Columbia’s Campus, Riven by Anti-Israeli Protests and Vitriol, Is Unrecognizable to This Alumna

For an alumna returning to Columbia University’s campus after a few years, or even a professor who has taught for decades, little is recognizable about Columbia University from before the war.Even before one walks onto campus, angry protesters flock the gates on both Amsterdam Avenue and Broadway. They beat drums and scream battle cries to globalize the intifada as nearby, unfazed Columbia guards give a cursory check to identification.It is more than two days since the “Gaza Solidarity Encampment” began, in part led by Students for Justice in Palestine, a student group that has continued to organize despite being suspended as a group in November. Before the NYPD cleared the encampment, tents were splayed across the grassy fields in front of Butler Library.They are the same fields that, after a snowfall in February, students dyed red to evoke Palestinian blood. On the same fields a few hundred Jewish students stood on in quiet vigil, with posters of the hostages and victims of October 7, not uttering a sound, as across the path, hundreds of pro-Hamas students shouted, “we don’t want no Zionists here.” As of Friday, Occupy Columbia is still going strong. Today, students gathered on the lawn for public prayer services as cries of “Allahu Akbar” resounded through the campus. Later, a faculty “open hours” was being conducted with professors joining the students in protest, including Professor Mohamed Abdo, who, after October 7, asserted, “Yes, I’m with Hamas and Hezbollah and Islamic Jihad.” When asked this week at the congressional hearing about Mr. Abdo, President Minouche Shafik testified under oath that he would “never work at Columbia again.” On Thursday night, despite the late hour, the cold weather, and the more than a hundred arrests made earlier by the New York City police — including a Barnard student, Isra Hirsi, who is the daughter of Congresswoman Ilhan Omar — the protests kept going. Earlier yesterday afternoon, a series of non-Columbia “guest speakers” made it onto campus despite campus access being restricted to university identification card holders and pre-approved guests. The lineup included philosopher and academic Cornel West, who previously went on the record to say that Israel and America were mostly to blame for Hamas’ October 7 massacre, and Palestinian activist and poet Mohammed El-Kurd, who is being investigated by the London Police for describing the Hamas murderers of October 7 as “martyrs” and saying “we must normalize massacres as the status quo.” Rounding out the non-Columbia speakers was actress Indya Moore, who has more than 1.6 million followers on instagram but who did not know the name of the president of Columbia or how the crowd felt about her. In a call and repeat speech, she led hundreds of students through a chant that started with “we love everyone,” and “we are in love with love,” and then morphed into, “we will resist, because resistance is love,” “there is no justice, there is no peace without resistance,” “we refuse the messages from the Zios in the back, because they believe the decimation of Palestine and innocent men women and children is necessary for their safety, and we know that is a lie.”“It’s just really tough to see that the entire campus is brainwashed,” a freshman at Columbia, Noam Woldenberg, who along with a few other Jewish students showed up to counter-protest, waving American and Israeli flags, said. “It’s not that they support Palestinian liberation,” he added. “They support Hamas. There is a guy in a red keffiyeh right there who brandished the Hamas flag on his phone… these aren’t peaceful people. They get up in your face. They give you dirty looks when you are wearing a Magen David [a Star of David] necklace.“They don’t even advocate for peace,” he added. “The ceasefire now crowd has turned into ‘Iran make us proud, Houthis make us proud,’ so there really is no consistency to their ideology. They are simultaneously calling for peace but then calling for the destruction of the Jewish state.” Mr. Woldenberg said the protesters were “Asking for a ceasefire but then also cheering on Iran when they sent in the drones… It just seems like complete lunacy. It just makes you wonder, is this really a top institution?”About an hour later, an Israeli Arab journalist, Yoseph Haddad, arrived outside the Columbia gates, en route to give a speech to students about the future and sustained peace and coexistence in which all students were invited to attend. Mr. Haddad started questioning a protester in a keffiyeh turban, wearing a Palestinian flag on his back like a cape, who was waving a tattered and “bloody” Israeli flag, tauntingly and shouting “kill yourself! Commit suicide! Jump off a building!” That quickly escalated to Mr. Haddad getting shoved and punched in the face by another angry protester, who was arrested by the NYPD. The peaceful coexistence event had to be canceled, and Mr. Haddad went to the precinct to file a criminal report. Later, a lilting call to Muslim prayer was projected over the loudspeaker. Then the chants resumed with the usual “Justice is our demand, no peace for stolen land,” “Free the prisoners, free them all, Zionism will fall,” “There is only one solution, Intifada Revolution,” and the classic, “From the River to the Sea, Palestine Will be Free.” By 11 p.m. Thurday night, the lawn in front of Butler Library had turned into a dance party. The chanting had been replaced with Arabic music pulsing from loudspeakers, along with students’ hallooing. As Palestinian flags danced along with hundreds of students in feverish energy, one couldn’t help but wonder where exactly one was.

Columbia’s Campus, Riven by Anti-Israeli Protests and Vitriol, Is Unrecognizable to This Alumna

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