Columbia student expelled from campus after comments about ‘Zionist murders’

The Columbia University student who spoke out about the “murder of Zionists” was “banned from campus” on Friday, according to a university spokesperson.

Junior Khymani James expressed “regret” early Friday after he went viral online for previously suggesting people should be “grateful” he wasn’t “murdering Zionists,” whom he compared to “white supremacists” and “Nazis.” “.

Without explicitly mentioning what they were, James accepted the inflammatory comments that were first reported by The daily cableduring a live broadcast of an official Columbia investigation in January.

“In fact, I hope they kick me out because I was intending to go to South America,” James said about whether he would remain a student at Columbia during the live broadcast.

University sources told Fox News Digital that disciplinary procedures are already underway.

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“What is a Zionist? A white supremacist,” James said in the resurfaced video.

“Be thankful I’m not just going out to kill Zionists,” he said at another point. “I have never hurt anyone in my life and I hope it stays that way.”

“So let’s be very clear,” James, now 20, also said in the video montage compiled by The Daily Wire. “I’m not saying I’m going to go out and start killing Zionists. What I’m saying is that if an individual who identifies as a Zionist threatens my physical safety in person, meaning he puts his hands on me, I’m going to defend myself. And in that scenario, it can get to a point where I don’t know when to stop.

in a speech to the cameraJames said that Zionists “should not exist.”

“I feel very comfortable, very comfortable, asking for those people to die,” James said at the time. “And with that being said, Khymani is no longer available.”

James was recently quoted in outlets such as CBS News and The New York Times as a spokesperson for the anti-Israel protests in Columbia. In 2021, he appeared in the Boston Globe at age 17 about his “confrontational” approach to fighting “injustice.”

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In a statement sent to X on Thursday, James expressed “regret” for some of the rhetoric in his video, but also complained that “far-right agitators” discovered his language in the first place.

“What I said was wrong,” James wrote. “Every member of our community deserves to feel safe without reservation. I also want people to have more context for my words, which I regret. Far-right agitators combed through my social media for months until they found a clip they edited without context.” .

“I am frustrated that the words I said in an Instagram Live video have become a distraction from the Palestinian liberation movement. I misspoke in the heat of the moment, for which I apologize,” James wrote.

“I am frustrated that the words I said in an Instagram Live video have become a distraction from the Palestinian liberation movement. I misspoke in the heat of the moment, for which I apologize,” James wrote. (Peter Gerber)

James had also claimed that Zionists have a hateful ideology, comparing them to “Nazis.”

“There should be no Zionists anywhere. Zionists or Nazis,” James said.

“And so if we can agree as a society, as a collective, that people, those people, those people, some people, need to die if they have an ideology that results in the death of thousands, hundreds of thousands, millions, if There are people like that who exist, shouldn’t they die?”

“Why would we want people who support genocide to live? I’m confused!” James said.

“Zionists, along with all white supremacists, do not need to exist, because they actively kill and harm vulnerable people,” James said. “They prevent the world from progressing.”

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Fox News’ Jeffery Clark and Danielle Wallace contributed to this report.