Resignation of Columbia's president Nemat Minouche Shafik over mishandling Gaza protest widely lauded

The resignation of Columbia University president Nemat Minouche Shafik this week after months of protests against Israel's war on Gaza is being widely lauded by her critics on both sides of the Israel-Palestine political divide. 

Many in the left-leaning pro-Palestine camp have been criticising her for ordering a brutal police crackdown on student demonstrators, and many in the right-leaning pro-Israel camp have been blaming her for what they say has been tolerance of antisemitism on campus (often, as critics point out, conflating anti-Israeli rhetoric as 'antisemitism').

On social media, Representative Ritchie Torres, an AIPAC-backed Democrat who left the progressive caucus, wrote, "Columbia University, once a jewel in the crown of higher education, has been exposed as ground zero for campus antisemitism in NYC." 

He continued, "I hope the new leadership will summon the moral clarity and the moral courage to confront the deep rot of antisemitism at Columbia’s core."

In a public statement, Afaf Nasher with the New York chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations said, "We welcome the resignation of Dr Shafik, who repeated the worst mistakes of the Vietnam era by unleashing law enforcement on Columbia students instead of giving serious consideration to their more than reasonable demand that the school disentangle its finances from the far-right, openly genocidal Israeli government." 

The news comes as students are getting ready to return to campus, many of them vowing to resume their demonstrations once the school year begins. The move marks the fourth high-profile resignation of a university president related to pro-Palestinian student protests, after Harvard, University of Pennsylvania and Cornell.

"Over the summer, I have been able to reflect and have decided that my moving on at this point would best enable Columbia to traverse the challenges ahead," Shafik wrote in a public statement on Wednesday. "I am making this announcement now so that new leadership can be in place before the new term begins."

In April, when The New Arab visited Columbia and spoke with student protesters, including those with Middle Eastern backgrounds, they placed very little importance on the university's president, originally from Egypt, even though she had ordered a police crackdown on protesters. The students said they were far more concerned about the situation in Gaza and the system of US universities investing in companies linked to US weapons transfers to Israel.

It is unclear what prompted Shafik's resignation, if it was pressure from students or donors. It does appear that the outgoing administrator who is also a baroness planned her decision ahead of time with another position already lined up with the foreign office in the UK's Labour government.