Columbia Prof. Ran Kivetz on pro-Hamas demonstrators

That tape is just a little about the hellacious things going on in Colombia. I imagine it's even worse at NYU. Now it's spread to FIT, the new school, Brown.

I could name a prestigious school and some not prestigious, like Emerson. And there's all this anti-Semitic, anti-Israel, pro-Hamas, pro-Palestinian activities going on in a time in which I thought that would instantly get you an FBI investigation. Now it's so pervasive. There's pressure on police force to leave these people alone, believe it or not. In the case of USC, they've been overwhelmed and had to let go of these heretic students because the police cars were surrounded.

And it's only getting worse. Professor Rand Kivitz has been doing it all. He's a professor at Columbia University.

He's also got a hold of this tape. And so everyone could see the reality of these twisted minds and the people that are twisting them at places it really began for me when I became aware of was at Columbia. Professor, thanks so much for joining us.

Good morning. Thanks for having me on here. Professor, why was it important for you to put together a tape like you did? You sent it to me ahead of time for everyone to see. Well, I said it to you because I think everyone should see it. I did not put together the tape.

It is actually Columbia University students that took the videotape and put the tape together. And as you said just now, it is, I think, crucial that everyone see what is going on. An iceberg, here's a cliche, an iceberg that you don't see is very dangerous. Now we're starting to see the tip of the iceberg of what has been going on in many American universities all over the country for decades now, for at least 25 years.

You're in the business school. Were you aware how bad this was getting, that this potentially, something like this could happen? I have to admit that I was aware and I've seen the undercurrents and the incitement, the methodic fundamental problems and incitement for decades at Columbia and other universities. So to some extent, actually the vile anti-Semitism, frankly anti-Americanism that we're seeing now in the open air, as painful and as unsafe as it is, it actually has also benefit that it floats out. It brings out what has been going on for decades. And yeah, I think some of us were aware that our students are being incited, not in the business school, I have to say, but in the undergraduate programs and other programs, they're being incited by a minority of radical professors, a very vocal, very tenacious, I would say, minority of professors that have access to thousands of students and are teaching them to not just hate Jews and Israel, that's the icing on the cake. They are teaching them to hate America.

Where's this come from? I mean, there's an investigation beginning on outside sources and a long-term hope to twist America's next minds. Do you think outside sources are doing this? I see some reports, folks are doing research on this and they're saying there's outside funding, outside direction.

I just saw the tweet by the Ayatollah Khamenei from Iran, the dictator of Iran, saying that these rallies and encampments and these chants reflect their opinions and their resistance. So it makes you wonder, but I think we need a serious investigation. I think we need a serious bipartisan investigation. I see the legislator taking action. I'm very happy that they're looking to the universities.

I think many of us are very happy, but it requires the legislative branch, the executive branch, I think the Fourth Estate, what you are doing, the media, and professional investigations to look at where is this coming from? Is it funded? Is it coming from the outside? It sure looks like it.

It does. What's going on in your Columbia campus right now, Professor? Can you repeat the question? I'm sorry. What is going on on campus right now? The encampments stay, the 48-hour deadline is up. They ripped them up last Thursday and now the president said that was a mistake to call in the cops. And now we're waiting to find out who's going to take up these tents. When are these encampments going to be uprooted? I'm not aware that, I don't know if she said it was a mistake to bring in the cops or not.

She clearly brought them in only for one time thing and has not done that again. What's going on on campus now is that there's a Senate meeting by faculty and student representatives. I don't think the Senate, the University Senate represents many of us, but they will potentially censor or sanction or censor the Columbia president for bringing the police as crazy as it sounds, which really brings me to another point that change oftentimes comes from without. It is maybe unrealistic, as painful as it is for me to say, unrealistic to expect the system to reform itself from within. And the mind that creates a problem, as actually Albert Einstein said, typically cannot solve that problem. This problem was very important for me to say it's been going on for decades. You have radical professors, tenured and untenured, teaching thousands of students at Columbia, but also elsewhere, year over year for decades, that America is an evil force, that the American military is an evil force, that America is a colonialist force, that the free market system is wrong and evil. Teaching the Marxist messages that are intended to undo everything that America, the hope of the earth is standing for.

And of course, Israel and the Jews are an easy target for that. I want you to hear what Elon Omar said on your campus yesterday with her daughter, who was suspended and kicked off campus for her unsavory behavior. But I guess it doesn't really matter why she's telling why she showed up.

Cut for it. I just wanted to see and make sure that we were hearing from the young people that it is peaceful, that they want the issue to be focused on the demands that they are making, and that, you know, we should not complete other things that are happening elsewhere to the encampments that are happening on college campuses. So has she been helpful as AOC? Has Congresswoman Omar been helpful?

No, not helpful at all. In fact, they're helping to create one of the greatest destructions of brand value in history, a brand that has been created in 270 years from King's College to Columbia University, a tremendous brand from the founders, now is being tarnished in the last six months in a way that will be hard to recover. The problem with Elon Omar and AOC, they do not represent, in my opinion, they do not represent the majority of their party. They do not represent American people. And actually, they're analogous to these professors. There's 100, 150 professors out of thousands of professors at Columbia that I was referring to earlier, these radical professors. They do not represent the majority. Even the students, which have a right to peaceful protest, this is not what's been going on at Columbia in the last six months, but they have a right to peaceful protest. They're not at fault.

They've been brainwashed. But even the students that are in the encampment do not represent the thousands of students at Columbia. So when AOC attacks the police or when Elon Omar says what she says, she doesn't represent American people, she doesn't represent even her own party, but they're very noisy and they're creating an environment that is really untenable.

