RSS
Pro-Palestinian protesters at Columbia claim to be hit by ‘chemical weapon’ as they call for intifada
(New York Jewish Week) – Pro-Palestinian protesters at Columbia University disrupted a “day of dialogue” meant to ease campus tensions over the Israel-Hamas war, and claimed that pro-Israel activists sprayed them with a chemical agent.
Friday’s protest came after Columbia confirmed to JTA that it was extending the suspension of two leading pro-Palestinian student groups, Jewish Voice for Peace and Students for Justice in Palestine. The groups were suspended in November for violating university regulations at prior programs, and the university said they had not yet committed to abiding by school rules.
The demonstration was led by a pro-Palestinian coalition of more than 80 student groups that has formed in their absence called Columbia University Apartheid Divest. Despite the snow and cold temperatures, around 100 students gathered outside the school’s Low Library and chanted slogans including, “There is only one solution, intifada revolution.”
Protesters also railed against the “day of dialogue” held at Columbia’s Barnard College, which included scholars of Israel studies, Islamophobia, law and political science. The protesters demanded a boycott of the event, reported the Columbia Spectator, the student newspaper.
A small group of counter-protesters carrying Israeli and American flags gathered opposite the pro-Palestinian demonstrators outside the library. Video showed the pro-Israel demonstrators carrying orange balloons, a symbol of the Israeli hostages, holding up images of the captives, chanting “Bring them home,” and singing Israel’s national anthem.
After the protest, SJP claimed on X, formerly Twitter, that two Israeli “soldiers” had “sprayed a chemical weapon” on the demonstrators, and demanded action from the university. The group claimed that protesters were hit with “skunk spray,” a reference to a foul-smelling liquid Israeli police and soldiers have used to break up demonstrations by Palestinians, haredi Orthodox Jews and, last year, opponents of the government’s judicial overhaul.
But, as of press time, it’s unclear what the social media post was referring to. The student groups did not respond to a request for comment or elaborate on how they determined that soldiers had deployed a “chemical weapon.” The school said in a statement its Department of Public Safety was “investigating incidents reported in connection with Friday’s protest that are of great concern,” without mentioning a chemical agent.
The NYPD said a 24-year-old woman reported that an “unknown substance” had been sprayed into the air, causing her to feel nauseous. On Friday evening, police received five more reports about the incident. There were no arrests and the investigation is ongoing, police said.
The university said in a Monday night statement that information had surfaced about the incident the previous night, and that “alleged perpetrators identified to the University were immediately banned from campus.” The NYPD was taking the lead role in the investigation, the statement said.
Columbia staff told protesters that the university “welcomes the opportunity to engage with recognized student groups to support sanctioned and safe events.” But the university told the protesters that the rally was “an unsanctioned event held by an unrecognized student coalition” and a violation of the university’s policies and procedures, a Columbia spokesperson told the New York Jewish Week.
SJP, whose national umbrella celebrated Hamas’ Oct. 7 invasion of Israel, has been suspended at several schools, including Florida’s public universities, George Washington University and Brandeis University. It was suspended and reinstated at Rutgers University. Columbia’s suspension of JVP appeared to be the first time a university suspended the Jewish anti-Zionist group.
Columbia was a focal point for controversy in the weeks after Oct. 7, amid dueling protests for and against Israel and the reported assault of an Israeli student. It is one of several elite schools to draw scrutiny amid the Israel-Hamas war. The presidents of three other elite universities told lawmakers last month that calling for the genocide of Jews did not necessarily violate university policy, provoking a firestorm of controversy that led two of them to step down.
Columbia’s president, Minouche Shafik, was invited to appear before Congress at the same hearing, but declined, citing a scheduling conflict.
The protest on Friday aimed to keep the school’s focus on the war. It was part of an “action week” announced by Columbia University Apartheid Divest that began with the start of the spring semester last week. The activists demanded that Columbia divest from Israel, reform campus policing and commit to financial transparency. The students also announced a “tuition strike,” pledging to not pay the school until Columbia “concedes to our demands.”
According to a video of Friday’s protest taken by the Columbia Jewish Alumni Association, a newly formed advocacy group, around 100 student activists gathered outside the school’s Low Library and chanted, “Globalize the intifada,” and “Resistance is justified when people are colonized.”
Others carried signs that said, “Yemen Yemen make us proud, turn another ship around” — a reference to attacks on global shipping by the Houthis, a US-designated terrorist group that has claimed it is fighting Israel’s invasion of Gaza.
The Jewish alumni group charged that the new anti-Israel coalition was effectively a substitute for the suspended groups. The association said it had been hopeful the new semester would bring quiet to campus, but “that hope was quickly shattered with a week full of disruptive, antisemitic events on campus.”
The group demanded Columbia enforce its policies on protests, discipline students who violate campus policies, and condemn and ban “all antisemitic, genocidal words and actions.”
“The university is looking the other way and ignoring that the same kids are doing the same thing and they’re deciding not to enforce and it’s just disappointing,” Ari Shrage, a board member of the alumni association, told the New York Jewish Week. “Personally, I’m concerned that someone is going to get very hurt.”
—
The post Pro-Palestinian protesters at Columbia claim to be hit by ‘chemical weapon’ as they call for intifada appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
RSS
DePaul University Enabled Violent Attacks and Brain Injury on Jewish Students
DePaul University Law School. Photo: ajay_suresh/Wikimedia Commons.
