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That's kind of conversation to your soul.

That's conversation between your soul and the night. Hello, hello, American Prestige listeners, it's Derek, I am joined, as always, by my friend and comrade Danny Bessner.

And we are very, very pleased to welcome back to the program.

Rashid Halliday, he's the Edward Said Professor Emeritus of Modern Arab Studies at Columbia University,

an author of the best-selling The Hundred Years War on Palestine. You may have heard him on the show previously. We did a series

with him talking about that book. If you haven't listened to those episodes, please check those

out. Professor Halliday, thank you so much for coming back to the show. It's a pleasure to be back.

So we wanted to talk to you primarily about what's been going on in terms of these quote-unquote

settlements that your University, Columbia, and others have been reaching with the Trump administration.

So why don't we start with the open letter that you wrote to the president, the acting president of Columbia,

Claire Shipman a few days ago as we're recording this. It will be a couple of weeks by the time

people hear this interview. But just for people who maybe aren't familiar with the story,

who haven't read the open letter, we will put a link to it in the show description.

But for anybody who needs a refresher, can you just sort of go through what's happened here and what

prompted you to write the letter?

Sure. I mean, it requires a bit of background. I retired in 2024 after a three-year, you know,

a period where I was where where I was slowly cutting down on my teaching.

And at the end of that period, I had the ability to teach a course if my department wanted

it after I retired. And so I did that last fall, actually, the fall of 2024, after I retired.

...