FROM OUR CORRESPONDENT
NEW YORK – The Columbia University it is surrounded by barriers, manned by policemen and security guards who deny access to anyone without a university card, even journalists, with a “window” for the latter from 2 to 4 in the afternoon.
The tensions that began on October 7 escalated on April 18, when university president Minouche Shafik, after testifying in the House on anti-Semitism, called the police to break up a protest on campus, with the arrest of over 100 pro-Palestinian students, who asked, among other things, that the university cease relations with companies that “profit from the war in Gaza”. Between them Isra Hirsi, 21, daughter of Democratic Congresswoman Ilhan Omar. Then released, they were suspended and informed via email that they had 15 minutes to vacate the dormitories at Columbia and Barnard College, with just weeks to go before the end of the semester. But the protests have spread to Columbia – around seventy tents, food supplies, Palestinian flags, kefiehs and the words “Gaza solidarity encampment” – as well as to other solidarity universities: Yale, Emerson College, MIT, Nyu.
Yesterday the police carried out dozens of arrests at Yale and New York University, while Columbia University responded to the student mobilization against the war in Gaza by canceling in-person classes.
On Saturday we saw the protest take shape again, with students chanting «From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free». Some are Jews, they say they will pray together with Muslims for Pesach, the Jewish Passover, like Makayla Gubbay, a human rights student, who is worried about those who protest for the Palestinians and “are injured by the police and censored”. But On Saturday evening, outside, there were those shouting anti-Semitic slogans: “Go back to Poland.” A rabbi sent a message to Orthodox Jewish students on Sunday: Stay home. Shafik decided to hold classes remotely.
In the difficult balance between guaranteeing freedom of expression and protecting Jewish students worried about growing anti-Semitism, Shafik “has managed to displease everyone – she tells us in front of the Neshta School of Journalism, India – both those who ask for tougher measures and those who want students to be able to express themselves”. The Columbia Daily Spectator He accuses her of “inability to distinguish between speeches that she personally opposes and those that deserve to be suppressed.” Also the teachers are split. Outside campus, Shai Davidai, a professor at the Business School, accused the protesters of being terrorists (the university took away his badge and he is under investigation, as are some professors for pro-Hamas statements). Meanwhile, around a hundred teachers, including historian Christopher Brown, condemned the arrests. «What do we want? No suspension. When do we want it? Now”.
And i politicians descend on campus: a delegation of Democratic Jewish deputies came to support the Jewish students, the 10 New York Republicans (and Democrats like John Fetterman) called for Shafik’s resignation. Governor Hochul and Mayor Adams Denounce Anti-Semitism. Alexandra Ocasio Cortez instead praises “the power of young people”. American Jewish billionaire and alumnus Robert Kraft defunds Columbia; other alumni will take them away from Yale if he doesn’t stop investing in “companies that arm Israel”. And President Biden, yesterday: «I condemn the anti-Semitic protests. And even those who don’t understand what is happening to the Palestinians».
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