Columbia University Staffer Removes Facebook Post Calling Israeli Soldier a “Killer”

Responding to a letter of concern from the Anti-Defamation League, a program director at New York’s Columbia University has removed a Facebook posting that referred to a female Israeli soldier as a “terrorist” and “killer” and included the soldier’s photo.

Maryam Zohny, program director of Columbia’s Center for Palestine Studies, deleted the post from her personal Facebook wall after Columbia University President Lee Bollinger received the letter.

The December 13^th post read: “Israeli terrorist ‘Nofar Mizrahi’/Killer of the Martyr Muhamad Salayme/Wanted by the Resistance.”

Mizrahi shot and killed a Palestinian teen in Hebron last week as he threatened another soldier with a gun that was later found to be a toy.

“We welcome the fact that Zohny has removed the offensive post from her Facebook wall,” said the National Director of the Anti-Defamation League, Abraham H. Foxman. “But this is a Band-Aid — this is a cosmetic fix. The more significant problem is that here is an individual on the faculty, a person responsible for helping shape the views of young students, who has essentially used her personal Facebook page to advocate murder.”

“As a University official ostensibly responsible for helping to educate students about the Middle East, the sentiments expressed in this post are alarming and unacceptable,” Foxman wrote in his initial letter to Bollinger. “This offensive posting, and Ms. Zohny’s apparent animus towards Israel, call into question her judgment as a university official. It also raises several questions about the credibility and objectivity of the Center with which she is affiliated, an academic program presumably responsible for educating students about the Middle East.”