An anti-Israel protest was busted up at Columbia University on April 18, 2024.
© Mike De Sisti / Milwaukee Journal Sentinel / USA TODAY NETWORK + © Alton Strupp/Courier Journal via Imagn Content Services, LLC
(New York, NY) – After NYPD cops moved in to remove tents that had been set up by anti-Israel protesters at Columbia University, some were arrested — but the protests persisted into the evening hours on Thursday. It was on Wednesday when students first started setting up the tents on a campus lawn, calling it a “solidarity with Palestine” encampment.
Later, even after some were led away in zip ties and loaded onto NYPD vans, hundreds of students had surrounded Butler Library. Video posted to social media from throughout the day showed one person walking with an Israeli flag draped around their shoulders — some in the crowd called him a Zionist pig and said “we love Hamas.”
Meanwhile, it was on Wednesday — the same day the tents showed up — when Columbia University’s president Minouche Shafik testified in front of Congress concerning her school’s response to anti-Semitism on campus. She admitted officials were caught off guard in terms of how things escalated following Hamas’ terrorist attack in Israel on October 7, 2023.
In terms of the tent city that was cleared away, Shafik reportedly sent student and staff a letter explaining she had authorized the action. Students were therefore arrested as trespassers. The students allegedly refused to leave when told to do by the NYPD.
