so subtly, anti-American. A recent cartoon in Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, the Palestinian Authority official daily, showed a blindfolded George Bush aiming missiles indiscriminately at a dartboard covered with the names of Arab states. One of his darts had hit the bull’s eye marked “Afghanistan.” Another had gone astray and hit an Arab man in the back. The caption read, “The war in Afghanistan is only the beginning.” While there is plenty of other anti-Americanism in other Palestinian media, and indeed in Arab media everywhere, this is the voice of the Palestinian Authority, the government of Yasser Arafat, a frequent visitor to the White House.

Applebaum believes a cartoon depicting George W. Bush as a warmonger makes Palestinian media a legitimate target worthy of summary killing. “Anti-Americanism,” one is lead to believe is not only a form of racism but a mode of speech that strips one of their protected civilian status.

This is an extraordinary, illiberal, and racist opinion, yet Applebaum is allowed to remain in good standing among liberal and academic elites because racism and casual bloodlust targeting Palestinians and Arabs simply doesn’t register or matter in the “student safety” calculus.

Imagine, if you will, a Columbia professor or Pulitzer prize committee member advocating the summary killing of Israeli or American media workers because they undermined the cause of Palestinian liberation in their reporting. If this article surfaced it would stir up immediate outrage and condemnation, the academic in question would be quickly fired, apologies would be made and and new policies would be promised. But with Applebaum calling for the killing of Palestinian reporters, an article that goes semi-viral on Twitter every few months, no one cares. Nothing happens. It’s just another banal, normal Serious Foreign Policy opinion from a Serious Foreign Policy Expert.

Columbia University President Katrina Armstrong is currently working with Trump officials, DHS, ICE, and other government agents seeking to deport and imprison anti-Israel protestors for the simple fact that—according to Trump officials themselves— they have ideological viewpoints the Trump regime doesn’t like. Columbia, and many other universities, are maximally complying with these demands ostensibly to promote “campus safety” and “combat hatred.” Indeed, making students “feel safe” has been the high-minded liberal reason for virtually every university administrator cracking down on free speech, both before and after Trump took office. “We are focused,” Armstrong said in a press release last year, “on ensuring [student] safety, supporting their wellbeing, and protecting their ability to learn.”

“I have said it before, and I will say it again,” Armstrong insisted, “discrimination and harassment, including hate language, calls for violence, and the targeting of any individuals or groups based on their beliefs, ancestry, religion, gender identity, or any other identity or affiliation have no place at Columbia.”

Except that it does. Columbia, which manages and awards the Pulitzer prize, has no problem putting someone with a history of advocating the killing of Arab civilians in a position of power, helping determine who in journalism is worthy of its highest award, and creating an atmosphere on campus that makes clear to its Palestinian students that they are subhuman and unworthy of normal protections under the laws of war.