A GOOD HABIT AND EXCERCISE FOR US ALL......

 

Quoted from Dr. Mazen Al-Rasheed's page
What is the biological phenomenon of sarcopenia that appears in humans as they age?

Sarcopenia: The loss of skeletal muscle mass and strength due to aging.

It's a horrible situation.
Let's explore sarcopenia!

1- To develop the habit of being able to stand...
Just don't sit down!...

Don't lie down if you can sit!

2- If an elderly person becomes ill and is admitted to the hospital, do not ask him to rest more... or to lie down and relax and not get out of bed!

Lying down for a week loses at least 5% of muscle mass!

And the old man can't regain his muscles!

Typically, many seniors who hire helpers lose muscle faster!

3- Sarcopenia is more terrifying than osteoporosis!
With osteoporosis, you just need to be careful not to fall, while sarcopenia not only affects the quality of life but also causes high blood sugar due to insufficient muscle mass!

4- The fastest loss in muscle atrophy is in the leg muscles!
Because when a person sits or lies down, the legs do not move and the strength of the leg muscles is affected... This is especially important!

You should watch out for sarcopenia!

Walking up and down stairs... light jogging, cycling are all great exercises and can increase muscle mass!

For a better quality of life for all in old age...

Move... so you don't waste your muscles!!

Aging starts from the feet up!

Keep your legs active and strong!!

 As we age and get older on a daily basis, our feet should always remain active and strong.

 If you don't move your legs for just two weeks, your actual leg strength will decrease by 10 years.
So...
Regular exercise, such as walking, is very important.

Feet are a kind of pillar that bears the entire weight of the human body.
Walking every day is important.

Interestingly, 50% of a person's bones and 50% of their muscles are located in the legs.

Do you walk?

The largest and strongest joints and bones of the human body are also found in the legs.

70% of human activity and energy burning in human life is done by the feet.

The foot is the center of the body's movement.

 Both legs together contain 50% of the human body's nerves, 50% of the blood vessels, and 50% of the blood flowing through them.

Aging starts from the feet up.

 Leg exercises... It's never too late, even if you're over seventy or eighty.
 Walk for at least 30-40 minutes intermittently every day to ensure that your legs receive adequate exercise and to ensure that your leg muscles remain healthy.

Share this important information with all your friends and family members over 40, as everyone ages every day.

A very and comprehensive quick study, about the important role our legs play in our wellbeing, and how important it is to maintain a good level of exercising them by simple acts of life, maintaining few good steps a day. More so in later ages when many of us start neglecting those little daily steps and leg movements.    

As always, my many tanks to all, stay safe and well. Quoted from Dr. Mazen Al-Rasheed's page.

THE TRUTH ABOUT LEBANON AND THE LEBANESE.....

*Edmond Rabbath*

Disarming Hezbollah? The Trap of Words

“To misname things is to add to the world’s misery.” Albert Camus

By Edmond Rabbath, August 19, 2025

This article may come as a shock. Some will not understand its content, convinced that it is a plea for Hezbollah. Let them rest assured: I remain, and always will remain, a fierce enemy of the party, its ideology, and its project. I will never forgive it for storing ammonium nitrate at the port, nor for assassinating Lokman Slim, among many other atrocities. But I have always followed Mark Twain's advice: "Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority, it is time to stop and think." This is precisely what I propose here: to reflect on what "disarming Hezbollah" really means, and what this injunction reveals about our collective failings.

When you set a goal as weighty as Hezbollah's disarmament, it still needs to be defined. Since the beginning of the year, this formula has recurred like a magic slogan, repeated by Washington, Tel Aviv, and certain Lebanese leaders who, just yesterday, carefully avoided raising the issue. But what does it mean in concrete terms? How? According to what criteria, and what timeline? With what guarantees? No one knows. And that's the problem. Neither the Lebanese army nor its intelligence services know the true extent of Hezbollah's arsenal, nor the number of fighters it can mobilize, nor the extent of its military sites. This lack of serious assessment makes the goal not only unrealistic, but irresponsible—especially in a state in political and institutional bankruptcy.

