Columbia students erect 60 tents on main lawn to demand university divest from Israel as president grilled on antisemitism
Hundreds of Columbia University students set up nearly 60 tents and shouted anti-Israel slogans on the campus’ main lawn Wednesday – just as Columbia President Minouche Shafik testified before Congress about antisemitism at the Ivy League school.
The Gaza Solidarity Encampment first sprung up near Butler Library before 5 a.m., featuring a make-shift row of tents and signs featuring slogans such as,“Israel bombs, Columbia pays,” in reference to Israel’s military action in the Gaza Strip after the Oct. 7 terror attack.
“Free, free Palestine!” the pro-divestment protesters could be heard chanting in video from the scene captured by The Post.
The event was soon met by counter protesters waving Israeli flags, whose numbers grew by the early evening.
“These guys have been chanting ‘Death to the Zionist state,’” Jonny Lederer, a Columbia sophomore, told The Post of the protestors.
“So I go there with my Israeli flag and my megaphone and I say ‘Listen, can you condemn Hamas on October 7?’ They were silent…not one person was able to condemn it.”
The divestment advocates and pro-Israeli counter protestors circled up on the quad, while one speaker appeared to commandeer the scene with a megaphone.
As the pro-Palestinian protestors cheered, one of the counter protestors was heard yelling out “Can you call for the release of the hostages [held by Hamas in Gaza]?”
Outside the campus gates, pro-Palestinian protestors wielded signs with slogans like “Israeli forces slaughter Palestinians waiting for food” and “Cease genocide.”
A 21-year-old Barnard College student who was nearby told The Post she doesn’t expect the demonstrations to disperse unless Columbia clamps down on the rabble rousers.
“Not unless Columbia actually implements consequences,” Katie A. said. “It is extremely dangerous for Jewish students. There is no public safety on campus … does not do anything.”
She called the protests “tone deaf.”
Antisemitism controversy at Columbia University: Key events
- Columbia University President Minouche Shafik stepped down on Aug. 14 after facing backlash over the Ivy League’s anti-Israel protests.
- More than 280 anti-Israel demonstrators were cuffed at Columbia and the City of New York campuses in a “massive” NYPD operation a few months ago.
- Over 100 people were nabbed at the Ivy League campus after cops responded to Columbia’s request to help oust a destructive mob that had illegally taken over the Hamilton Hall academic building in April, NYC Mayor Eric Adams and police said.
- Hizzoner blamed the on-campus chaos on insurgents who have a “history of escalating situations and trying to create chaos” instead of protesting peacefully.
- More than 100 Columbia professors signed a letter defending students who support the “military action” by Hamas.
“I believe they are trying to simulate some type of refugee camp which honestly I think is extremely tone deaf,” Katie A. said.
“They’re all rich students who go to an Ivy League institution that costs over $80,000 a year to attend. They live in their comfy apartment on the Upper West side of New York and they have the gall to come out here and complain.”
The NYPD arrived at the scene several hours into the protest, and restricted the press to a pen outside the main gates on Broadway and 116th Street.
At least one arrest has been made during dueling protests, the NYPD confirmed.
Photos from the scene show cops leading one person into a police van near 116th Street.
The protester was asked to lower a pole with Palestinian, Yemeni and transgender flags attached to it before taking that person into custody, the Columbia Spectator reported.
Columbia had already restricted access to the main campus to university ID holders ahead of Shafik’s congressional appearance, the Spectator noted.
Columbia public safety announced that it was also closing the campus’ main gates at 4 p.m. Wednesday due to the ongoing protest.
Follow The Post’s coverage of the pro-terror protests at colleges across the US:
- Tear gas sprayed at UCLA encampment as cops face off with anti-Israel protesters wielding fire extinguishers
- Stanford submits ‘deeply disturbing’ photo of campus anti-Israel protester wearing Hamas headband to FBI
- Iranian college offers free tuition to US students expelled for participating in anti-Israel protests: ‘Our people’
- MAP: US colleges where students have been arrested over anti-Israel protests
Two NYPD Corrections Department buses were parked in front of the Cathedral of St. John the Divine, just two blocks from the campus, independent reporter Katie Smith wrote.
During her congressional appearance on Wednesday, President Shafik admitted that “the events of October 7 brought to the fore an undercurrent of antisemitism” at the university, but reassured the committee that Columbia took “immediate action” on the issue.
“Trying to reconcile the free speech rights of those who wanted to protest and the rights of Jewish students to be in an environment free of discrimination and harassment has been the central challenge on our campus,” she added.
Katie A. ripped the president for her lack of support.
“I am utterly disgusted that this is permitted especially when Minouche Shafik our president goes to Congress and says that she doesn’t allow this and if she wouldn’t allow this….it happens all the time and it’s happening again right now and nothing is being done about it.”
Lederer, however, slammed Shafik’s statement that all students who violated university policy would be disciplined.
The tent protest, he alleged, was “unsanctioned” by school officials.
“Public safety isn’t doing anything. When I asked public safety, ‘What’s the policy?’ they said ‘we don’t know, nobody tells us,’” he lamented.
“I am pro peace, I am pro two states,” Lederer added. “They are not able to have dialogue, they are not able to have any sympathy towards Jews. So I stand there, I know I’m morally right…and someone has to counterprotest them.”
