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Columbia University Threatens to Expel Protesters Occupying Building
A student protester parades a Palestinian flag outside the entrance to Hamilton Hall on the campus of Columbia University, in New York, U.S., April 30, 2024. Photo: Mary Altaffer/Pool via REUTERS
Columbia University officials threatened to expel activists on Tuesday after they seized and occupied an academic building as the standoff between administrators and student protesters intensified.
Shortly after midnight on Tuesday, protesters broke windows and entered Hamilton Hall, where they unfurled a banner reading “Hind’s Hall,” symbolically renaming the building for a six-year-old Palestinian child killed in Gaza by the Israeli military.
Outside the academic building – the site of various student occupations dating back to the 1960s – protesters blocked the entrance with tables, linked arms to form a barricade and chanted anti-Israel slogans.
A university spokesperson said protesters had chosen to escalate an “untenable situation” and that the school’s top priority is the safety and order on campus.
“The work of the university cannot be endlessly interrupted by protesters who violate the rules. Continuing to do so will be met with clear consequences,” school spokesperson Ben Chang said in a statement.
Chang said students occupying the building face expulsion.
One of the lead negotiators for the coalition of student protest groups said Columbia officials contacted him through mediators to ascertain the demands of the activists occupying Hamilton Hall.
“Once they decide to come back to the table we can talk about demands,” said Mahmoud Khalil, who said he was off-campus. “These students felt hurt and abandoned by the administration because it did not listen to their demands, so they had to do things differently.”
On Monday, Columbia University began suspending anti-Israel student activists, including Khalil, for refusing to dismantle the protest camp on the campus after the Ivy League school declared a stalemate in talks seeking to end the demonstration.
University President Nemat Minouche Shafik said in a statement that days of negotiations between student organizers and academic leaders had failed to persuade demonstrators to remove the dozens of tents set up to express opposition to Israel’s war in Gaza.
Protesters on the Manhattan campus are demanding that Columbia meets three demands: divestment from companies that support Israel’s government, transparency in university finances, and amnesty for students and faculty disciplined for their part in the protests.
Shafik this week said Columbia would not divest from finances in Israel. Instead, she offered to invest in health and education in Gaza and make Columbia’s direct investment holdings more transparent.
After students entered the Columbia building, the school sent out a notice saying access to the campus had been limited to students residing in residential buildings on campus and employees providing essential services.
New York City police officers arrived outside the school gates in unmarked cars moments after the protesters entered the building, the Columbia Spectator newspaper reported. Police told the paper they would only enter school grounds if someone was injured.
MORE PROTESTS, MORE ARRESTS
The building occupation at Columbia is at the center of Gaza-related protests roiling university campuses across the U.S. in recent weeks.
Students at dozens of campuses from California to New England have set up similar tent encampments to demonstrate their anger over the Israeli operation in Gaza.
The anti-Israel rallies have sparked intense campus debate over where school officials should draw the line between freedom of expression and hate speech.
At Cal Poly Humboldt University, police early on Tuesday swarmed the campus, where students were occupying a school building, and starting detaining people, local media reported.
Police late on Monday had declared the protest an unlawful assembly and warned people they faced arrest if they did not disperse.
The campus was earlier closed to all people except students and faculty because of the ongoing protest. Information was not immediately available on how many people may have been detained.
Civil rights groups have criticized law enforcement tactics on some campuses where police have clashed with protesters and have used chemical irritants to disperse crowds.
Arrests continued at a number of schools across the country.
Police detained about 30 protesters at their encampment at the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill early on Tuesday after the university gave them until 6 a.m. local time to disperse, according to a statement from the school, noting that students had trespassed into classroom buildings overnight.
At the University of Texas at Austin, police arrested dozens of students whom they doused with pepper spray at a pro-Palestinian rally on Monday.
Protesters also squared off with police at Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond. Police used chemical irritants on the crowd and detained numerous people. The protesters had set up a “liberation zone” of tents surrounded by barriers.
“After repeated warnings and refusal to disperse, law enforcement must protect Virginians,” Virginia Governor Glenn Youngkin, a Republican, wrote on social media after the incident.
The post Columbia University Threatens to Expel Protesters Occupying Building first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Treasure Trove spotlights a menorah designed in the early years of the State of Israel
This laurel branch Hanukkah menorah, designed by artist Maurice Ascalon (1913-2003), won first prize at the 1950 Tel Aviv Design Competition. Between 2,000 and 4,000 of these were made by the Pal-Bell factory in Israel, and they were sold not only in Israel but in select department stores around the world, including Macy’s in New York and Harrods in London.
The shape of the oil containers resembles ancient Roman lamps, while the large pitcher is a reference to the single jug of oil that lasted for eight days that is at the heart of the Hanukkah story.
These hanukkiyot were manufactured out of cast bronze with a green patina that was created using reactive chemicals, a process developed by Ascalon, resulting in an antique verdigris look.
