The Palestine liberation movement continues to disrupt Columbia’s campus

It was the first day of the spring semester when masked individuals burst into the classroom, shouting and throwing posters at students. As they yelled, the professor asked the protestors calmly, and in Arabic, to leave. The class was on the History of Modern Israel, the campus was Columbia University, and the protestors were part of the highly engaged and increasingly extreme “Palestine liberation” movement. It transpired that the masked students did not speak Arabic, that they did not intend to engage in a dialogue, and their primary concern was causing disruption and documenting that disruption for social media. 

The disruption of the class on the first day of term indicates that news of a ceasefire in Gaza may have fallen on deaf ears at the prestigious New York ivy-league university. This came as no surprise, according to other students, who say that the various factions of the CUAD (Columbia University Apartheid Divest) operate practically irrespective of events in the Middle East. Ceasefires and hostage deals are footnotes in the binarism of oppressor vs oppressed, they say. The altercation was notable, however, in that it was the first time that student activists had entered a classroom and disrupted teaching.

Tensions reached a fever pitch on Wednesday when President Trump signed an executive order to crack down on antisemitism on college campuses, pledging to deport Hamas sympathizers by canceling the student visas of those who joined pro-jihadist protests. Hours later, one of Columbia University’s pro-Palestine organizations responded by pouring cement into the sewage lines of the School of International and Public Affairs building and defacing the Kravis Columbia School of Business with a paint.

“We are not experts in what it means to take revolutionary action. We are people — just like you — who, today, chose to act,” read a subsequent Telegram post taking ownership of the vandalism “with love and rage from Columbia.”

Such incidents are the typical event in the ongoing theater of the Palestine Liberation movement at Columbia, which has seen continuous protests, including a weeks-long encampment on the lawn in Spring 2024 which culminated in the “occupation” of Hamilton Hall and saw students break into an academic building and barricade it from police and hold several facility members hostage. Keen to secure their place in the canon of Columbia’s student activism, the participants carefully recorded their activities and, in the fall semester, even held a two-day exhibition dedicated to their efforts on behalf of Palestinian liberation. The exhibit, which some Jewish students have referred to as a “museum of terror,” displayed various tools like wrenches and ropes from the “student intifada,” as well as schedules, photographs and posters. 

The shenanigans, such as the false labelling of fart spray as a chemical weapon, or members of the encampment requesting non-dairy milk alternatives, are so ridiculous as to be funny, but for Columbia’s Jewish community it is far from a joke. Many students of the college have close relatives  who faced the holocaust, or emigrated from the Soviet Union and elsewhere in the twenty-first century to escape pogroms, and the increasingly violent tone of the movement whose aims extend beyond ceasefires and into eradicating Israel entirely is hitting closer and closer to home. 

Noa Fay, a Jewish student at Columbia, says that the particular flyer that was handed out in the classroom — depicting a military boot stamping on a Star of David took her by surprise, even after years of anti-Jewish imagery on campus. 

“When I saw that image I audibly gasped — it’s crazy to still be shocked by things like this because it happens all the time. It is especially jarring for me because my grandmother, who I was very close to and has since passed away was a holocaust survivor. Because of her I grew up with a real proximity to first hand memories the holocaust, so seeing that image which is so reminiscent of Nazi propaganda was extremely alarming and disturbing,” she said. 

“It’s hard to tell whether all of the students participating are aware of the intentionality of these flyers. I wouldn’t be surprised if you spoke to the undergraduate students who are participating who had never seen examples of Nazi propaganda. But certainly the leaders of this movement are intentionally referencing and taking from Nazi and Soviet propaganda. They know what they are doing,” she said. 

‘Ceasefire now’ 

Columbia University Apartheid Divest, or CUAD, which organizes many of the protests, advertised Tuesday’s march on Instagram. “On the first day of classes join us to flood Columbia University! The fight doesn’t end with a ceasefire and it definitely doesn’t end with a new semester. New semester, same struggle,” the post read. 

Alon S. Levin was in his labs on the eighth floor when he heard shouting and banging in the street below. When he looked out the window he saw protestors blocking marching down his street, blocking traffic, heckling passers by, banging drums and threatening the police. “That was my welcome back to campus” Levin says. Shoshanna Aufzien, another student at Columbia says the first thing she saw on Tuesday morning were fresh anti-Israel graffiti and her first thought was “at least there aren’t swastikas again.” Regarding the protests later in the day she said that chants calling for violence, like “globalize the antifada” have become so commonplace as to no longer be notable.

Eventually a faction made it into the classroom where Dr. Avi Shilon, an Israeli professor visiting from Israel for the semester was teaching his first class, titled “History of Modern Israel.” Elisha Baker, a Columbia student studying Middle East history and co-chair of Columbia Aryeh, is taking the class. He says that half an hour in four masked protestors barged in banging a drum, with flyers that they began sticking on the walls, spreading across the tables and thrusting in the faces of the other students. 

“They began filming a speech and talking about how terrible it is that a class on Israel is even happening, and how a class on the history of Israel is normalizing what they call genocide,” Baker said. Very quickly the professor, Baker and a few other students stood up and asked the protestors to take off their masks and leave. Shilon suggested they sit down and participate in the class. “They totally ignored Professor Shilon and the others in the class except to berate us; when they had finished their performative speech they left, littering the floor with their flyers including one which depicted a boot crushing a Star of David with the phrase ‘crush Zionism.’”

