'I CALLED THE FBI': ZIONIST SNITCHES DROPPED DIMES DIRECTLY TO CITY HALL DURING PRO-PALESTINIAN COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY PROTESTS, EMAILS SHOW
EMAILS SHOW STUDENTS WHO SUPPORTED ISRAEL HAD SPECIAL ACCESS TO HIGH-RANKING JEWISH CITY HALL OFFICIALS, WHO DID THEM FAVORS; PRO-PALESTINIAN STUDENTS DIDN'T
MALONE, NEW YORK Feb. 22, 2026 EXCLUSIVE
During pro-Palestinian protests at Columbia University in 2024, pro-Israel students had special access to City Hall through high-ranking Jewish members of Mayor Eric Adams' administration, emails obtained by The Free Lance News show.
The students' emails reached Mayor Adams' closest advisors, including chief spokesman Fabien Levy, counsel Lisa Zornberg, Office of Emergency Management Commissioner Zach Iscol and Deputy Chief of Staff Menashe Shapiro.
They didn't just email each other. Levy and Iscol met the students and shared a ritual Jewish feast with them.
Two days after the Seder sit-down, a student informed Levy, Zornberg, Iscol and Shapiro that an "individual with terrorism ties" visited Columbia's protest camp.
Gabriel Alon Kahane, the informant, helpfully passed along a photograph of the man.
Motaz Azaiza, a prominent Palestinian photojournalist, was the man in the photograph.
Iscol passed Kahane's claim along to the NYPD, told him they'd be in touch and thanked him.
The emails are equally notable not just for what they reveal, but for what they don't: similar emails from pro-Palestinian student protesters. The pro-Israel faction had insider access; the pro-Palestinian faction did not.
These and other emails suggest Adams' administration officials, as they managed the City's response to the protests, did not act as neutral public officers safeguarding the commonweal—evenly and equally applying the law to all Americans regardless of their religion.
Simply stated, the emails suggest the pro-Israel faction got preferential treatment because they were Jewish.
It matters because the very first sentence of the Constitution's First Amendment prohibits public officials from establishing a Government-approved religion. In other words, it's illegal to give one group preferential treatment over another on the basis of shared religious beliefs.
It also matters because a Muslim mayor now occupies City Hall: Zohran Mamdani. How would he respond to pro-Palestinian protests if they break out again like they they did in 2024?
The emails were obtained in 2025 through a public records request to then-Mayor Adams’ City Hall—before Adams was voted out of office.
The protests at Columbia unfolded against the latest attempt by Palestinians to free themselves from Israel's military occupation of their land. Lead by Hamas militiamen, a surprise, guerilla-style attack into Israel from the Palestinian-controlled Gaza Strip on Oct. 7, 2023 killed about 1,200 Israelis, mainly civilians.
251 hostages were seized and brought back into Gaza by the guerillas as they retreated.
In response, Israel invaded Gaza. It has killed more than 67,000 Palestinians and wounded nearly 170,000 to date, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry. More than 40,000 of the wounded have life-altering injuries, according to the World Health Organization. The maimed and crippled wonder amid rubble.
Those numbers only hint at even crueler facts.
One out of every 10 Palestinians in Gaza have been killed or injured by Israeli bullets and bombs, is what those numbers mean. They also mean four out of every 100 children have lost either one or both parents. 9 out of every 10 Gazans don't have a place to live because Israel destroyed their homes, the Associated Press reports. Hunger bordering on starvation is widespread.
The International Court of Justice found probable cause in January 2024 Israel is committing genocide and allowed a human rights lawsuit against it to proceed. Israel denies the charge.
The US government, under both Democratic Pres. Joe Biden and Republican Pres. Donald Trump, continues to supply Israel with weapons and other military support like intelligence—for free.
The protests at Columbia started at dawn on Apr. 17, 2024. The next day, Columbia Pres. Nemat Shafik unwittingly dumped gasoline on the crises by kowtowing to a Congressional committee investigating alleged "anti-semitism" at Columbia—a vague and elastic charge Zionists deploy to silence critics of Israel.