Even foreign powers have not provided any precise outline. In Gaza, Israel promised to "disarm Hamas" and "eliminate its cadres." Nearly two years, sixty-two thousand, and massive destruction later, no one knows if these objectives have been achieved. One thing is certain: the war has turned into genocide. Who defines what a "Hamas member" is? Who decides that an arsenal is "destroyed"? This vagueness is strategic. With Hezbollah, it's even worse. Since October 2023, Israeli strikes in southern Lebanon have targeted supposed members of the party—unknown names, revealed by the Israeli media. Who knew Fouad Chokor before his assassination? Who verifies this information? Certainly not the Lebanese press. And certainly not the state.

For decades, Lebanon has hidden behind the symbols of a state without ever embodying its functions. Behind the facade of ministries, uniforms, elections, and international conferences, there is only the appearance of authority. Hezbollah is not the only one to have understood this, but it is the one that has taken advantage of it best. It did not impose its power through brute force alone: it occupied the vacuum, exploited the despair of an entire community, and imposed itself through the resignation of others. While army officers received condolences for the death of a loved one and political leaders danced at weddings, Israel collected data, monitored targets, and prepared its war. Officially against Hezbollah, in reality against all of Lebanon. How can we explain that Israel knows the location of Hezbollah's arsenals better than our own army? Did the latter deliberately subcontract disarmament to Israel? Or is she ignorant of everything, reduced to a mere facade? In either case, it's extremely serious.

Should we recall that current President Joseph Aoun would never have been appointed commander of the 9th Brigade—deployed to the border with Israel in 2015—without Hezbollah's approval? And that he would not have become army commander-in-chief in 2017 without its tacit approval, perhaps even that of Assad's Syria? What applies to Joseph Aoun applies to all security officials. Those who today call for the party's disarmament are turning a blind eye to these crucial realities. But even more dangerous than its weapons remains the ideological brainwashing carried out for forty years by the mullahs. This patient work has shaped entire generations, entrenching a loyalty stronger than that owed to the nation. To think that a simple decision would be enough to erase it is dangerously naive. As long as Lebanon does not propose a credible plan for the future, this hold will persist.

It's convenient to blame Hezbollah solely for the country's ruin. But that would be too easy. The party has only prospered on a field of ruins sown by others: warlords recycled into ministers, corrupt notables, subservient judges, rogue bankers, political leaders who colluded with it to keep a seat on the Council of Ministers. The election of Michel Aoun to the presidency in 2016—with the support of those who cursed him yesterday, adored him for a while, and hate him again—consolidated this system. Sectarian compromises, abandonment of judicial authority, fratricidal wars, and political cowardice have given Hezbollah impunity.

In every crisis, the Lebanese look for a foreign savior. Today, some are banking on Tom Barrack and Morgan Ortagus. Yesterday, it was Ariel Sharon, Ghazi Kanaan, or the Iranian ambassador. Tomorrow, it may be Ahmad Al Charaa, presented as the providential man capable of "closing the Tehran-Beirut route," despite his terrorist past and recent crimes against religious minorities. As if our salvation must always come from elsewhere. As if we were incapable of building our sovereignty.

But the interests of foreign powers evolve, and none align with those of the Lebanese people. The United States, in particular, has never hesitated to support a man only to abandon him later: Lebanon after the attack on the Marines, Saddam's Iraq, the Mujahideen's Afghanistan. Today, with the return of Donald Trump—who, after humiliating Zelensky and flattering Putin, is now threatening Russia, only to change his mind after the meeting in Alaska and appear alongside the Ukrainian president surrounded by six European leaders—the message is clear: American policy has become a matter of instinct, resentment, and theater. To believe that a man as impulsive as Trump, relayed by his special emissaries, can be a guarantor of stability is strategic blindness.

The illusions repeat themselves. Some once hoped that Hafez al-Assad would "solve the Palestinian problem," or that the IDF would "restore order" in 1982. Each time, the result was the same: more war, more occupation, more divisions. Even recent electoral victories are tainted. Would Samir Geagea have won so many seats in Parliament without the bloody incidents in Tayouné? The use of fear and polarization remains a powerful political lever in a country where democracy is nothing more than a word emptied of its meaning.

