Pro-Palestinian demonstrators shouted at Jews near the university: “Go back to Poland” and “Remember October 7, it will happen again” .
Prof. Nir Hoftman from UCLA in California: “This is a war for survival, no less than that.” He protested against the incompetence of the local police, even though they arrested more than 90 protesters: “I worry that someone will come and hurt my family.”
Prof. Shay Davidei from Columbia University: “A terrorist organization has taken over the university and the state should intervene and take over the campus.” In an unusual message, the university’s rabbi Eli Beukler wrote: “The security forces cannot guarantee the safety of Jewish students in the face of extreme anti-Semitism and anarchy. No one should have to endure this level of hatred, certainly not at the university.”
It seems that cases of violence against Jews at universities in the United States are becoming the norm and cases of violence against Jews at universities are becoming commonplace in recent months.
The national body of the “Students for Palestine” organization in the USA has announced that its members will set up protest camps in all academic institutions that have branches of the organization to demand that the authorities sever economic ties with Israel.
The message reads – “The apparent power of the heads of our administration is nothing compared to the power of united students, staff and faculty who are committed to realizing justice and preserving Palestinian freedom on campus. We will take over our universities and force the administrator to divert the funds, for the sake of the people of Gaza! Join the university The people, recapture our institutions!”
The organization “Students for Justice in Palestine” consists of a network of pro-Palestinian student associations in academic institutions across the US and Canada that support the boycott movement (BDS) against the State of Israel and violent Palestinian resistance. The movement’s umbrella organization called the Hamas attack on October 7 a “historic victory for the Palestinian resistance” and the organization’s activists held protest demonstrations and disruption of studies that also included harassment against Jewish and Israeli students.
Pro-Palestinian and anti-Israel protesters at Columbia University barricade themselves in the campus, behave violently and make statements and sing in favor of the massacre on October 7.
“What has been happening here in the last few days did not happen in one day. It was built for six months in which they called to attack Jews, encouraged an intifada, called for violence, and no one responded to it,” said Professor Davide, a lecturer at Columbia University, who is also considered one of her biggest critics, after she did not properly deal with the eradication of anti-Semitism. “The tents came after the protesters realized Because the laws do not apply to them. After all, they can invite terrorists to the campus, and then they won’t really be expelled from the campus because they won’t enforce it, and then they will stay here. They can also publicly support Hamas without having anything done to them. So this time they said – let’s take over the campus.’
(Photo: Joseph Prezioso / AFP)
The second largest center of protests in the US, after Columbia University in New York, is at the other end of the country, at the University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA).
Prof. Nir Hoftman (52), a doctor and anesthesiologist who has been working at the university for 22 years, tries to describe what is happening there – “It is a war for survival, no less than that. The situation is reminiscent of Germany when the Nazis came to power in the 1930s.
Prof. Hoftman adds and describes: “I am a scientist, but since the demonstrations started on campus I have hardly touched research. I am only engaged in a war of survival for our existence as Jews in this country. I was here as a student. My father was the captain of the university’s football team in the 1970s. We have a history of more than 50 years with this place, and this is how we are treated as ‘stinking Jews’ that no one cares about.
The pro-Palestinian demonstrations at universities in the USA are becoming more and more violent – one of the demonstrators tried to talk to the pro-Palestinians, and was sprayed with artificial blood. “We don’t want scores here,” shouted the demonstrators.
In front of a small group of Israelis and Jews who waved Israeli and American flags and sang ‘Hope’, a white-faced protester stood with a sign that read: “Al-Qassam’s next targets”. The demonstrators put up banners in memory of two convicted terrorists, Walid Deka who kidnapped and murdered the soldier Moshe Tamm in 1984, and Khader Adnan, one of the leaders of the Islamic Jihad.
The demonstrators demand that the universities end their ties with Israel and that the US stop sending Israel weapons and money.
The pro-Israel activist Prof. Shay Davidei from the Columbia Business School wrote on his Twitter account: “I am shocked. People who support terrorism have taken over the university. People who support terrorism are terrorists. A terrorist organization has taken over the university and the state should intervene and take over the campus.”
Earlier, the university’s rabbi sent a message to the 300 Jewish students and called on them to stay away from the campus “until it is considered a safe place again.” In a WhatsApp message, he wrote to the Jewish students, “The terrible events of the last few days have made it clear that the security forces of Columbia University and the New York police cannot guarantee the safety of Jewish students in the face of anti-Semitism and extreme anarchy.”
Demonstrations also took place at Yale University and a number of students have been on hunger strike for about a week. Demonstrators tore down the US flag and cheered as it fell. At the university they threatened that the police would come but in the end, the police did not come, and the demonstrators shouted: “Our university”.
At Harvard and Princeton universities, students left classes in a coordinated march out of the university. According to them, the purpose of the march is to express support for the students who were arrested or suspended in Colombia. A pro-Palestinian tent city was also established in Princeton, smaller than Columbia’s. The students received orders warning them that they are violating university regulations.
At Brown University in Rhode Island, the protesters scored a victory: the president agreed to hold a vote on continued investments in Israel in exchange for dismantling the protest tent. The vote of the board of directors will be held in October.
Violent clashes at the University of California in Los Angeles between pro-Palestinian protestors and supporters of Israel, after a Jewish protester was beaten unconscious. Fireworks were set off at the scene and those present report the smell of chemical substances in the air.
After a young Jewish woman was beaten unconscious at UCLA today, some Californian Jews and their allies mobilized and went to UCLA.
— Visegrád 24 (@visegrad24) May 1, 2024
100+ of them arrived at the “Liberated Zone” and are now clashing with the pro-Hamas group that has been occupying campus.
The police isn’t there pic.twitter.com/NGezJT2f8S
In many universities, business continued as usual, while in most of them, the normal situation in the last six months includes pro-Palestinian demonstrations from time to time.
The US government has not yet commented on the events and neither has the Republican presidential candidate, Donald Trump, but the expectation is that we are only at the beginning of a much more violent struggle.
