Columbia Law Review takes down entire website after Nakba article goes live on social media

By Zehra Nur Duz

ANKARA (AA) – The Columbia Law Review took down its entire website following an article regarding Nakba written by a Harvard Law School student and Palestinian human rights lawyer.

The article, addressing the Nakba or ethnic cleansing of Palestinians during the 1948 Israel-Palestine war, was worked on by seven editors and went live on a social media platform, according to a student organization based in the US.

Columbia Law Review removed the entire website after Rabea Eghbariah's article, "Toward Nakba As a Legal Concept," went live, the Harvard Undergraduate Palestine Solidarity Committee (PSC) said on X.

“This most recent repression by the Columbia Law Review Board of Directors is a shameful attempt to silence groundbreaking legal scholarship shining light on the catastrophe of Zionism and the ways in which is fragments, displaces, and disempowers Palestinian society,” the committee said.

Seven editors who worked on the article told The Intercept that over the weekend, members of the board of directors of the journal pressed the law review's leadership to postpone or even rescind its publication.

Columbia Law Review editors who challenged the Board of Directors orders have now been told to resign, said the Intercept, an online American nonprofit news organization.

Established in 1901, the Columbia Law Review is a law review edited and published by Columbia Law School students. The journal contains scholarly articles, essays, and student notes.

Anadolu requested a response from Columbia Law Review authorities through an email but did not receive a reply until the report was filed at 0800GMT.

The Nakba, which means Catastrophe in Arabic, refers to the mass displacement of Palestinians following the 1947-48 Arab-Israeli War.

Israel has continued its brutal offensive on Gaza following a cross-border attack on Oct. 7 last year by the Palestinian group Hamas, despite a UN Security Council resolution demanding an immediate cease-fire.

More than 36,400 Palestinians have since been killed in the enclave, the vast majority being women and children, and over 82,600 others injured, according to local health authorities.

Nearly eight months into the Israeli war, vast swathes of Gaza lay in ruins amid a crippling blockade of food, clean water and medicine.

Israel stands accused of genocide at the International Court of Justice (ICJ), which in its latest ruling ordered it to immediately halt its operation in the southern city of Rafah, where over a million Palestinians had sought refuge from the war before it was invaded on May 6.