As anti-Israel protests continue to roil college campuses and necessitate the involvement of law enforcement officials, significant debate has emerged regarding the appropriate response to the pro-Palestinian demonstrators.

Columbia University professor Shai Davidai has taken particular issue with Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) over her vocal support of the protestors she described as “nonviolent," as Fox News reports.

AOC weighs in

As the Daily Mail explains, Ocasio-Cortez took to social media this week to slam Columbia University President Minouche Shafik for suggesting that help from the National Guard could be enlisted to dismantle the so-called “Gaza Solidarity Encampment” that has emerged on campus.

Writing on X, the far-left lawmaker declared, “Calling in police enforcement on nonviolent demonstrations of young students on campus is an escalatory, reckless, and dangerous act.”

AOC did not stop there, adding, “It represents a heinous failure of leadership that puts people's lives at risk.”

“I condemn it in the strongest possible terms,” Ocasio-Cortez concluded.

Davidai fires back

Taking vehement exception to AOC's take on the situation was Davidai, a professor at Columbia Business School, who has been outspoken about anti-Semitism on campus since the Hamas attacks of Oct. 7.

Davidai made his opinion known during a Wednesday appearance on Fox News' America's Newsroom, where he did not hold back his blunt assessment of AOC, but also others who have echoed her sentiments surrounding the protests.

“AOC is an agent of chaos, and I am just looking forward to my kids and grandkids reading about this chapter in history, and the list of all the rabid antisemites, and to see her name,” Davidai said.

Adding to the list of those he believes are perpetuating a very dangerous narrative, Davidai added, “This is not a peaceful protest...she is lying to the people just like [Michigan Democrat Rep.] Rashida Tlaib, just like [actress] Cynthia Nixon from Sex and the City, just like the New York Times.”

Professor's impassioned plea

Davidai also made headlines Monday when he said that the university had deactivated his keycard and blocked him from entering the campus, as Fox News noted separately.

The situation prompted Davidai to express his incredulity on X, writing, “Earlier today @Columbia University refused to let me onto campus. Why? Because they cannot protect my safety as a Jewish professor. This is 1938.”

The professor subsequently authored an impassioned appeal to Cas Holloway, Columbia University COO, which began with the observation that the school official was a “really great guy” but went on to suggest that he was “scared” and “worried about how the pro-Hamas extremists (and the brainwashed cult they've amassed) will react if you try to disperse them.”

Davidai asserted that Holloway now has a moral imperative to understand “that's exactly how terrorism works” and to stand up against it and “do the right thing” by dispersing the encampment, expelling the extremists, dismantling anti-Semitic campus groups, and ousting or sanctioning pro-Hamas faculty, but whether the current leadership has the courage to take even one of those steps is something that remains to be seen.