I fight what Hezbollah represents: illegality, terrorism, unilateralism, submission to the mullahs' regime, the confiscation of national decision-making. But I also fight those who, under the cover of legality and impunity, have openly plundered this country, allied themselves with Hezbollah, and covered up for the bankers who stole our deposits. Today, the party is weakened, but it is not politically defeated. Its most vocal adversaries are also those who protected it yesterday. Those who today demand its disarmament allied themselves with it in the last municipal elections. Allies like Michel Sleiman, Faisal Karamé, and even Gebran Bassil—who owe their notoriety and fortune to their proximity to Hezbollah—are now engaging in dangerous escalation. The party knows that if it lets its guard down, these same vultures will swoop down to tear it apart and make it solely responsible for all our ills. And in a country where crowds are inflamed by social media and television propaganda channels, disarmament could quickly degenerate into civil war.

"You can do anything with bayonets except sit on them," said Talleyrand. Hezbollah's weapons have lost all strategic utility. They no longer defend anything or anyone. Their sole function is now to turn against Lebanon itself.

Disarm Hezbollah, yes—but not to hand the country over to those who have repeatedly betrayed it. Because removing a rifle from a person's hands guarantees nothing if we don't tackle the roots of evil. Peace is not decreed, it is built. Stone by stone, truth by truth. It begins with shedding light on the port explosion, that gaping wound in our collective memory. With a justice system that is finally independent, deaf to pressure and horse-trading. With elections freed from the sectarian blackmail that has plagued our democracy for too long. It requires the lifting of banking secrecy, that code of silence that protects the predators of the Republic. With an education system that prohibits ideological and hateful speech, so that our children finally learn to see themselves as citizens first and foremost. And it imperatively demands the Israeli withdrawal from all lands occupied since last summer. For if Hezbollah is indeed no longer a threat, what justification remains for this military presence on our soil? Drones and listening systems have proven their effectiveness for surveillance, making the occupation inexcusable.

True peace is born of justice, not force. But above all, it requires a future. As Napoleon reminded us: "One can only lead the people by showing them a future." Disarming Hezbollah is a necessity. But we must offer all Lebanese a national perspective in which they can identify, far from old ideologies, far from warlords, far from instrumentalized fear, and with the Lebanese Constitution as our only guarantee. This is why we must create a true platform, bringing together all those who reject corrupt parties and aspire to a project in step with our times. A project that fully embraces the challenges ahead—including artificial intelligence, already reshaping the world—and that breaks with the old, sclerotic Lebanon where the same warlike figures are constantly recycled to fuel fear of the other and maintain their power.

To all those who loudly call for disarmament, I say: let he who has never betrayed Lebanon cast the first stone. And to all the others, those who have nothing left to lose, I recall these words of Martin Luther King, more relevant than ever: "We must learn to live together as brothers, or we will all die together as fools."

 An excellent analysis and portrayal of Lebanon and its ruling class in these dark days of frightening politics and barbaric brutality all over the world, forwarded to me, originally in French.  I'm not too familiar with Edmond Rabbath, nor with his publications, but felt compelled to translate his article, and republish on our blog, to the benefit of all readers and a much better understanding of the situation reigning over there. 

All my sincere thanks to all. 

A EUROPEAN WAKE UP ????

 

"WE WILL BURY THE PALESTINIAN STATE: EUROPEANS WILL HAVE NOTHING MORE TO RECOGNIZE!"

