Dear President Bollinger, Provost Coatsworth, Mr. Rosberg, Ms. Murray, Dr. Purdy and Board of Trustees,

We, faculty, student, alumni and members of the pro-Israel community, are writing to express our concern about the February 27th event hosted by the Center for Palestinian Studies (CPS) featuring Mr. Omar Shakir of Human Rights Watch.

Mr. Shakir is a well-known anti-Israel activist and is an active supporter of BDS, the Boycott, Divest and Sanction movement whose stated goal, according to its founder Omar Barghouti, is the elimination of the State of Israel. Human Rights Watch organization is an equally problematic NGO known for its anti-Israel bias as documented by NGO Monitor and described in the Wikipedia article "Criticism of Human Rights Watch."

Coming on the heels of another blatantly anti-Semitic talk--one of many recently hosted by CPS--this presentation confirms that the sequence of single view point anti-Israel events is nothing but thinly veiled propaganda and that CPS advances activism rather than scholarship. This is damaging to Columbia University's reputation and is a disservice to students.

Furthermore, at the time when anti-Semitism is on the rise these types of biased events exacerbate hostile anti-Semitic and anti-Israel environment for which Columbia is already known.

Columbia University administration cannot stay silent while faculty at the Center for Palestinian Studies relentlessly promotes one-sided anti-Israel and anti-Semitic narrative. To protect the reputation of the university and to provide safe environment for pro-Israel and Jewish students on campus Columbia University administration needs to condemn anti-Israel propaganda based on falsehoods and disassociate itself from anti-Semitic events as was done by Hebrew University.

We also call upon Columbia to bring a speaker with an objective and nuanced viewpoint based on real facts and evidence of the very complex Israeli-Arab conflict.