Columbia University deploys NYPD against pro-Palestinian library protest, 78 arrested
Columbia University deploys NYPD against pro-Palestinian library protest, 78 arrested
On Wednesday afternoon, a group of around 100 anti-genocide student protesters took over the Butler Library’s main reading room and renamed it the “Basel Al-Araj Popular University,” after the Palestinian activist and writer killed by Israeli forces in 2017.
... Columbia University administrators called in the New York Police Department (NYPD) on Wednesday evening to violently suppress and shut down a pro-Palestinian student occupation of the campus’ Butler Library. Approximately 78 protesters were arrested just over a year after the police-state crackdown at Columbia last April, when the NYPD swarmed the campus to arrest over 100 students and break up the “Gaza Solidarity Encampment.”
On Wednesday afternoon, a group of around 100 anti-genocide student protesters took over Butler’s main reading room and renamed it the “Basel Al-Araj Popular University,” after the Palestinian activist and writer killed by Israeli forces in 2017.
The students’ demands include Columbia’s financial divestment from Zionist organizations, an academic boycott of complicit institutions, cops and ICE off campus and amnesty for all university members unfairly targeted and disciplined for pro-Palestinian actions.
Columbia’s Public Safety officers immediately responded and violently barred protesters from leaving unless they showed identification, which created a prolonged standoff...
If peaceful protest is going to be consistently met with violent police response; maybe they should stop being peaceful from the outset.
I wonder how long it will take for enough to realise their government is not compatible with protests. Peer pressure does not encourage authoritarians.
The running platform was making empathetic people angry; small scale protests are a badge of honor and large scale protests are a mild annoyance to be dealt with however they deem fit.
It won’t happen at this rate. Last thing that was closest to that was the CHOP zone in Seattle a few years ago. And that still fell through. Most protest folks that participate won’t fight back since most are against baring arms and only want it to be via peace since they are too afraid to die for something. They will shift that fear on to their peers and react as well with “I don’t want to have people miss me” or “I don’t have the time to up and remove my life from what I’ve worked towards so far”
If security shows up to stop protestors from leaving, they aren't there to secure the peace, they are there to oppress.
Sure, but let's step back and analyze it a little more.
Protest itself does not achieve political change. Its usefulness is in direct action or in recruiting those present into further action, education, and organizations. Liberal protests are state-sanctioned parades. Real protests tend to have an actual action to take, demands to be met, people to impact, costs to incur on others.
The terminology of "peaceful protest" is already poisoned and should be questioned. The media and politicians - and those propagandized downstream, all conflate private property destruction and violence. If a protest breaks windows, suddenly it is no longer "peaceful" and can be rejected by the propagandized as invalid and not to be supported. The US is full of such good little piggies, happy to align with the ruling class picking their pocket and doing actual violence because they exist exclusively in a world of capitalist propaganda.
Under these auspices, all direct action that the capitalist system wants to crush is, will, and has been labelled terrorism. It's already done this for private property destruction by environmentalists, peace activists during all major wars (except WWII, where American Nazis were coddled and of course did not damage private property), labor organizers, anti-segregation organizers, socialists, communists, Mexicans, Chinese, Native Americans, etc. They happily do it again against anti-genocide protesters, particularly because they can play on the islamophobic use of the terrorism label at the same time. Like all fascistic logic, they must frame themselves as the true victims, so they also happily call every critic of Israel an antisemite.
All of this bombards the US population 24/7. Americans exist in a haze of accusations and terms they barely understand, trying to slot it into what could only charitably called an ideology - the naked reactionaries in red and the obfuscated reactionaries in blue.
All of this is to say that the greatest barrier in the US is education, and education begins with agitation, e.g. these protests in any form. Get as many people as possible to show up to the next thing, to organize the next thing, and spread knowledge.
Taking over a building is on the far end of "peaceful".
The majority of protests involve taking over space temporarily; that alone doesn't make them not peaceful.
They weren't invading/forcing their way into spaces that they weren't already openly invited to be in, nor were they violent towards officials that were demanding they leave (self-defense aside).
You have literally said you are for the armement of Israel. Of course any protest against Israel is too violent for you.
The students’ demands include Columbia’s financial divestment from Zionist organizations, an academic boycott of complicit institutions, cops and ICE off campus and amnesty for all university members unfairly targeted and disciplined for pro-Palestinian actions.
Not a single one of which wouldn't be a given in a sane and civilized modern society.
Columbia’s Public Safety officers immediately responded and violently barred protesters from leaving unless they showed identification, which created a prolonged standoff...
Because of COURSE they did!
When it comes to Apartheid regimes (and indeed most big picture stuff), student protesters are always on the right side of history and the people who derive income directly dependent on the atrocities continuing always react with the subtlety and intelligence of trying to remove a splinter with a machete.
Columbia is speedrunning fastest university decline in the public eye
People will forget about it all 2 months after it ends. They have the memory of a potato. Americans still praise NYT after the WMD lies.
Americans thought NYT was a bastion of accuracy and non-bias until they accurately reported that Biden was having mental issues in office like Reagan.
Those fake WMDs are so 2003, so it's not important. Those graves are to be ignored.
Are people still applying to go to school there?
zionists who want a chance to sue for discrimination. imagine their shock if their entire class shows up wearing Israeli flags etc. the disappointment.
shut down a pro-Palestinian student occupation of the campus’ Butler Library
I don't understand, though. Were they expecting not to be arrested? I thought that was the point of civil disobedience. What was the point of occupying the library if not to instigate a response from police or campus police?
They probably were intending/expecting arrests. There are probably protesters who didn't go into the library because they specifically don't want a criminal record (especially if they're on a visa or some such).
And you can see in the comments here how angry the arrests are getting some people.
That's the goal of a lot of nonviolent protest. Get your allies loud about it and split some moderates away from the authorities that they hadn't really thought of as "the bad guys" before.
funny how occupation is unacceptable all of a sudden
If trump admin is smart enough, they will bus police from other states to go to New York, learn and practice, trump will soon have his Schutzstaffel
I'll bet Columbia's fall enrollment will be greatly decreased. If I was a student there, I'd definitely be going somewhere else in the fall.