{"id":10459,"date":"2024-04-30T15:41:44","date_gmt":"2024-04-30T15:41:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/?p=10459"},"modified":"2024-04-30T16:00:52","modified_gmt":"2024-04-30T16:00:52","slug":"pro-palestinian-protesters-occupy-columbia-university-building","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/?p=10459","title":{"rendered":"Pro-Palestinian Protesters Occupy Columbia University Building"},"content":{"rendered":"

This post originally appeared at https:\/\/www.wisconsinrightnow.com\/pro-palestinian-protesters-occupy-columbia-university-building\/<\/a><\/p>\n

\"Columbia's\u00a0Hamilton<\/p>\n

Pro-Palestinian protesters broke windows, barricaded doors and occupied a building at New York’s Columbia University overnight after school officials said they would not cede to demands from demonstrators to divest assets from the Israeli government.<\/p>\n

The breach of Columbia’s Hamilton Hall began around 12:30 a.m. on Tuesday by students and others who have refused to leave the so-called Gaza Solidarity Encampment on the campus grounds, according to published news reports. Hundreds of students created a human chain in front of the building to block campus police. Columbia faculty members were also involved in blocking security.<\/p>\n

Video footage showed the demonstrators, many of whom covered their faces with masks, smashing windows and unfurling a Palestinian flag from a window as they chanted “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free” and “Palestine will live forever.” The protesters hung a hand-written sign reading “Hind’s Hall” after a six-year-old Palestinian child who was allegedly killed by the Israeli military.<\/p>\n

The escalation in the protests came after university officials suspended students who had refused to leave a pro-Palestinian encampment set up about two weeks ago. Columbia President Minouche Shafik has also declined to divest the university’s financial holdings from Israel, a key demand of the protesters.<\/p>\n

The NYPD, which must get permission from the university to enter the campus, hadn’t intervened in the fracas but news reports showed a heavy police presence outside the university’s gates.<\/p>\n

University officials distributed flyers to students on Monday notifying them that they would not face suspension if they exited the encampment by 2 p.m. on Tuesday, according to published reports. It’s not clear what will happen after that deadline. The university has closed school grounds to students who do not live on campus.<\/p>\n

The demonstrations are part of a wave of anti-Israel protests that have swept U.S. college campuses over the past week in response to Israel’s war in Gaza, which was prompted by the Oct. 7 attack by the terrorist group Hamas that killed 1,200 Israelis and injured many others. Hamas also took hostages, many of whom are still in captivity.<\/p>\n

Dozens of arrests have been made at Harvard, Yale and other elite schools as campus police and law enforcement have been called in to take down the make-shift encampments, which violate school policies. Hundreds of people have been arrested.<\/p>\n

At Columbia, Jewish students have said they feel unsafe with pro-Palestinian protesters chanting antisemitic slogans and holding signs, which has prompted New York lawmakers to call on the university to clear protesters that some have called “terrorist sympathizers.”<\/p>\n

\u201cColumbia has surrendered to the radical pro-Hamas antisemitic mob instead of securing campus and protecting Columbia\u2019s Jewish students,” U.S. Rep. Elise Stefanik, R-N.Y., said in a statement. “There can be no more extensions or delays. There can be no negotiations with self-proclaimed Hamas terrorists and their sympathizers.”<\/p>\n

In response to the Columbia protests, Reps. Mike Lawler, R-N.Y. and Richie Torres, D-N.Y., have filed legislation requiring the U.S. Department of Education to establish a third-party “antisemitism monitor” on any U.S. college or university receiving federal funding.<\/p>\n

The monitor would have the authority to recommend that universities be stripped of federal funding for not doing enough to crack down on anti-Semitic demonstrations.<\/p>\n

“Rising antisemitism on our college campuses is a major concern and we must act to ensure the safety of students,” Lawler said. “If colleges will not step up to protect their students, Congress must act.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This post originally appeared at https:\/\/www.wisconsinrightnow.com\/pro-palestinian-protesters-occupy-columbia-university-building\/ Pro-Palestinian protesters broke windows, barricaded doors and occupied a…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":15,"featured_media":10461,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10459","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-wi-right-now"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10459","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/15"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=10459"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10459\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10462,"href":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10459\/revisions\/10462"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/10461"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=10459"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=10459"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=10459"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}