Ascalon, who was born in Hungary and originally named Moshe Klein, immigrated to Palestine in 1934 after training in Brussels and Milan. He started the Pal-Bell Company in the late 1930s for the production of ritual and secular decorative items. “Pal” is short for Palestine and “Bell” is short for bellezza, Italian for beauty and an allusion to his time in Milan where the artist learned and perfected his sculpting skills. During Israel’s War of Independence in 1948, Ascalon designed munitions for the Israeli army and, at the request of the Israeli government, retrofitted his factory to produce arms for the war effort.
Ascalon closed Pal-Bell and moved to the United States in 1956, where he taught sculpture at the University of Judaism in Los Angeles and opened Ascalon Studios, which produces large-scale sculptures for public spaces and houses of worship.
The studio, which is now run by Ascalon’s son David and his grandson Eric, was retooled during the COVID pandemic to manufacture safety boxes that allowed health-care workers to assist a patient on a ventilator while minimizing exposure.
Treasure Trove wishes you a happy Hanukkah , which starts on Dec. 25. This year, as Peter, Paul and Mary sang, “Light one candle for the terrible sacrifice, justice and freedom demand. Don’t let the light go out!”
The post Treasure Trove spotlights a menorah designed in the early years of the State of Israel appeared first on The Canadian Jewish News.
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Germany: 5 Killed, Scores Wounded after Saudi Man Plows Car Into Christmas crowd
Magdeburg Christmas market, December 21, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Christian Mang
i24 News – A suspected terrorist plowed a vehicle into a crowd at a Christmas market in the German city of Magdeburg, west of the capital Berlin, killing at least five and injuring dozens more.
Local police confirmed that the suspect was a Saudi national born in 1974 and acting alone.
German Chancellor Olaf Scholz expressed his concern about the incident, saying that “reports from Magdeburg suggest something bad. My thoughts are with the victims and their families.”
Police declined to give casualty numbers, confirming only a large-scale operation at the market, where people had gathered to celebrate in the days leading up to the Christmas holidays.
The post Germany: 5 Killed, Scores Wounded after Saudi Man Plows Car Into Christmas crowd first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Syria’s New Rulers Name HTS Commander as Defense Minister
A person waves a flag adopted by the new Syrian rulers, as people gather during a celebration called by Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) near the Umayyad Mosque, after the ousting of Syria’s Bashar al-Assad, in Damascus, Syria, Photo: December 20, 2024. REUTERS/Ammar Awad/File Photo
Syria’s new rulers have appointed Murhaf Abu Qasra, a leading figure in the insurgency which toppled Bashar al-Assad, as defense minister in the interim government, an official source said on Saturday.
Abu Qasra, who is also known by the nom de guerre Abu Hassan 600, is a senior figure in the Islamist Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) group which led the campaign that ousted Assad this month. He led numerous military operations during Syria’s revolution, the source said.
Syria’s de facto leader Ahmed al-Sharaa discussed “the form of the military institution in the new Syria” during a meeting with armed factions on Saturday, state news agency SANA reported.
Abu Qasra during the meeting sat next to Sharaa, also known by the nom de guerre Abu Mohammed al-Golani, photos published by SANA showed.
Prime Minister Mohammed al-Bashir said this week that the defense ministry would be restructured using former rebel factions and officers who defected from Assad’s army.
Bashir, who formerly led an HTS-affiliated administration in the northwestern province of Idlib, has said he will lead a three-month transitional government. The new administration has not declared plans for what will happen after that.
Earlier on Saturday, the ruling General Command named Asaad Hassan al-Shibani as foreign minister, SANA said. A source in the new administration told Reuters that this step “comes in response to the aspirations of the Syrian people to establish international relations that bring peace and stability.”
Shibani, a 37-year-old graduate of Damascus University, previously led the political department of the rebels’ Idlib government, the General Command said.
Sharaa’s group was part of al Qaeda until he broke ties in 2016. It had been confined to Idlib for years until going on the offensive in late November, sweeping through the cities of western Syria and into Damascus as the army melted away.
Sharaa has met with a number of international envoys this week. He has said his primary focus is on reconstruction and achieving economic development and that he is not interested in engaging in any new conflicts.
Syrian rebels seized control of Damascus on Dec. 8, forcing Assad to flee after more than 13 years of civil war and ending his family’s decades-long rule.
Washington designated Sharaa a terrorist in 2013, saying al Qaeda in Iraq had tasked him with overthrowing Assad’s rule and establishing Islamic sharia law in Syria. US officials said on Friday that Washington would remove a $10 million bounty on his head.
The war has killed hundreds of thousands of people, caused one of the biggest refugee crises of modern times and left cities bombed to rubble and the economy hollowed out by global sanctions.
The post Syria’s New Rulers Name HTS Commander as Defense Minister first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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