Baker says that there are plenty of classes at Columbia that teach about Israel and the Middle East through a lens that he don’t necessarily agree with, but unlike the protestors he enrolls in those classes to learn about different narratives and perspectives. 

“I would never protest a classroom because I disagree with a professor. That goes against the fundamental purpose of a university and the values that we should strive to uphold on a campus,” Baker said.

For Baker, as for many other students, the protests are frustrating in their show of ignorance. “The student activists are essentially cosplaying terrorists in the way that they dress and the way that they act. A large group of progressive activists have taken on the Palestinian cause without actually understanding much about it and with no real knowledge of the history or language or culture. If this were happening to other cultures those same activists may say that it is cultural appropriation.”

Professor Shilon says that he even tried to speak to the protestors in Arabic. “It turned out, of course, that they did not understand the language, just as they, most likely, did not understand the complexity of the conflict,” he said.

Shilon says he was aware of the protests but did not expect something like this to happen, especially following the ceasefire which he thought would see people focusing on constructive next steps and the end of the war. “But the protestors are less concerned with what is going on in reality and more concerned with their ability to protest,” he said. The professor of Israeli history says that he can sympathize with people taking issue with the Israel’s policies. “After all, I am not trying to defend or to criticize Israel, I am an academic.”

Following the incident security was offered for the next class, but Shilon refused. “It is crazy that if people want to learn at a prestigious university they need to have a security guard present.”

Columbia has since identified and suspended a participant, pending a full investigation and disciplinary process, according to a statement from the college. They also identified two additional participants who are not Columbia students but are from an affiliated institution who have been barred from campus and referred to their own institutions for investigation and discipline. 

Hind’s House Exhibit

Videos from the incident in the Shilon’s classroom indicated just how important it is to the protestors to record and document their actions. Known as the “Protest Ivy’ Columbia’s legacy of student activism lends legitimacy and moral authority to the protests and encampments, with the 1968 protests at Columbia University also “occupying” buildings and receiving intervention by the NYPD.

In the fall semester a two-day event at a Columbia literary society, Alpha Delta Phi (ADP) entitled “Hind’s House” displayed items, schedules and photographs from the “occupation” of Hamilton Hall in April 2024, where students broke into Hamilton Hall following one of the largest protests in Columbia’s history which also included a multiple week long encampment on the main lawn. Over 100 people were arrested, although criminal charges were dropped for the overwhelming majority. The “Hinds House” exhibit, which commemorates the protests as well as displaying artistic responses to events in Gaza, was organized by students in a building affiliated with, although not run by Columbia.

“Seeing it all come together in one space is just a reminder of how heavy things are in Gaza, and that everything we do here is just a microcosm of the larger global movement for Palestine,” Nerdeen Kiswani, the founder and chair of the extremist Within Our Lifetime organization said of the exhibit to the Columbia school paper at the time. 

One notable factor is how successfully national groups like In Our Lifetime have been able to manipulate the ignorance of students at Columbia. Columbia student Noa Fay says she chose to speak out when she saw how the leaders of the anti-Israel movement had associated with other social justice movements.

“The leaders of the anti-Israel movement are exploiting the legitimate anger and frustration that students have with this country and its historical social policies. That anger has been redirected and misdirected toward the Jewish community, as leaders exploit the students inability to think clearly and critically,” she said. 

A fart by any other name

During the protests last April two Jewish students were accused of spraying a foul-smelling substance. The New York police department announced that it was investigating an alleged chemical attack and the Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) said eight students were hospitalized by what they described at the time as a “chemical weapon.” Columbia immediately identified the perpetrators, banned them from Campus, and eventually suspended one. 

It turned out that the chemical weapon was in fact a fart spray called “liquid ass” purchased from Amazon. The spray is described by the manufacturers as an “overwhelming, stinky, funny prank product.” Friends of the perpetrators said the nature of the spray was made obvious from the outset with receipts from Amazon. Noa said she did not find the situation funny because she believes the administration was aware at the time that they issued their disciplinary action that it was a fart spray, rather than a chemical weapon. “It is my understanding that the administration knew that it was not a chemical attack,” Noa says, adding that it was upsetting that the university had acted in a way that had allowed the lie to spread. 

“At the very least it was a reflection of their lack of vigilance and rigor in investigation,” she said. 

Meanwhile, engineering PhD student Alon S. Levin says his family fled the Soviet Union in the 1980s following anti-Jewish persecution that was masked as anti-Zionist policies, noting that similar antisemitic groups would focus on college campuses to spread their sentiments. Levin warns that it is only going to get worse: “CUAD is getting ready for something big, and they are training professionally,” he said. On that note, he questions whether Columbia’s protests should be dismissed as silly students cosplaying, or if their calls for globalizing the intifada should be taken at face value. The rhetoric is becoming more violent and more graphic and even though you might not see as many people at the protests, the core groups that organize these rallies are becoming more aggressive, as evidenced in their social media posts, web pages and actions. I don’t think that should not be dismissed so easily.”