Suspended Columbia student that declared Zionists dont deserve to live stands by hateful remark
The suspended Columbia University student that proclaimed “Zionists don’t deserve to live” stood by his incendiary remarks Tuesday after an anti-Israel campus group walked back an apology it offered over the shocking statement last school year. Khymani James made clear he doesn’t regret spewing the hateful declaration before he was banished from the Ivy League school amid disruptive protests critical of Israel following the Oct.
7 Hamas terror attack.“I will not allow anyone to shame me for my politics,” he tweeted on Tuesday.“Anything I said, I meant it.”During a January disciplinary hearing with the university that he livestreamed and blasted on social media, James said that “Zionists don’t deserve to live comfortably, let alone Zionists don’t deserve to live.”“Be grateful that I’m not just going out and murdering Zionists,” James added.
“I’ve never hurt anyone in my life, and I hope to keep it that way.”The videotaped remarks reemerged in April as anti-Israel protests intensified on campus.Columbia University Apartheid Divest, a student group of which James was a member, then posted a statement that read “Khymani’s words in January do not reflect his view, our values, nor the encampment’s community agreements,” the New York Times reported at the time.But the anti-Israel organization apologized in an Instagram post Tuesday, stating the previous mea culpa “does not reflect Khymani or CUAD’s values or political lines.”The group also said while the statement appeared to be on behalf of James, he had no involvement in it.“We caused irrevocable harm to you by contributing to the ostracization you experienced from your fellow students, fellow organizers, the media, and the public,” the group posted online while stating James faced anti-blackness and queerphobia in the aftermath.
“By issuing a so-called ‘apology,’ CUAD exposed Khymani to even more hatred from white supremacist and queerphobic liberals and fa...