= Statement made the day before yesterday by Bezalel Smotrich, Minister of Finance and Settlement Development. These are not empty threats: he is simultaneously approving the construction of 3,400 housing units in the E1 area. For 29 years (since 1996), all Israeli governments have backed down in the face of international pressure and have renounced colonizing this absolutely strategic E1 area.
• Why is this a historic shift? 1) Because the E1 zone will permanently isolate the Northern West Bank (Ramallah - Nablus) from the Southern West Bank (Bethlehem - Hebron); 2) Because the E1 zone will completely isolate East Jerusalem (where 400,000 Palestinians live) from the rest of the West Bank. More details here: https://orange-juditha-6.tiiny.site via Daniel Seideman

• His supremacist accomplice Ben-Gvir went to Marwan Barghouti's cell yesterday and told him, on camera: "We will annihilate you, we will erase you."
• Why is this important? 1) Because these are the first images of Barghouti released in years and because he appears VERY thin. 15 days ago, I signed a text with 172 personalities to remind everyone that the release of the "Palestinian Mandela" is the only political option available to restore the Palestinian Authority and restart a negotiation process. If Barghouti suffered the same fate as Navalni, if he dies in his cell, this political perspective disappears. https://lemonde.fr/idees/article/2025/08/02/une-liberation-de-marwan-barghouti-par-israel-serait-essentielle-pour-avancer-vers-la-paix-et-une-solution-a-deux-etats_6626344_3232.html

• Yesterday, Israeli Deputy Foreign Minister Sharren Haskel traveled to Somaliland to negotiate the "relocation" of Gaza residents. The day before, Netanyahu confirmed on CNN that Israel is "negotiating with several countries right now," adding that "anyone who wants to help the Palestinians should open their doors to them." The plan to ethnically cleanse Gaza is therefore officially accepted at the highest level. As a reminder, on August 9, Trump confirmed on camera that he plans to recognize Somaliland if it accepts those expelled from Gaza.

• On i24NEWS English Netanyahu said yesterday that he felt "invested with a historic and spiritual mission" and was "very attached to the vision of Greater Israel" (as a reminder, "Greater Israel" includes Israel + West Bank + Jordan + Lebanon + Syria + Sinai). He added that any "political solution to the Gaza war would be synonymous with capitulation for Israel." The expansionist headlong rush is clearly accelerating.

> On July 24, Israeli Heritage Minister Amichai Eliyahu declared on the radio that "the Israeli government is engaged in a race against time to annihilate Gaza. We are eliminating its inhabitants. Gaza will be entirely Jewish." He speaks the truth, simply and bluntly, like Smotrich, like Ben-Gvir, like Netanyahu. Nothing is hidden, everything is assumed.

>> Faced with this absolute emergency, Germany decided on August 8th to impose an arms embargo on Israel. This was a historic decision, with far-reaching consequences (Germany accounts for 30% of arms imports to Israel). Norway, which holds the world's largest sovereign wealth fund, canceled all of its investments in Israel on August 11th.
>>> What is France doing? It "strongly condemns" the plan to annihilate Gaza (August 8); it "expresses its deep concern about the heavy price paid by journalists in Gaza" (August 12); it supports "the deployment of a temporary international stabilization mission in Gaza" (August 12); it has not yet reacted to the announcement of the colonization of the E1 zone.
• If Emmanuel Macron, Jean-Noël Barrot & France Diplomatie wait for the official proclamation of the State of Palestine on September 21 at the UN, they will no longer have anything to recognize, as Smotrich so cruelly but so rightly says.

> Pressure must increase for IMMEDIATE AND BINDING SANCTIONS on Israel a) Trade sanctions that will empty the stores in a few days and that will have an immediate effect on a geographically isolated and economically strangled country; b) legal sanctions by supporting the ICC arrest warrants and demonstrating to Israeli soldiers that they will never again be able to travel to countries that are signatories to international legal treaties; c) diplomatic sanctions by immediately banning European soil to all members of the Israeli government ("Schengen Travel Ban"); d) military and strategic sanctions: the announcement of a German embargo on arms deliveries to Israel is a decisive first step, it must be supported and amplified.

• It is one minute to midnight. If immediate and credible sanctions are not announced in the coming hours, the promise of recognition of Palestine next September will be null and void: Emmanuel Macron will have finally recognized a cemetery.

#SANCTIONS #CeaseFireNOW #BringThemHomeNOW

[Sources: CNN, Haaretz.com, The Times of Israel, Le Monde]

As received in French by email, translated by Google and myself, to fit our blog, for the better understanding of what is happening over there under the eyes of the entire world. 

As always, my many thanks to all.  

THE ONGOING HORRIBLE MASSACRE......

