Hundreds of Columbia University students set up nearly 60 tents and shouted anti-Israel slogans on the campus’ main lawn Wednesday – just as Columbia President Minouche Shafik testified before Congress about antisemitism at the Ivy League school.
The Gaza Solidarity Encampment first sprung up near Butler Library before 5 a.m., featuring a make-shiftrow of tents and signs featuring slogans such as,“Israel bombs, Columbia pays,” in reference to Israel’s military action in the Gaza Strip after the Oct. 7 terror attack.
“Free, free Palestine!” the pro-divestment protesters could be heard chanting in video from the scene captured by The Post.
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— katie smith (@probablyreadit) April 17, 2024NOW: Columbia students are occupying the lawn in front of Butler Library as Columbia President Minouche Shafik testifies before Congress
NYPD is confining members of the media to a pen on the sidewalk without a view of the lawn pic.twitter.com/JZ69M3NE0B
The event was soon met by counter protesters waving Israeli flags, whose numbers grew by the early evening.
“These guys have been chanting ‘Death to the Zionist state,’” Jonny Lederer, a Columbia sophom*ore, told The Post of the protestors.
“So I go there with my Israeli flag and my megaphone and I say ‘Listen, can you condemn Hamas on October 7?’ They were silent…not one person was able to condemn it.”
The divestment advocates and pro-Israeli counter protestors circled up on the quad, while one speaker appeared to commandeer the scene with a megaphone.
As the pro-Palestinian protestors cheered, one of the counter protestors was heard yelling out “Can you call for the release of the hostages [held by Hamas in Gaza]?”
Outside the campus gates, pro-Palestinian protestors wielded signs with slogans like “Israeli forces slaughter Palestinians waiting for food” and “Cease genocide.”
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— Talia Jane ❤️🔥 (@taliaotg) April 17, 2024Reps from @BarnardCollege entered the lawn at @Columbia where hundreds of students have gathered for a Gaza Solidarity Encampment calling on the university to divest from Israel.
Admins tell students to talk to them to avoid disciplinary action. Students laugh & chant “Hell no.” pic.twitter.com/737hTS8cFQ
A 21-year-old Barnard College student who was nearby told The Post she doesn’t expect the demonstrations to disperse unless Columbia clamps down on the rabble rousers.
“Not unless Columbia actually implements consequences,” Katie A. said. “It is extremely dangerous for Jewish students. There is no public safety on campus … does not do anything.”
She called the protests “tone deaf.”
What to know about the antisemitism controversy at Columbia University:
- Columbia University president Minouche Shafikwas accused of “gross negligence” while testifying before the House Education and Workforce Committeeabout antisemitic incidents at the school and pro-Palestinian indoctrination. Shafik defended the school’s response after Oct. 7, but refused to tell lawmakers at the hearing if the phrase “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free” is antisemitic.
- A report from the Ivy League school’s Task Force on Antisemitism found “repeated violations by student groups”at Columbia after the Oct. 7 Hamas terror attacks in Israel.
- Ahead of the hearing, Jewish students told The Post that they have been targeted and witnessed antisemitism at the Morningside Heights campus. The Columbia University Jewish Alumni Association told The Post that the college’s administrators must “do their job” in reining in unauthorized student protests.
- Shortly after the Oct. 7 attacks, more than 100 Columbia professors signed a letter defending students who support the “military action” by Hamas.
- In February, an antisemitic poster depicting Israel as a skunk appeared on campus — which experts liken to a propaganda poster used by the Nazis in World War II.
- An unsanctioned “Resistance 101” event was held on campus in March by a Palestinian activist with alleged ties to a group labeled a terror organization by the US. Four students who participated were later suspended by Columbia.
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- While the congressional hearing was in progress, Columbia students erected 60 tents on campus to demand that the university divest from Israel. One of the leaders of the protests, Ilhan Omar’s daughter, Isra Hirsi, was suspended from Barnard College — a women’s college affiliated with Columbia.
- Shocking video footage captured a protester near the university declare, “We’re all Hamas” and “Long live Hamas” Wednesday. Another protester was arrested Wednesday night for repeatedly hitting and scratching an NYPD cop, according to law enforcement officials.
- On Thursday, more than 100 other protesters were arrested after Shafik announced the campus’s closure.
“I believe they are trying to simulate some type of refugee camp which honestly I think is extremely tone deaf,” Katie A. said.
“They’re all rich students who go to an Ivy League institution that costs over $80,000 a year to attend. They live in their comfy apartment on the Upper West side of New York and they have the gall to come out here and complain.”
The NYPD arrived at the scene several hours into the protest, and restricted the press to a pen outside the main gates on Broadway and 116th Street.
At least one arrest has been made during dueling protests, the NYPD confirmed.
Photos from the scene show cops leading one person into a police van near 116th Street.
The protester was asked to lower a pole with Palestinian, Yemeni and transgender flags attached to it before taking that person into custody,the Columbia Spectator reported.
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Columbia had already restricted access to the main campus to university ID holders ahead of Shafik’s congressional appearance, the Spectator noted.
Columbia public safety announced that it was also closing the campus’ main gates at 4 p.m. Wednesday due to the ongoing protest.
TwoNYPD Corrections Department buses were parked in front of the Cathedral of St. John the Divine, just two blocks from the campus, independent reporter Katie Smith wrote.
During her congressional appearance on Wednesday, PresidentShafik admitted that “the events of October 7 brought to the fore an undercurrent of antisemitism” at the university, but reassured the committee that Columbia took “immediate action” on the issue.
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“Trying to reconcile the free speech rights of those who wanted to protest and the rights of Jewish students to be in an environment free of discrimination and harassment has been the central challenge on our campus,” she added.
Katie A. ripped the president for her lack of support.
“I am utterly disgusted that this is permitted especially when Minouche Shafik our president goes to Congress and says that she doesn’t allow this and if she wouldn’t allow this….it happens all the time and it’s happening again right now and nothing is being done about it.”
Lederer, however, slammed Shafik’s statement that all students who violated university policy would be disciplined.
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The tent protest, he alleged, was “unsanctioned” by school officials.
“Public safety isn’t doing anything. When I asked public safety, ‘What’s the policy?’ they said ‘we don’t know, nobody tells us,’” he lamented.
“I am pro peace, I am pro two states,” Lederer added. “They are not able to have dialogue, they are not able to have any sympathy towards Jews. So I stand there, I know I’m morally right…and someone has to counterprotest them.”
