Columbia Must Condemn Palestinian Terrorist Attack that Killed Alumni

Last month, Palestinian terrorists wreaked havoc throughout Israeli communities, targeting innocent civilians. These lethal attacks resulted in the murder of Elan Ganeles, a 27-year-old Israeli-American citizen and Columbia University graduate from West Hartford, Connecticut.

Ganeles, who was living in New York City and driving to the wedding of one of his close friends, was shot and killed near the West Bank city of Jericho. Ganeles’s untimely death occurred amid the region’s latest surge in Palestinian terrorism, initiated by the murder of two Israeli brothers, Hillel Yaniv and Yigal Yaniv, aged 21 and 19. Several other Israelis have been injured in ongoing shootings, rock-throwing attacks, and Palestinian attempts to firebomb civilian buses.

Devastatingly, Ganeles is not the first member of our community to have his bright future extinguished at the hands of Palestinian terrorism. Sara Duker, a Barnard University alumna, was murdered in a bus bombing in Jerusalem. To date, the Palestinian Authority has weaponized its vile “pay-for-slay” program to reward the terrorist who orchestrated the attack with $299,680 as a financial award and continues to pay him a monthly salary.

The Palestinian Authority has a deep-seated history of incentivizing terrorism against Israelis by funneling money to the families of those who commit these heinous attacks. Currently, every prisoner’s salary starts at 1,400 shekels/month and increases every few years, reaching as high as 12,000 shekels/month after 30 years. The Palestinian Authority allocates more money to terrorists than it does to social welfare programs.

Ganeles and Duker’s murderers and their families should not receive rewards for ending the lives of two of our generation’s brightest minds and future leaders. Join us in urging Columbia’s administration to denounce the horrific terror attack that killed Elan Ganeles and the Palestinian Authority's pay-for-slay program.