 

BREAKING: Israel Killed Al Jazeera Journalist Anas Al-Sharif Journalists in Gaza continue to be murdered in record numbers,           while  Western media outlets and reporters show little or no outrage. Prem Thakker Aug 10

On Sunday, the Israeli military killed our press colleagues, Al Jazeera journalists Anas Al-Sharif and Mohammed Qreiqeh, along with camera operators Ibrahim Zaher, Mohammed Noufal, and Moamen Aliwa.

The journalists were killed by an Israeli airstrike late Sunday local time. One minute, they were reporting on Israel’s escalating bombardment of Gaza City. And the next minute, they became victims of it.

Israeli forces bombed a tent housing the reporters near al-Shifa Hospital. The attack also reportedly killed Al-Sharif's nephew Musab Al-Sharif, who is said to have looked up to his 28-year-old uncle and wanted to follow in his footsteps as a journalist.

Barely an hour before US-backed Israeli forces killed Al-Sharif, he had warned on Twitter, “If this madness doesn’t end, Gaza will be reduced to ruins, its people’s voices silenced, their faces erased — and history will remember you as silent witnesses to a genocide you chose not to stop.”

Just weeks ago, the Committee to Protect Journalists called for Al-Sharif’s protection in the face of an Israeli military smear campaign. The vile campaign included the Israeli military’s Arabic spokesperson Avichay Adraee alleging that Al-Sharif was a “terrorist,” since he cried on air while reporting on the starvation of his people in Gaza.

After the attack, the Israeli military said it targeted and killed “the terrorist Anas Al-Sharif, who posed as a journalist for the Al Jazeera network,” claiming without any substantiated evidence that he “served as the head of a terrorist cell in the Hamas terrorist organisation.”

“When you read the statement issued by the army, which was well prepared before all this happened, it’s almost as if it is bragging about it,” Al Jazeera’s Hoda Abdel-Hamid wrote.

‘Silencing My Voice’

Warnings like the one Al-Sharif wrote just before being killed have become horrifyingly familiar. Such appeals have fallen on deaf or disinterested ears in the halls of power worldwide, namely in the West, and particularly in the US. And for months, such pleas have been met with skepticism by the Western press, and particularly by the US press.

Where are the big names that proclaim themselves as brave, bold, as telling things as they are? The network figureheads, the Washington mainstays? Israeli forces have killed some 245 journalists in the past 22 months. Journalists who were also people, just like anyone else, and who had to become bigger than life, in order to justify themselves to viewers thousands of miles away. People who had been forced every single day to report on the devastation of their own land, their own families. People who would cover an airstrike that killed their children and, by sheer necessity, continue to report on the next strike, in the pursuit of convincing the world to act, of the hope of tomorrow being different.

How many murdered Palestinian journalists will it take for the mainstream press’s cowardly fever to break?

After his killing, Al-Sharif’s team published his final words on social media:

,

This is my will and my final message. If these words reach you, know that Israel has succeeded in killing me and silencing my voice. First, peace be upon you and Allah’s mercy and blessings.

I entrust you with Palestine—the jewel in the crown of the Muslim world, the heartbeat of every free person in this world. I entrust you with its people, with its wronged and innocent children who never had the time to dream or live in safety and peace. Their pure bodies were crushed under thousands of tons of Israeli bombs and missiles, torn apart and scattered across the walls.

I urge you not to let chains silence you, nor borders restrain you. Be bridges toward the liberation of the land and its people, until the sun of dignity and freedom rises over our stolen homeland. I entrust you to take care of my family. I entrust you with my beloved daughter Sham, the light of my eyes, whom I never got the chance to watch grow up as I had dreamed.

Do not forget Gaza… And do not forget me in your sincere prayers for forgiveness and acceptance.

Anas Jamal Al-Sharif

06.04.2025

These few paragraphs, are a shorter part of the journalist letter, but it gives a fair idea of its content and sad release after his deliberate murder with his colleagues by the Israeli army. 

