A pro-Hamas demonstrator uses a megaphone at Columbia University. Photo: Mike Segar via Reuters Connect.

Amid concerns about rising political violence in the US following the murder of Charlie Kirk, anti-Israel campus activist and former Barnard College student Maryam Iqbal shared a social media post this week calling for the assassination of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

“You’re next,” said the post by an account named EV HardSnipe, in response to Netanyahu’s writing that he was praying for Kirk, a prominent conservative activist who was shot and killed at Utah Valley University on Wednesday.

“Praying for @charliekirk11,” read the original post by Netanyahu.

EV HardSnipe’s death threat was shared by Iqbal, who along with US Rep. Ilhan Omar’s daughter was suspended from school during the 2023-2024 academic year for their role in a riotous, unauthorized anti-Israel protest at Columbia University in New York.

“Political killings are heinous acts; the reactions have been equally disturbing. Within the campus context and beyond, free speech has become limited only to some groups, especially on the progressive left, and discouraged and silenced when it concerns topics like antisemitism, Israel, and Zionism — and for that matter, any subject that is perceived to be conservative,” Asaf Romirowsky, executive director of Scholars for Peace in the Middle East (SPME), told The Algemeiner in a statement. “As we are still coming to grips with the assassination of Charlie Kirk who was a staunch advocate of discourse and free exchange of ideas no matter what opinions were shared, we are now seeing students on campus engaging in vilification of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu using Kirk’s Zionist views as an excuse to do so.”

Responding to The Algemeiner‘s request for comment on the incident, a Barnard College spokesperson said, “The person associated with the tweet did not enroll at Barnard College for the current academic year.”

She added, “Barnard is committed to maintaining a campus that is safe, welcoming, inclusive, for all members of our community. We do not tolerate discrimination, harassment, or threats of violence, which is made clear in our expectations for community conduct and policies prohibiting discrimination and harassment.”

Columbia University and Barnard College have been hubs of campus antisemitism, with particular hostility directed toward Israelis and Zionists, amid the war in Gaza. After Hamas’s invasion of and massacre across southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, Columbia produced several indelible examples of campus antisemitism, including a student who proclaimed that Zionist Jews deserve to be murdered and are lucky he is not doing so himself and administrative officials who, outraged at the notion that Jews organized to resist anti-Zionism, participated in a group chat in which each member took turns sharing antisemitic tropes that described Jews as privileged and grafting.

Amid these incidents, the university struggled to contain the anti-Zionist group Columbia University Apartheid Divest (CUAD), which in late January committed an act of infrastructural sabotage by flooding the toilets of the Columbia School of International and Public Affairs (SIPA) with concrete. Numerous reports indicate the attack may have been the premeditated result of planning sessions which took place many months ago at an event held by Alpha Delta Phi (ADP) — a literary society, according to the Washington Free Beacon. During the event, the Free Beacon reported, ADP distributed literature dedicated to “aspiring revolutionaries” who wish to commit seditious acts. Additionally, a presentation was given in which complete instructions for the exact kind of attack which struck Columbia were shared with students.

In July, Barnard College settled a lawsuit brought by 36 Jewish students who accused the administrations of Barnard and Columbia of failing to address a toxic outbreak of antisemitism that roiled their campuses.

Barnard administrators themselves effectively facilitated anti-Zionist activity on campus, according to the students’ complaint, citing an incident in which school officials invited anti-Israel activist Hatem Bazian, known for saying, “It’s about time we had an intifada in [the US],” to speak at a “Day of Dialogue” event in January 2024. While Jewish community advocates criticized the invitation for platforming ideologies which openly call for the destruction of Israel, the college defended Bazian as a “renowned scholar.”

Meanwhile, pro-Hamas students allegedly responded to dog whistles they heard emanating from the administration.

“Why are you here?” a pro-Hamas activist asked a Jewish student identified in court documents as John Doe, during a period of campus unrest, several days after Bazian spoke on campus. “Are you here as a Jew? … Well, we’re fighting against you.”

In a major victory for Jewish students, the college also agreed never to engage with CUAD, which emerged after the Oct. 7 attacks as one of the most militant anti-Israel groups in American higher education for its role in building takeovers and physical assaults on Jewish students.

Follow Dion J. Pierre @DionJPierre.