A leader of students protesting the war in Gaza at Columbia University has apologised after video emerged of him saying “Zionists don’t deserve to live”.
Khymani James, 20, said he was “unusually upset” and “misspoke in the heat of the moment”.
On Friday, Columbia announced that he had been banned from campus.
Protests which began at Columbia in New York City have since spread to campuses across the US.
Mr James, who has acted as a spokesman for the protesters, posted the comments to Instagram in January. He also said: “Be grateful that I’m not just going out and murdering Zionists.”
The comments were made both before and after Columbia administrators called him in for a disciplinary hearing.
In recent days, those comments were circulated by pro-Israel activists.
On Friday Mr James apologised, writing in a statement on X: “I affirm the sanctity of all life and the movement for liberation.”
A spokesman for the White House issued a statement condemning his remarks about Zionists.
Some of the campus protests on US campuses have been accused of antisemitism, and President Biden earlier this week condemned the “antisemitic protests”.
A number of Jewish students have said they have felt unsafe at Columbia and at other universities, although other Jewish students have joined the demonstrations.
On Friday, the Columbia University Senate, made up of faculty and students, voted to admonish the university administration for its handling of the protests.
Calling city police in to clear the encampment ran “contrary to the norms and traditions” of the university, the senate said.
Columbia President Nemat “Minouche” Shafik is facing pressure to step down over the response to the protests.
The latest wave of campus protests began after Columbia officials called in police to clear a protest encampment on 18 April and more than 100 people were arrested.
Activists have been calling for universities to “divest from genocide” and to stop investing large school endowments in companies involved in weapons manufacturing and other industries supporting Israel’s war in Gaza.
Israel is currently facing a case brought by South Africa at the International Court of Justice alleging that it is committing genocide against the Palestinians, an accusation Israel has rejected as “baseless”.
More than 34,180 people – most of them children and women – have been killed in Gaza since then, the territory’s Hamas-run health ministry says.
