Columbia University anti-Israel protesters are calling on New Yorkers to join them as they claim the university threatened to call the National Guard after ignoring a midnight deadline to dismantle their encampment.
President Minouche Shafik announced a midnight deadline for protesters to reach an agreement and dismantle their encampment or she will have to consider ‘alternative options.’
Columbia Students for Justice in Palestine released a statement claiming the university threatened to call the National Guard on them.
‘Columbia University threatened CUAD negotiators to call both the National Guard and NYPD if we do not acquiesce to their demands,’ the group said.
‘The student negotiating team has left the table and refuses to return until there is a written commitment that the administration will not be unleashing the NYPD or the National Guard on its students.’
‘We remain steadfast in our convictions and will not be intimidated by the University’s disturbing threat of an escalation of violence.’
Video posted to social media shows swarms of protesters gathering on campus telling people to brace for the next three days.
‘We may need people to turn up quickly, en masse, in front of the encampment to defend the encampment,’ one protester said through a megaphone.
‘Will you be ready to turn up for your comrades? We are so close to divestment.’
After passing the midnight deadline, photos and videos show members of the NYPD counterterrorism unit gathering at the university gates with zip ties.
Pro-Palestine group Within Our Lifetime posted to X, formerly Twitter, calling on protesters to return to the university’s lawn and ignore threats of law enforcement.
‘We will not be intimated by threats by the state,’ the group said.
‘It represents a heinous failure of leadership that puts people’s lives at risk. I condemn it in the strongest possible terms.’
The Ivy League saw its seventh day of protests on Tuesday as students stage a sit-in to demand the university divest from companies profiting from Israel’s war and sever academic ties with its universities.
Anti-Israel protesters were arrested outside of Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer’s Brooklyn home on Tuesday night.
So far more than 100 activists have been arrested.
The demonstration escalated again on Monday during the Jewish holiday of Passover when staff and students walked out in protest over the NYPD being called in to control protests.
The university president said a group of faculty, administrators and University Senators have been negotiating with the student organizers and set a midnight deadline to reach an agreement to dismantle the encampment.
‘I very much hope these discussions are successful. If they are not, we will have to consider alternative options for clearing the West Lawn,’ said Shafik.
‘The encampment raises serious safety concerns, disrupts campus life, and has created a tense and hostile environment for our community. It is essential that we move forward with a plan to dismantle it,’ Shafik said.
‘I also want to be clear that we will not tolerate intimidating, harassing, or discriminatory behavior. We are working to identify protestors who violated our policies against discrimination and harassment, and they will be put through appropriate disciplinary processes.’
Shafik has been facing mounting calls to resign because she has ‘surrendered control to the anti-Semitic fringe’ and allowed ‘anarchy’ after she canceled all in-person classes until the end of the semester.
In the wake of that decision, Rep. Ritchie Torres, a Democrat, tweeted that the president, who has only been in the role since the summer of 2023, had ‘surrendered control of Columbia to an antisemitic fringe.’
‘If you cannot ensure the safety of your students, then you have no business serving as President of any university… What Columbia University needs is not an appeaser of antisemitism but a leader who will fight with moral clarity against it,’ Torres added.
As a result of the growing protests, New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft announced his intention to pull his funding for the school.
‘The school I love so much – the one that welcomed me and provided me with so much opportunity – is no longer an institution I recognize,’ Kraft said.
‘I am deeply saddened at the virulent hate that continues to grow on campus and throughout our country.’
Protesters, many wearing keffiyeh headscarves and face masks, have led chants including ‘from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free’ – which Jewish groups say is anti-Semitic – and called for intifada, which means uprising.
Two Jewish graduates of Columbia University snuck into the campus pro-Palestine encampment with Israeli flags and accused activists of ‘supporting radical Islamic terrorism’.
Isidore Karten and his friend, Tomer Brenner, who gained access to the encampment on Tuesday afternoon, also carried a poster with pictures of Israelis kidnapped by Hamas on October 7.
They were confronted by protesters and asked to leave but refused and spent several hours in the encampment staging their own counter protest.
Both told DailyMail.com that the encampment should be immediately removed by university leadership and accused pro-Palestine activists of making Jewish students feel unsafe.
They are supporting radical Islamic terrorism.’
‘They are chanting about intifada.
‘We don’t understand why the administration is not taking them away from here.’
He claimed other students have chanted ‘burn Tel Aviv’.
‘We got circled, everyone was blocking us because they don’t want anybody to, God forbid, see an Israeli flag or an American flag, or posters of hostages [kidnapped by Hamas on October 7],’ said Brenner.
‘They are claiming it’s a safe space, however it’s only safe for them.’
Karten claimed he had seen a Jewish person wearing religious symbols told to ‘go back to Poland’.
‘It’s not only about Israel, it’s about Jews,’ he said of the encampment.
‘I’m very against what they are doing here, I don’t think they should be here.’