A sad episode of the barbaric onslaught taking place openly of all professional personnel serving in the Palestinian Gaza and to a lesser extend the under occupation West Bank, journalist, doctors, medical staff and humanitarian aid people by the thousands, it is planned to continue under different names, headings and tactics.                 As always, my many thanks to all.   

Don’t Let the Fight Against Antisemitism Fuel Antisemitism

Labeling critiques of Israeli policy and actions as “Jew Hatred” or saying global anger at the war in Gaza is a “PR problem” is precisely the wrong approach.

Jeremy Ben-Ami Jul 13

No matter the over-focus on Israel particularly on the political left, it is a tragic error for leaders and organizations in the Jewish community to seek to shut down debate and dissent by labeling all critiques of Israel as antisemitic.

Finally, we need people like the Prime Minister of Israel to stop dismissing all critiques of Israel as part of a concerted communications campaign to discredit Israel. He and all those who consistently label Israel's growing international isolation a “PR problem” are missing a more fundamental point.

Israel's problem isn't its PR. The problem is its policy.

It’s not the media coverage that needs to change, it’s what Israel is doing and has been doing since 1967. Getting a better PR firm to explain the occupation of another people and the denial of their equal rights won’t solve the problem.

Yes, there is antisemitism throughout the world. It will never fully disappear, and it must be continually fought.

As we address that hatred, let’s also take a long look in the mirror and ensure that the state that is the national home of our people is acting in a manner that accords with our values and advances our interests.

If it is not, let’s speak out.

In doing so, we will not just be standing up for what is right and in our own interest, we'll be demonstrating the important distinction between what this extreme right-wing government of Israel is doing and what the majority of Jewish people who care about the state and people of Israel actually believe.

And let’s ensure that, in the way we react to those who are not Jewish and raise concerns that many of us share about Israel's policies and actions, we aren’t inadvertently fueling the flames of antisemitism.

 

Few paragraphs of a longer article by the talented and very realistic Jeremy Ben-Ami, analyzing this particular side of the general situation between Israel/Palestine, their wars, occupation, terrorism, apartheid, genocide and mass population transfers, and their impact on the entire area surrounding them, all under the complicity of some other political leaders and the blind eyes of the rest of the world. 

"The Nazification of Israel has begun. That's where it should be filed. This is a country that has gone completely off the rails. The more you see it in operation, the more it looks like Nazi Germany."
— John Mearsheimer, widely respected political scientist

I copied these words, as very indicative of certain aspects of the conflict and the ways it's been conducted, and the last decision of the war cabinet to invade the entirety of Gaza and Gaza city, against the advise of their own army chiefs, and perpetuate their massacres and ethnic cleansing.

signaling the beginning of a new era of accountability in global politics.

The Growing Global Criticism of Israel’s Actions

   

  as always, my many thanks to all my good readers. 

SAD DAYS FOR ACADEMIA .....

 

I spent decades at Columbia. I’m withdrawing my fall course due to its deal with Trump

Rashid Khalidi

Fri 1 Aug 2025 12.00 CEST

Dear Acting President Shipman,

I am writing you an open letter since you have seen fit to communicate the recent decisions of the board of trustees and the administration in a similar fashion.

These decisions, taken in close collaboration with the Trump administration, have made it impossible for me to teach modern Middle East history, the field of my scholarship and teaching for more than 50 years, 23 of them at Columbia. Although I have retired, I was scheduled to teach a large lecture course on this topic in the fall as a “special lecturer”, but I cannot do so under the conditions Columbia has accepted by capitulating to the Trump administration in June.

Specifically, it is impossible to teach this course (and much else) in light of Columbia’s adoption of the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) definition of antisemitism. The IHRA definition deliberately, mendaciously and disingenuously conflates Jewishness with Israel, so that any criticism of Israel, or indeed description of Israeli policies, becomes a criticism of Jews. Citing its potential chilling effect, a co-author of the IHRA definition, Professor Kenneth Stern, has repudiated its current uses. Yet Columbia has announced that it will serve as a guide in disciplinary proceedings.

