{"id":16487,"date":"2024-04-27T18:48:59","date_gmt":"2024-04-27T17:48:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thedailyleaks.com\/?p=16487"},"modified":"2024-04-27T18:50:59","modified_gmt":"2024-04-27T17:50:59","slug":"columbia-university-president-grilled-on-antisemitism-as-students-protest-israeli-military-actions-in-gaza","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thedailyleaks.com\/columbia-university-president-grilled-on-antisemitism-as-students-protest-israeli-military-actions-in-gaza\/","title":{"rendered":"Columbia University president grilled on antisemitism as students protest Israeli military actions in Gaza"},"content":{"rendered":"
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As Columbia University’s president, Minouche Shafik, faced a Congressional inquiry on Capitol Hill regarding antisemitism on campus, a small group of students erected tents at dawn on Wednesday, April 17th, protesting against Israeli military operations in Gaza and advocating for the university to sever ties with companies they perceive as backing the conflict.<\/p>\n

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They did so as Minouche Shafik, Columbia’s president, made her way to Capitol Hill to face a Congressional grilling over antisemitism on campus and how she was tackling it.<\/p>\n<\/section>\n

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In nearly four hours of questioning that Wednesday, she defended actions she was already taking. Students, she said, were “getting the message that violations of our policies will have consequences”.<\/p>\n<\/section>\n

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The next afternoon, the Columbia president made a decision that would ignite a wildfire of protest at colleges across the United States.<\/p>\n<\/section>\n

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The students at the protest camp were trespassing, had refused to leave and had created a “harassing and intimidating environment” for many of their peers, she said.<\/p>\n<\/section>\n

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She was sending in the NYPD.<\/p>\n<\/section>\n

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Soon after, officers from the largest police department in the US, wearing riot gear and wielding plastic handcuffs, arrested more than 100 students – the first time mass arrests had been made on Columbia’s campus since the Vietnam War protests more than five decades ago.<\/p>\n<\/section>\n

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Protesters at Columbia say that recent arrests encouraged more students to join and inspired peers at other universities. Getty Images<\/span><\/section>\n
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“It was a shock to us all,” said Rashida Mustafa, a doctoral student at Columbia. “I was in disbelief. But it felt like a call to action.”<\/p>\n<\/section>\n

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The outrage among students was immediate. By the next day, another protest camp was established at a different lawn just a few metres away.<\/p>\n<\/section>\n

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It was much bigger than before, having swelled from a small number of tents to a congested campsite, complete with buffet-style meals of donated food, live performances and a “security team” at the gate watching for infiltrators.<\/p>\n<\/section>\n

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A day later, another protest camp was set up just over 70 miles (112km) north-east of Columbia, at Yale University in Connecticut, another elite institution.<\/p>\n

ALSO READ:\u00a0Russia vetoes US-backed UN resolution to ban nuclear weapons in space amid satellite destruction concerns<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n<\/section>\n

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By the middle of this week, demonstrations were taking place at dozens of campuses across the country, and they stretched into the weekend: US police said on Saturday they had ended another protest at Northeastern University in Boston, arresting about 100 people.<\/p>\n<\/section>\n

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The Columbia students have sparked a national movement.<\/p>\n<\/section>\n

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The students’ anger over how Israel is fighting its war against Hamas has raised fraught questions for university leaders, who are already struggling with combustive campus debates around what is happening in the Middle East.<\/p>\n<\/section>\n

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How do they balance the right to protest and free speech with the need to protect other students from harm and abuse? When do they send in the police to enforce university policies, knowing heavy-handed responses will be filmed and appear instantly on millions of social media feeds?<\/p>\n<\/section>\n

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Watch: How Gaza campus protests spread across the US<\/span><\/section>\n
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At Yale, police arrived at a protest encampment in the heart of the campus in the early hours of 22 April as many students were still asleep. Nearly 50 students were arrested after refusing to leave, with some locking arms around a flagpole.<\/p>\n<\/section>\n

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“They came very quickly, and with no warning. Droves of police just poured into the plaza,” Chisato Kimura, a law student, told the BBC from New Haven.<\/p>\n<\/section>\n

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“Seeing a militarised force, invited by Yale to come onto campus, was very jarring,” she added. “We were peacefully protesting.”<\/p>\n<\/section>\n

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BBC<\/a> reported that the US college campuses have been a flashpoint for Gaza war protests since Hamas attacked Israel on 7 October, killing about 1,200 people – mostly civilians – and taking 253 others back to Gaza as hostages. Since then more than 34,000 people, most of them women and children, have been killed in Gaza, according to the Hamas-run health ministry.<\/p>\n<\/section>\n

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