Columbia professor who praised Hamas massacre to teach course on Zionism

Professor Joseph Massad will be teaching an undergraduate course History of the Jewish Enlightenment (Haskala) in 19th century Europe and the development of Zionism.

By MATHILDA HELLER DECEMBER 16, 2024 05:31 Updated: DECEMBER 16, 2024 05:38

Joseph Massad, Columbia University website (photo credit: COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY)

A Columbia University professor who called the October 7 massacre "astounding," "awesome," and "incredible" will be teaching a Spring course on Zionism.

Professor Joseph Massad will be teaching an undergraduate course, History of the Jewish Enlightenment (Haskala) in 19th century Europe and the development of Zionism.

The course also covers a "current peace process between the state of Israel and the Arab states and the Palestinian national movement." 

The course will also provide "a historical overview of the Zionist-Palestinian conflict." 

A few days after the Hamas attack, Massad published an article on the website Electronic Intifada.

"Perhaps the major achievement of the resistance in the temporary takeover of these settler-colonies is the death blow to any confidence that Israeli colonists had in their military and its ability to protect them," he wrote.

Pro-Israel students take part in a protest in support of Israel amid the ongoing conflict in Gaza, at Columbia University in New York City, U.S., October 12, 2023. (credit: REUTERS/JEENAH MOON)

Representative Ritchie Torres responded to the news in a post on X/Twitter: "What’s next at Columbia? David Duke teaching a course on anti-racism."

"Why should US taxpayers subsidize ideological indoctrination that glorifies the mass murder, maiming, mutilation, rape, and abduction of Jews and Israelis?"

Massad's history

According to a paper written in 2003, "The Ends of Zionism, Racism and the Palestinian Struggle," Massad refers to Zionism as a "colonial movement, constituted in ideology and practice by a religion-racial epistemology."

Zionism, he added, is about "commitment to building a demographically exclusive Jewish state modeled after Christian Europe."

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Massad also claimed in 2000 that Zionism used "Jewish persecution, including the holocaust, to justify its crimes."