2024-04-10 15:30:04
On October 29, 2023, protests IN SUPPORT of the Hamas October 7 attack on Israel were sweeping campuses, including Cornell:
Amid increasing Jew-hatred and several pro-Hamas rallies on campus, including one at which a professor called Hamas’s massacre “exhilarating,” students at @Cornell were greeted by this egregious, hateful display this morning.
What is Cornell doing to protect its Jewish students? pic.twitter.com/lDvSA6fKA3— Israel War Room (@IsraelWarRoom) October 25, 2023
In this toxic atmosphere, threats were posted on an internet chat board frequented by students threatening to kill Jews on campus and to shoot up the Kosher dining hall. We reported, Cornell Hillel Posts Warning After Threats To Jewish Students, Kosher Dining Hall:
104 West is the home of Cornell’s Kosher Dining Hall, and is also next to the Center for Jewish Living.
Cornell Hillel has posted a warning on Facebook that the dining hall is on lockdown after online threats….
These apparently are some of the online threats:
A Cornell Junior WAs Arrested and Charged In Threats Against Jewish Students. The US Attorney’s Office Press Release asserted:
Patrick Dai, age 21, a junior at Cornell University who is originally from Pittsford, New York, was arrested today on a federal criminal complaint charging him with posting threats to kill or injure another using interstate communications. The announcement was made by United States Attorney Carla B. Freedman; Alfred Watson, Acting Special Agent in Charge of the Albany Field Office of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI); New York State Police Acting Superintendent Dominick L. Chiumento; and Cornell University Police Chief Anthony Bellamy.
The complaint alleges that Dai posted threatening messages to the Cornell section of an online discussion site, including posts calling for the deaths of Jewish people and a post that said “gonna shoot up 104 west.” According to information provided by Cornell University Police and other public information, 104 West is a Cornell University dining hall that caters predominantly to Kosher diets and is located next to the Cornell Jewish Center, which provides residences for Cornell students. In another post, Dai allegedly threatened to “stab” and “slit the throat” of any Jewish males he sees on campus, to rape and throw off a cliff any Jewish females, and to behead any Jewish babies. In that same post, Dai threatened to “bring an assault rifle to campus and shoot all you pig jews.” The charges and the allegations in the complaint are merely accusations. The defendant is presumed innocent unless and until proven guilty.
Dai was expelled after the arrest.
Not much was known about Dai. He didn’t appear to have any prior anti-Israel or pro-Palestinian activism on campus, which led me to ask, How Did Student Patrick Dai Become Radicalized At Cornell?
Dai pleaded guilty to day in federal court in Syracuse to a single re-filed count of Interstate Threatening Communications, with this explanation of the threats, some of which (highlighting added) are frequent chants on campuses:
Gonna bomb jewish house in retaliation for death jewish house the murder of 500 martyrs. You have been warned
If i see another jew on campus … if i see a another jew pig male jew I will stab you and slit your throat. if i see another pig female jew r will drag you away and rape you and throw you off a cliff. if i see another pig baby jew I will behead you in front of your parents. if i see another synagogue another rally for the zionist globalist genocidal apartheid dictatorial entity known as ” israel”, I will bring an assault rifle to campus and shoot all you pig jews. jews are human animals and deserve a pigs death. Liberation by any means. From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free!
You can read the plea agreement at the bottom of the post, in which the government intends to seek a “hate crime motivation” enhancement.
As Syracuse.com reports, sentencing will be this summer. Dai is expected to cite his mental illness in seeking leniency:
Dai’s attorney said outside of court that he had no intention of carrying out violent acts but decided during a depressed time in his life to pose online as Hamas to change the minds of people who sympathize with the organization.
“It was a bad decision on a very bad day,” federal public defender Lisa Peebles told WHEC-TV. “He’s very remorseful. He accepts responsibility.”
Dai’s mother, Bing Liu, told The Associated Press in a phone interview in November she believed the threats were partly triggered by medication he was taking to treat depression and anxiety. She said her son posted an apology calling the threats “shameful.”
Liu said she had been taking her son home for weekends because of his depression and that he was home the weekend the threats went online. Dai had earlier taken three semesters off, she said.
The plea deal was inevitable given the evidence against Dai. The bigger issue is what radicalized him, and how did the toxic Cornell anti-Israel culture steer his mental illness to be directed against Jews. Dai needs prison time, and Cornell needs a frank self-examination of its culture.
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