Instead of defending academic freedom during her testimony before the committee on Apr. 18, Pres. Shafik sacrificed it. Faculty at Columbia condemned her failure to defend professors and students from false anti-semitism allegations as "profoundly disturbing."
"In the face of slanderous assaults on Columbia faculty and students," the statement charged, not only did Pres. Shafik "not object—she capitulated to their demands."
Pro-Palestinian protesters who occupied Hamilton Hall at Columbia University during 2024 protests leave Manhattan Crimimal Court after being released from police custody. Photo credit: JB Nicholas.
Student reaction was swift.
The small occupation-style protest started by pro-Palestinian student protesters on the university's main lawn the day before, on the main lawn in front of Columbia's iconic Low Library, literally grew within minutes of Shafik's broadcast betrayal as hundreds more joined them.
The next day, Pres. Shafik blundered again when she asked Mayor Adams to have the NYPD arrest them. 108 were cuffed.
Even the NYPD's own Chief of Patrol thought it was heavy-handed.
"So let me put this in perspective, the students that were arrested were peaceful, offered no resistance whatsoever, just saying what they wanted to say in a peaceful manner," NYPD Chief of Patrol John Chell said at a news conference after the arrests.
Pres. Shafik's decision to order arrests created images of injustice so powerful they stirred outrage around the world. They were even used as propaganda by a nation some consider an enemy of the United States: Iran.
Instead of nipping the protests in the bud, the mass-arrests ignited a wave of pro-Palestinian student protests at colleges across America reminiscent of the anti-Vietnam War student protests of the 1960s.
Just as soon as the NYPD cleared the protesters from Columbia’s lawn on Apr. 18, a new and bigger group replaced them. Then, on Apr. 30, protesters moved into Hamilton Hall—a storied place in American counter-cultural history seized by students protesting against America's involvement in the Vietnam War in 1968.
The Free Lance News correctly predicted it the day before.
"This escalation represents the next generation of the 1968, 1985 and 1992 student movements which Columbia once repressed yet celebrates today," protesters said at the time, referring to the anti-war and anti-Apartheid movements.
The 2024 Occupation of Hamilton Hall ended a day later, when NYPD SWAT teams breached the barricaded building through a second story window with the help of a tank—in front of a bank of pre-positioned television cameras. The NYPD arrested 282 people, in and around the building.
The police deployed a flash-bang grenade during their assault. They even accidentally fired a shot, an NYPD spokesperson later said.
Melissa Pearl Saidak was a Jewish student in Columbia's School of Social Work when it all went down.
After pro-Palestinian students began organizing, Saidak helped organize a pro-Israel response. She was quoted by name in a Times of Israel for a report claiming "antisemitism is ‘new normal’ at Columbia University."
Behind the scenes, Saidak met with Adams administration officials who visited the campus Apr. 22, the emails obtained by The Free Lance News show. Later that afternoon, she emailed Levy, Shapiro, Zornberg and Iscol. The email's headline read, "Thank You—Jewish Student from Columbia."
"I was one of the Jewish students you spoke to today," Saidak wrote, stressing their shared religious beliefs to curry favor. "Thank you again for listening to us and coming to see what first hand we are experiencing."
Saidak invited them to a Seder—a Jewish religious meal—and suggested they bring Mayor Adams along.
"I did want to invite everyone, including Mayor Adams, to a seder," Saidak wrote.
OEM Chief Iscol wrote Saidak back the next morning.
"Thanks for the email and it was good to meet you yesterday on campus," Iscol wrote. "What time are you thinking for a Seder tonight?"
Iscol agreed to meet Saidak that evening at Columbia's Chabad house—a Jewish meeting place.
"I'll have to leave around 9:30 but looking forward to being with you all and thanks for setting this up," Iscol wrote. "Thank you."
