Columbia University’s announcement that it would open a new global center in Tel Aviv, Israel, has divided its faculty and raised concerns from some that the site would be off-limits to many students and faculty due to Israeli government restrictions.
“There are a number of people who would not be able to use that global center because of Israel's essentially apartheid policies,” said Katherine Franke, a law professor who was barred from entering Israel in 2018 because of her work with Jewish Voice for Peace, a group critical of the Israeli government’s policies and its treatment of Palestinians.
“We would never tolerate this in the United States, of not allowing people to participate in Columbia programs because they have a criticism of the United States foreign policy, but we're doing exactly that in the state of Israel,” said Franke, who signed a faculty letter opposing the new site. Some 107 faculty signed the letter as of Friday.
We would never tolerate this in the United States, of not allowing people to participate in Columbia programs because they have a criticism of the United States foreign policy, but we're doing exactly that in the state of Israel.
But an even larger faculty contingent – numbering 171 as of Friday – signed on to a separate letter voicing support for the new center, saying it would be “a positive step in the intellectual life of the university.” It urged the administration not to back down in the face of faculty opposition.
University spokesperson Ben Chang told Gothamist, “the aim of the Tel Aviv Global Center is to be inclusive, building partnerships across Israeli society, including Palestinians, and to provide access to all segments of the society.”
The disagreement comes amid continuing protests in Israel against a controversial judicial overhaul proposed by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, which critics contend would weaken democracy in the country, which is an important U.S. ally. Columbia faculty members who oppose the center plan, which has been in the works for years, said the measure was poorly timed and would serve as a tacit endorsement of Netanyahu, who has announced he would hold off on the change for now.
The Tel Aviv facility would be the 11th Global Center to be established by Columbia. The first opened in Beijing, and was followed by centers in Amman, Jordan; Paris; Mumbai; Istanbul and other cities around the world. Columbia officials said the university hasn’t set an opening date for the Tel Aviv center, which like the other centers would not offer degrees.
In an Apr. 3 announcement, the Tel Aviv center was positioned by the university as a “hub and gathering place, enabling Columbia to connect with individuals and institutions, as well as with the alumni community in Israel, drawing them closer to the ongoing life of the university.”
The announcement quoted Columbia President Lee Bollinger, who argued that “it is more important than ever for Columbia to continue seeking to advance inquiry and learning across borders. I look forward with anticipation as the Tel Aviv Center takes shape in the months and years ahead as part of our broader Columbia Global efforts.”
Worse records elsewhere
Faculty members who support the venture argue that opponents are singling out Israel by raising concerns regarding the Tel Aviv center, when the university had launched centers in countries with worse human rights records.
“Locating a center in a country has not signaled either approval or disapproval of the country’s government,” the supporters’ letter states. “In the most recent Freedom House ratings, three of the countries where the centers are located are rated Not Free (China, Jordan, Türkiye), three are rated Partly Free (India, Kenya, Tunisia), and four are rated Free (Brazil, Chile, France, Greece).”
Supporters also say it’s possible to back the creation of the Tel Aviv center while simultaneously voicing criticism of the Israeli government.
“One does not have to support the policies of the current government of Israel — and many of us do not — to recognize that singling out Israel in this way is unjustified,” their letter states. “Some of us agree with the thousands of protesters who have gathered to oppose proposed changes in the judiciary and others do not, but we all recognize that Israel is a country that allows free (and, indeed, passionate) debate. This obviously is not the case with some of the countries that already host global centers.”
Marianne Hirsch, an expert on Holocaust studies and a critic of the Tel Aviv center, said she was unsettled by the timing of the announcement.
“When our colleagues and students in Israel are out on the streets demonstrating against the policies of this government, it seems very strange to seem to endorse it by establishing this global center right at this very moment,” said Hirsch, who signed the opposing letter.
Another critic of the project, historian Rashid Khalidi, said “the same standard should be applied” to all of the university’s global centers, but that the university failed to meaningfully incorporate feedback from faculty. He added that the case of the Tel Aviv center demanded heightened scrutiny in light of ties between the U.S. and Israel.
“We give $3.8 billion a year in weapons, which Israel uses to suppress Palestinians,” said Khalidi.
Foes can't go there
Khalidi said the center would be off-limits to a number of students and faculty from Columbia, as well as scholars from the region around Israel.
“Lebanese cannot go, Syrians cannot go, Palestinians from the occupied territories cannot go, by Israeli law or by Israeli practice,” he said. “There are Columbia faculty and Columbia students who cannot go to Israel, either because of their national origin or their passport or their political views. Israel has a policy of denying entry to people who supposedly support Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions” – a campaign to pressure the Israeli government on a number of policy and human rights fronts.
He noted that Columbia's student body had voted in 2020 to endorse the BDS movement. That vote received a 61% majority. Bollinger was among the opposition, stating at the time, “it is unfair and inaccurate to single out this specific dispute for this purpose when there are so many other, comparably deeply entrenched conflicts around the world.”
In response to the concerns raised by Khalidi and other faculty, university spokesperson Chang said, “Columbia University will always work towards full accessibility of its facilities to all members of the Columbia community.”
Franke said a number of faculty were particularly troubled that Bollinger, whom she described as a “a renowned” First Amendment scholar, “is now endorsing a larger U.S. footprint in a country that blatantly discriminates against people who have exercised otherwise protected” rights of speech.
Khalidi and Franke said Bollinger had not accepted their repeated invitations to meet. Chang, the university spokesperson, declined to comment on that point.
