A pro-Palestinian student at Columbia University justified deadly violence against Zionists in a video taken in January.
"Zionists don't deserve to live," Khymani James declared in the video that emerged Thursday.
"Be grateful that I'm not just going out and murdering Zionists," he said.
The remarks came about the time James had a hearing with school officials over a social media post about fighting a Zionist, The Hill reported Friday. In the post, James wrote,"I don't fight to injure or for there to be a winner or a loser, I fight to kill."
James recanted the rant Friday in a statement posted Friday on X.
"On Thursday, a video of me taken back in January began to circulate online," James wrote. "What I said was wrong. Every member of our community deserves to feel safe without qualification.
"Palestinians have been subjected to decades of brutal violence and now genocide by Israel. The Israeli government and military should be held accountable for their actions."
James also lamented, "I am frosted that words I said in an Instagram Live Vero have become a distraction from the movement for Palestinian liberation. I misspoke in the heat of the moment, for which I apologize. I remain committed to learning and building a better, more just world for all of us."
James also blamed "far right agitators" for going through "months of my social media feed until they found a clip that they edited without context."
"When I recorded it, I had been feeling unusually upset after an online mob targeted me because I am visibly queer and Black," he wrote.
The incident has stoked the ongoing debate over antisemitism on Columbia's campus, where protests — and a tent encampment — have continued since April 17. The protests have escalated since Israel's military response in the Gaza Strip to Iranian-backed Hamas' Oct. 7 terrorist attack.
"Calls of violence and statements targeted at individuals based on their religious, ethnic, or national identity are unacceptable and violate university policy," a Columbia spokesperson, who would not comment on James' case, told The Hill.
Fran Beyer ✉
Fran Beyer is a writer with Newsmax and covers national politics.
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