Under this definition of antisemitism, which absurdly conflates criticism of a nation-state, Israel, and a political ideology, Zionism, with the ancient evil of Jew-hatred, it is impossible with any honesty to teach about topics such as the history of the creation of Israel, and the ongoing Palestinian Nakba, culminating in the genocide being perpetrated by Israel in Gaza with the connivance and support of the US and much of western Europe.

The Armenian genocide, the nature of the absolute monarchies and military dictatorships that blight most of the Arab world, the undemocratic theocracy in Iran, the incipient dictatorial regime in Türkiye, the fanaticism of Wahhabism: all of these are subject to detailed analysis in my course lectures and readings. However, a simple description of the discriminatory nature of Israel’s 2018 Nation State Law – which states that only the Jewish people have the right of self-determination in Israel, half of whose subjects are Palestinian – or of the apartheid nature of its control over millions of Palestinians who have been under military occupation for 58 years would be impossible in a Middle East history course under the IHRA definition of antisemitism.

Columbia’s capitulation has turned a university that was once a site of free inquiry and learning into a shadow of its former selfIt is not only faculty members’ academic freedom and freedom of speech that is infringed upon by Columbia’s capitulation to Trump’s diktat. Teaching assistants would be seriously constrained in leading discussion sections, as would students in their questions and discussions, by the constant fear that informers would snitch on them to the fearsome apparatus that Columbia has erected to punish speech critical of Israel, and to crack down on alleged discrimination – which at this moment in history almost invariably amounts simply to opposition to this genocide. Scores of students and many faculty members have been subjected to these kangaroo courts, students such as Mahmoud Khalil have been snatched from their university housing, and Columbia has now promised to render this repressive system even more draconian and opaque.

You have stated that no “red lines” have been crossed by these decisions. However, Columbia has appointed a vice-provost initially tasked with surveilling Middle Eastern studies, and it has ordained that faculty and staff must submit to “trainings” on antisemitism from the likes of the Anti-Defamation League, for whom virtually any critique of Zionism or Israel is antisemitic, and Project Shema, whose trainings link many anti-Zionist critiques to antisemitism. It has accepted an “independent” monitor of “compliance” of faculty and student behavior from a firm that in June 2025 hosted an event in honor of Israel. According to Columbia’s agreement with the Trump administration, this “Monitor will have timely access to interview all Agreement-related individuals, and visit all Agreement-related facilities, trainings, transcripts of Agreement-related meetings and disciplinary hearings, and reviews”. Classrooms are pointedly NOT excluded from possible visits from these external non academics.

The idea that the teaching, syllabuses and scholarship of some of the most prominent academics in their fields should be vetted by such a vice-provost, such “trainers” or an outside monitor from such a firm is abhorrent. It constitutes the antithesis of the academic freedom that you have disingenuously claimed will not be infringed by this shameful capitulation to the anti-intellectual forces animating the Trump administration.

I regret deeply that Columbia’s decisions have obliged me to deprive the nearly 300 students who have registered for this popular course – as many hundreds of others have done for more than two decades – of the chance to learn about the history of the modern Middle East this fall. Although I cannot do anything to compensate them fully for depriving them of the opportunity to take this course, I am planning to offer a public lecture series in New York focused on parts of this course that will be streamed and available for later viewing. Proceeds, if any, will go to Gaza’s universities, every one of which has been destroyed by Israel with US munitions, a war crime about which neither Columbia nor any other US university has seen fit to say a single word.

Columbia’s capitulation has turned a university that was once a site of free inquiry and learning into a shadow of its former self, an anti-university, a gated security zone with electronic entry controls, a place of fear and loathing, where faculty and students are told from on high what they can teach and say, under penalty of severe sanctions. Disgracefully, all of this is being done to cover up one of the greatest crimes of this century, the ongoing genocide in Gaza, a crime in which Columbia’s leadership is now fully complicit.

– Rashid Khalidi

Rashid Khalidi is the Edward Said professor emeritus of modern Arab studies at Columbia University and author of The Hundred Years’ War on Palestine

No comment, except that it's a sad reminder of a very unfortunate situation playing nowadays in the US, between the actual administration and practically all higher education institutions, attacking even education and public k-12 systems and pertinent research.       As always my profound many thanks to all.