Iscol brought Levy, Adams' chief spokesperson, with him, the emails show.
At the seder, Saidak introduced Iscol and Levy to Shai Davidai—an assistant professor of business and voluble leader of the pro-Israel faction at Columbia who later quit after being investigated for harassing pro-Palestinian students.
Apparently, the meeting didn't go as planned because later that night at 2:15 AM Saidak wrote Iscol and Levy apologizing.
"I wanted to emphasize that it was not my intention or expectation that the night would end in the matter it did (for you two)," Saidak wrote. "I am sorry that happened. Shai is (as you may know) a prominent figure in all this, which is why I felt it was important for you two to meet him."
Levy replied 10 minutes later.
"We both very much appreciated the invite and meeting as many people as we could, including Shai," Levy wrote. "His passion is obvious and so is the unnerving feeling of anxiety you must all feel while walking down the street, so can't fault him for that."
Levy ended by saying, "I'll look into this matter."
The emails don't reveal exactly what "matter" Levy agreed to "look into." But, given the context, it's clear that it was something of interest to the group.
The next morning, Iscol wrote Saidak back too.
"Absolutely no need to apologize," Iscol wrote. "It was a very special seder ..."
The OEM chief added: "I've never been prouder to be Jewish or to be a part of such a community.”
“Thank you for bringing us together a silver lining during these times,” he continued, “and please let's keep in touch. Best, Zach."
The next day, another Jewish Columbia student emailed the same four Adams' administration officials Saidak had.
Gabriel Alon Kahane claimed to inform Levy, Iscol, Zornberg and Shapiro about a "Sighting of individual with terrorism ties on Columbia's campus."
"2 days ago, the 'journalist' Motaz Azaiza was in the Columbia encampment (photo attached)," Kahane wrote. "Motaz was one of the people who recorded the October 7th terrorist attack as it happened, with suspected knowledge of it beforehand."
"I called the FBI," Kahane revealed, but lamented "They were uninterested."
The FBI might have been uninterested, but Iscol was.
"Thank you for passing this along," Iscol replied. "I've flagged for NYPD. Someone from their team should be reaching out to you."
Before Mayor Adams made Iscol OEM Commissioner, he was a Marine Corps officer. He did two tours of duty in Iraq and won a Bronze Star with V Device during the Second Battle of Fallujah.
The protests continued until the end of the Spring semester. So did the snitch mail to City Hall.
A Columbia law student's email dated Monday, May 13, 2024 asked "Please cancel Mohamed Abdou's teach-in at TNS."
Jordan Maxwell Schiff wrote: "It has come to my attention that as part of the ever escalating hateful and terror supporting demonstrations at The New School, anti-Israel students and faculty have invited Mohamed Abdou for a 'teach-in' by the faculty encampment and he is set to speak on campus Monday."
Dr. Abdou is a lightning rod for criticism because he's a scholar of an Anarchist strain of Islamic philosphy he calls "Anaracha-Islam"—a seeming contradiction in terms since Islam is based on legal prescriptions in the Qur'an, which Muslims generally consider the highest "law," whereas Anarchism is based on breaking the law.
Schiff, the lawyer-to-be, alleged “Abdou is known for being an outspoken terror supporter. In a social media post on October 11th he stated, 'I'm with Hamas & Hezbollah & Islamic Jihad.'"
"Please do not give him another platform to spread his hate and violence," Schiff asked. "Do not permit Mohamed Abdou to be a guest at The New School."
It's not clear what, if any, action City officials took in response to Schiff's report.
The 2024 New School Faculty Occupation ended two weeks later, after the school agreed to protesters' demand for a vote on divesting university investments from Israel, the Times of Israel reported.
But, later that year in December, the school's Board of Trustees voted against it.
Emails, telephone calls, text messages and social media DMs to everyone named in this report inviting comment—and/or their lawyers—were not returned.
Iscol, who intially kept his job under Mamdani, resigned Jan. 20.
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