I mean, it's hard without seeing the images to believe what's going on there. What's actually going on the last six months is people peacefully standing with American and Israeli flags, being harassed, being attacked. People come next to them yelling at them, you're Nazis, coming with signs saying, Qassam missiles, here's your next target, these are the Hamas missiles.

People stand peacefully with American and Israeli flags. It's really beyond- And what about where do they get all these Palestinian garb? You got to be kidding me.

Did Yasser Arafat have a fire sale? I mean, they're all told in these sheets to cover their face and show up and spread out. And now, by the way, I'm talking to a Colombian professor Rand Kivitz about what's really going on on campus. And everybody should know it's even worse than you think. But you see this happening. And now we got these flyers that say, make sure you cover your face. And they've got the signs that they hand out.

And all the tents seem to be from the same shop. So I want you to hear what President Biden said. He won't address this directly. They put out statements and have spokespeople.

Here's one shouted question. Do you condemn the anti-Semitic protests on college campuses? I condemn the anti-Semitic protests.

That's why I've set up a program to deal with that. I also condemn those who don't understand what's going on with Palestinians. Is that a both sides comment?

Look, it was hard to hear what he said. I don't think what's going on on campus is pro-Palestinian. I think it is anti-Palestinian. Anyone who's interested in the peace, livelihood, prosperity of the Palestinian people, including people who are interested in their self-definition, and so on.

Doesn't matter what your politics are about that. What is going on now on campuses is not helpful at all to the Palestinians. These are what seems as Iranian, Hezbollah type philosophies, and even maybe directly funded by them that will fight to the last blood, the last Palestinian.

It is not helping. The folks who are demonstrating, the folks who are soaking the fire at these campuses, many of them have never been to Israel or Gaza or the West Bank. They don't know anything about what's going on in Palestine.

We have videos of some of the students have been incited and brainwashed, and they don't even know why they're there. But I do think this requires a bipartisan approach, both by the Congress and by the I think you could get it, professor. I think you could get it because I saw a Congressman Gottheimer out there, Josh Moskowitz out there. But what I don't see is I don't see Senator Schumer. He's the most powerful Jewish American. They'll hold that position of authority ever in American history. Majority leader of the Senate from New York and doesn't say a word about it.

And it's his responsibility to speak up. Here's more from that tape you sent over from the campus. Listen to this comment about October 7th, the time there was a massacre among innocent people in Israel. Remember the 7th of October.

Never forget the 7th of October. Not one more time! Not five more times! Not ten more times! Not a hundred more times! Not a thousand more times! Not a thousand more times! Not a thousand more times! Not a thousand more times! That sentiment is not rare.

No, no, not not rare. They are calling with that video that you played. And again, I really would ask your listeners, if they could look at some of the videos, look online, the videos that you're publishing, what they're saying there is we are going to commit an October 7th on you a thousand times every day.

You know, that was 1200 innocents were killed just that one day out of a population of seven million. Look, I don't know what everything that Chuck Schumer, that Senator Schumer has said or not said. I do think it would be extremely helpful. I do think he should be very strong in this, speak up. And, you know, he's the senator from New York and the speaker.

I think it'll be very, very important. What is going on in there is not some political arguments. It is not any sort of freedom of speech. It is blatant harassment, discrimination. There's been physical violence.

There's been obviously verbal violence. You know, we're in the midst of the Jewish holiday of Passover. And one thing we do in the Passover is we ask, what is different this night from all the other nights? And we could ask yourself, what is different now in the last six months, since October 7th, actually on campuses, on Columbia campus compared to what's been going on in Columbia for decades.

And I can tell you what's not different. The incitement by radical professors that somebody, I mean, it just seems too organized. Who is funding them?

Who is directing them? And why is this permitted to go on? This has happened for decades. What is different now in the last six months, six and a half months, is that it has come outside.

It has come above, in that sense, it's good, above ground. And it is transformed into real discrimination, harassment, bullying, physical. We have Jewish students that are leaving the university. They've left physically gone back to be with their parents. Do you blame them?

No, I don't blame them. Some are trying to transfer out. I'm sure there's a silent majority of students, not Jewish students, the silent majority were extremely unhappy. They came here to get a world-class education. The professors, the majority of professors, the thousands of professors, including myself, came here not for political activity. We came here to do world-class research.

And at the last several months, it is impossible to do that. I don't blame any of the students. I think this is, you know, the grownups, no offense, should be blamed for this.

Not folks who are 18, 19, 20 years old. I don't agree, professor. I'm talking to President Rand Kivitz, talking about what he's seeing at Columbia. How many years you've been there? I've been there almost 25 years.

25 years. I went into college and I did not qualify for an elite university like Columbia. I knew about Israel, how it was created. If someone walked up to me and I had some professors, I had a political science minor that, you know, clearly were anti-Israeli, it wouldn't bother me. I know where I sit, but I had the fundamentals down. We all learned the fundamentals in school. Are you saying in primary education, we're not learning the fundamentals of the Middle East and the creation of Israel? I'm saying that in the undergraduate program of Columbia University, you are learning the opposite of the truth. You are learning the inverse, the opposite of the truth. You are learning that professors in core classes, mandatory classes with hundreds of students, this has been going on for decades, it's been going on for decades, are being taught that Hezbollah, a listed terror organization by the United States, is a resistance movement that was formed or encouraged to be formed by Israel. They are learning that the United States of America is a colonialist power that is badly influencing the world, that the American military and of course the Israeli defense forces are repressive forces.

They are learning that the free market is a terrible system. Professor, keep fighting. I'm up against a break now. I want to have you back on and have you on television too. We got to spread the word. I'm so glad you're speaking out. Professor Ryan Kivitz, telling us the truth at Columbia, what he's witnessed over the last 25 years and what's happened over the last month.