CUNY axes panel on ‘Globalizing the Intifada!’

Embattled CUNY was set to host a panel titled “Globalizing the Intifada!” — before higher-ups got wise and canceled the event as outcry spread Monday.

The City University of New York’s Lehman College had set aside space for the upcoming Feb. 16 session, which was called “Globalizing the Intifada! Mapping Struggles for Palestine between the Streets and our Classrooms” and part of what the university described as a one-day “Engagement, Equity and Antiracism” conference.

“Intifada” is an Arabic word that has been used to describe periods of violent protests against Israel, including infamous waves of terrorist attacks in the late ’80s and early 2000s.

When details about the panel surfaced Monday and critics came out swinging — blasting the event as a “how to guide for junior terrorists” — the college nixed it.

“The Engagement, Equity and Antiracism conference is meant to support professors in teaching students who are struggling, with pedagogy at the center,” said Jane Kehoe Higgins, director of Lehman’s Institute for Literacy Studies, in a statement to The Post — adding that the panel was pulled when school officials butted heads with its organizers, who included CUNY teachers and students.

“The goal is to bring people together, not to cause harm or make students feel unsafe,” Higgins said. “It is not a podium for protest. After discussion with the panelists, I do not believe we share the same goal.

“There are appropriate venues for them to share their views, but this conference is not one of them and the panel has been canceled.”

Foes of the planned panel said the topic was blatantly antisemitic.

“This event was like a `how to’ guide for junior terrorists,” said Jeffrey Wiesenfeld, a former longtime CUNY trustee, to The Post.

“Every day there’s something crazy and unbelievable going on at CUNY,” he said. “Supporting the intifada is not only antisemitism, it’s anti-civilization.”

US Rep. Ritchie Torres (D-NY) seethed, “The Second Intifada [in the early 2000s] unleashed a wave of terror attacks and suicide bombings that left 1,000 Israelis dead.

“Any event seeking to ‘globalize the intifada’ is an open invitation to violence against Jews across the globe. The glorification of antisemitic violence has no place in a public university, where all students have a right to be and feel safe,” the congressman added. 

As with other colleges across New York and the nation, CUNY has been under fire over antisemitic incidents that have occurred on their campuses since the brutal Oct. 7 attack on Israel by the Palestinian terror group Hamas. The continuing conflict between the sides is threatening to create World War III.

CUNY is already under investigation by Gov. Kathy Hochul’s administration for antisemitic incidents, and she has launched programs to combat antisemitism in general at New York universities.

On Monday, a once-public Google document of the “Intifada” event was updated to remove any mention of the panel before it was set private.

The panel’s posted schedule, viewed by The Post beforfe it was yanked, listed Brittany Munro, a member of CUNY’s Graduate Center, as the moderator. Munro, an international PHD student, is an instructor at the Lehman college who was touted by the center as one of its best teachers in 2023.

Included on the panel of speakers was Professor Conor Tomas Reed of the Shape of Cities to Come Institute.

According to Reed’s Web site, he has “been immersed in almost two decades of struggles at the City University of New York and in New York City around transforming education and public space, anti-imperialism, police and prison abolition, solidarity with Palestine and Puerto Rico, reproductive rights, housing justice, and beyond.”

Also listed on the panel was Lucien Baskin of CUNY’s Graduate Center and Reem Ockeh of Lehman College.

Baskin, who includes the phrase “From the River to the Sea” in his Twitter bio, is a doctoral student in Urban Education, and Ockeh is an English literature major.

Munro, Baskin and Reed were among the more than 1,000 people who signed a CUNY community petition calling for the boycott of Israel as a show of solidarity with Palestinians over the war in Gaza.

Neither Munrow, Baskin, Reed nor Ockeh immediately responded to the Post’s request for comment.

“The time has come for the State of New York to appoint an independent monitor, charged with monitoring antisemitism on CUNY campuses,” Torres told The Post. “The self-policing of CUNY will no longer suffice.”

A rep for the governor said, “Gov. Hochul has taken significant steps to fight antisemitism on college campuses, launching a first-of-its-kind review of antisemitism at CUNY earlier this year.

“Gov. Hochul has repeatedly condemned all forms of antisemitism and she supports CUNY’s decision to cancel this panel.” 

Lehman College spokesman Richard Relkin added to the school’s position in another statement, saying, “We support the conference organizer’s decision to cancel the panel, since its polarizing title was not reflective of the theme of the conference and does not align with campus policy.

“Lehman College is committed to creating safe spaces for our community to have civil and productive conversations and we will continue to promote diversity and fight hate in all forms, including antisemitism and Islamophobia.”