My name is Brooke Goldstein. I am the founder and executive director of The Lawfare Project, and the founder of the #EndJewHatred civil rights movement. I have dedicated my career to upholding the legal rights of the Jewish people, a fight that is all the more pressing after the wave of Jew-hatred unleashed in America and around the world following the Hamas terrorist attacks of October 7, 2023.
In 2021, a few years before October 7, a Jewish student identified a major problem at DePaul University. She went public about “a long history of antisemitism on DePaul’s campus … without DePaul doing anything really substantive to address this situation.”
In a clear call for action, she said that, “DePaul, as an administration and as a university, doesn’t fully understand what is required for Jewish students in particular to feel safe in their campus community.”
The unprecedented wave of hatred launched against Jews and Israelis at DePaul University over the past year is a direct result of the administration’s failure — not just to help its Jewish community feel safe, but to actually keep its Jewish students safe.
Jew-hatred has become systematized in higher education, and we are now seeing the consequences playing out on campuses across the country — including at DePaul University.
Radicalized agitators who openly support foreign terrorist organizations target Jewish students with calls for their genocide.
“From the river to the sea” is a call for genocide.
“Globalize the intifada” is a call for worldwide violent attacks on Jews, like we see in the streets of New York City and Amsterdam, and on campus here at DePaul.
Jews are dehumanized, deprived of the right to openly express their identity, and the civil rights of Jewish students are ignored and violated — their minority status disregarded, and the harm and violence they endure is minimized. All of this is unacceptable.
Max Long emigrated to Israel from Boston in 2015. He served in the Israel Defense Forces, and, when he was released from the reserves, enrolled at DePaul University in March of this year. After seeing the pervasive atmosphere of antisemitism and anti-Israel rhetoric on campus, he was inspired to use his voice and personal experience to empower and educate his classmates about antisemitism, and about the war against Palestinian terrorism in Gaza.
Michael Kaminsky is a junior who came to DePaul from Buffalo Grove, IL. He, too, has been inspired to use his voice and experience to empower and educate the community about antisemitism, and about Jewish identity. He is a founding member of DePaul’s chapter of Students Supporting Israel, a StandWithUs Emerson fellow, and a proud member of AEPi.
Max and Michael are proud and empowered advocates for Jewish civil rights. They are loud voices for the indigenous rights of the Jewish people in their indigenous homeland — Israel.
On November 6, Jew-haters decided to silence their voices. Two masked men violently attacked Max and Michael with such force that Max suffered a brain injury and Michael suffered a fracture and lacerations.
Max and Michael were doing what they have done many times before — exercising their right to peacefully express themselves and their views, and engage with passersby.
This attack happened in the plain sight of a DePaul public safety officer, who did nothing to intervene. The officer had an opportunity to stop the attack, but did nothing to help Max and Michael.
But it gets worse.
The university was well aware of multiple threats against Max and Michael, just as it was aware of the campus climate of hate targeting Jews. But it did nothing. It failed to protect its students, even when a violent attack was unfolding in front of one of its public safety officers. This cannot be tolerated.
We cannot be silent in the face of intolerance and injustice. This is why The Lawfare Project represents Max and Michael — to demand justice, to ensure that their rights are protected, and to make sure that what they experienced is not experienced by any other Jewish student at DePaul University.
Even now, their attackers remain at large. We demand that the Chicago Police Department use every tool at its disposal to arrest those responsible, and that they be prosecuted for the hate crime they committed, to the full extent of the law. We need to impose meaningful consequences on antisemitic hate crimes to deter future attacks, and to send the clear message that our society rejects this extremist hate and violence.
As for the university, our attorneys are reviewing all options, including legal options, to make sure that the school is accountable not just to Max and Michael for this attack, but to all Jewish students who are under daily threat of similar attacks.
We are here to make sure that DePaul does the right thing, and will take whatever action is necessary to do so.
Jew-hatred has no place at DePaul, or on any college campus. We are demanding action from the school — as all decent people should.
Max and Michael are not alone. Our Jewish students on campus are not alone. We are all here for them, and we will make sure that their rights are protected and upheld.
Brooke Goldstein is the founder and executive director of The Lawfare Project and the founder of the End Jew Hatred movement. She is also an author, award-winning, filmmaker, and regular news television commentator.
The post DePaul University Enabled Violent Attacks and Brain Injury on Jewish Students first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
RSS
UK Will Arrest Netanyahu With ‘Due Process’ if He Visits, Foreign Secretary Says
Britain’s Foreign Secretary David Lammy leaves Downing Street, following the results of the election, in London, Britain, July 5, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Toby Melville
Britain would follow due process if Benjamin Netanyahu visited the UK, foreign minister David Lammy said on Monday, when asked if London would fulfill the International Criminal Court’s arrest warrant against the Israeli prime minister.
“We are signatories to the Rome Statute, we have always been committed to our obligations under international law and international humanitarian law,” Lammy told reporters at a G7 meeting in Italy.
“Of course, if there were to be such a visit to the UK, there would be a court process and due process would be followed in relation to those issues.”
The post UK Will Arrest Netanyahu With ‘Due Process’ if He Visits, Foreign Secretary Says first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
RSS
How reality TV got real: A review of Emily Nussbaum’s ‘Cue the Sun!’
There’s a trope on sitcoms where characters think they’re being filmed for a reality television show, when in fact what they’re experiencing is real life. (Real life within the fictional […]
The post How reality TV got real: A review of Emily Nussbaum’s ‘Cue the Sun!’ appeared first on The Canadian Jewish News.
You must be logged in to post a comment Login