Combine counterintelligence and investigative journalism.

Reprinted with permission from The New Zionist Times

Last week, two headlines, both alike in importance, described starkly different circumstances for the Jewish people.

The first headline—“IDF says it confirmed Nasrallah’s presumed successor was killed in Oct. 4 strike”—reflects Israel’s successful, systematic decimation of the Iranian network. This effort has continued apace with the ability of the Israeli Air Force to precisely penetrate and take out strategic targets inside Iran at will.

The second headline—“Anti-Israel US campus groups radicalize, with no one to stop them, experts warn”—accurately captures the faltering efforts to stop pro-terrorist movements that are becoming increasingly violent.

What explains the difference? Israel is using next-level intelligence to cut off the head of the terrorist network, leading to demoralization, disarray, and panic among the rank and file.

On college campuses, however, the pivot to domestic terror is proceeding unhindered because there is no leadership or organization at any high-profile university willing to confront the problem.

A Times of Israel article notes that at Columbia, anti-Israel groups such as Students for Justice in Palestine, Jewish Voices for Peace, and other members of CUAD (Columbia University Apartheid Divest) have participated in training sessions with outside groups such as Within Our Lifetime and activists in the Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network.

Israel designated Samidoun as a terrorist group in 2021, and Germany has banned the organization. Yet, Samidoun actively supports anti-Israel activism at Columbia, regularly promoting student protests and statements online. Students at Columbia have displayed pro-PFLP Samidoun signs and recently joined a violent protest on the first anniversary of Oct. 7, featuring a Samidoun flag with the caption “Long live Oct. 7.” Both Columbia Students for Justice in Palestine and Samidoun endorsed the march. Columbia has done nothing.

Samidoun: Terrorist Front Group Welcome at Columbia University

Just as Hezbollah is a leading source of anti-Israel violence, Columbia is, as Mitchell Silber, the executive director of the Community Security Initiative—a security program for New York City area Jewish communities and institutions—described, “the epicenter for the student intifada in the United States. What happens at Columbia radiates outward.”

The current approach to dealing with pro-terror networks focuses on protecting Jewish students. Mostly, this effort is reactive, poorly coordinated, and vastly underfunded. Simply identifying overt anti-Zionists has not produced meaningful changes. Columbia recently settled a lawsuit for not protecting the rights of Jewish students. Still, the settlement does nothing to eliminate or reduce Columbia’s role as a leading organizer, producer, and exporter of anti-Jewish radicalism.

Moreover, we cannot rely on the FBI and other national intelligence agencies to proactively dismantle the threat at Columbia. They lack the resources and interest to do more than pursue active and potentially violent threats that have the most significant possibility of successful prosecution.

It is time to establish an investigative reporting project and use whistleblowers, social media data mining, and digital forensics to expose and neutralize the perpetrators and supporters of extremist activities.

A counterintelligence project would stand on the shoulders of such individuals and organizations as Ryan Mauro at the Capital Research Center; Andrew Fox, the dean of pro-terror investigative reporting; Asra Nomani; the Network Contagion Research Institute; the AMCHA Initiative; and the Canary Mission. The NGO Monitor and Cyberwell have done yeoman’s work in mapping the links between national pro-terror and anti-Jewish groups and identified third parties who provide them funding. These efforts are akin to mapping the human genome: Now is the time to take the sequencing of the DNA of these malign forces and identify how, when and what they communicate and determine how Russia, China, the Muslim Brotherhood and Qatar fund, staff and coordinate this network.

Starting with Columbia, the project could gather evidence of direct incitement or collusion to promote and commit violence, which potentially violates federal law.

For example, such a project could demonstrate that faculty members, students, and outside groups are violating Title 18 U.S.C. Section 241, which makes it a “criminal offense for two or more persons to agree to injure, threaten, or intimidate a person in the United States in the free exercise or enjoyment of any right or privilege secured by the Constitution or laws of the United States, or because of his or her having exercised such a right.” Unlike most conspiracy statutes, Section 241 does not require the commission of an overt act. Hence, an investigative initiative should collect evidence of cooperation in intimidating Jewish students as they walk to or attend classes, live in dorms, eat in dining halls, or study in libraries.

Similarly, it may be illegal to wear a mask with the intent to intimidate Jewish students. Federal law prohibits “two or more persons to go in disguise on the highway or the premises of another with the intent to prevent or hinder their free exercise or enjoyment of any rights so secured.”

Pro-terrorist groups that intimidate Jewish students at a Hillel or other religious event using force, threats of force, physical obstruction, or attempts to injure, intimidate, or interfere with any person lawfully exercising or seeking to exercise their First Amendment right of religious freedom at a place of worship, or intentionally damage or destroy property associated with a place of religious worship, may also be engaged in criminal activity as outlined in federal law.

Exposing financial links between pro-terrorist groups and foreign state actors or organizations could also disrupt funding channels. This includes any money directed to a project, professor, event, or research activity, even if it is received through an intermediary. Once financial crimes are exposed, federal agencies like the Treasury Department and DOJ could be pressured to open investigations, prosecute offenders, and freeze funds tied to extremist activities.

More importantly, exposing even a single professor, student, or program at Columbia and subsequently arresting and prosecuting them would send shock waves through the pro-terrorist movement nationwide. Their allies on the political left would likely distance themselves, their funding sources could dry up, and Columbia, facing potential embarrassment, legal liability, and possibly the loss of federal funding, would be forced to act against the pro-terrorist, anti-Jewish extremists within its walls.

Taking these actions would not only make Columbia and other universities marginally safer for Jewish students but also initiate efforts to shut down universities as a critical source of ideological and strategic support for Iran.

The time for reactive half-measures is over. The time has come to dismantle and disrupt the anti-Jewish, pro-Iranian forces, starting with Columbia University.