COLUMBIA HONORS ITS "LONG AND PROUD TRADITION OF PROTEST AND ACTIVISM" BY UNLEASHING RIOT COPS TO BRUTALIZE STUDENTS

MAY 2ND - NEWSLETTER

Below are two May Day statements republished from student organizers:

MAY DAY STATEMENT FROM STUDENT ORGANIZERS 

Today is May Day—Day 207 of Israel’s genocide of the Palestinian people in Gaza. Yesterday, April 30th, was the 56th anniversary of the NYPD arresting nearly 700 protesters on this very campus in an attempt to shut down the glorious student movement of 1968.

Tuesday night, students at CUNY and Columbia fighting for divestment faced some of worst police brutality witnessed on college campuses. These incidents mark a turning point in the student movement, and we hope this historic moment will be a time for reflection and redirection. We hope this moment will catalyze the world into seeing that students have the right to resist police brutality, just as Palestinians have the right to resist their genocidal oppressors. 

University campuses have become the most contested ground in the nation. As students display overwhelming support for divestment from Israeli apartheid and genocide, the administration has subjected them to brutal police and state violence, and university presidents like Minouche Shafik have welcomed police—pigs—onto campus until graduation. To police brutality, we say we are not deterred, and we will win—Columbia will still divest. To repression, we say our numbers will only grow. To state violence, we say we will come back stronger, smarter, and better prepared to stand our ground. To the Palestinian people, we recommit our love for you and affirm that our hope and will has never been stronger. 

Our people arrested today will soon be free and ready to fight again with even greater insight into the oppressor's tools and weaknesses. We the students will win—from Emory to Humboldt to CUNY, we will wage not only a fight against the oppressors, but an effort to educate the world on our government's complicity in the genocide and the sham that is the American empire. 

From the belly of the beast, we proudly state that we are calm, we are unafraid, and we are strong. Tomorrow is ours, and victory is nearer than we imagine. In our hearts are olive trees that will sprout passion unlike anything this country has ever seen. We with our voices, our hearts, and our minds will build a student movement that will take back our campuses from morally corrupt administrators who disregard humanity for the sake of profit. 

We are the students, and we are not afraid. We will win all of our demands and more. From Turtle Island to Palestine to Harlem, we will win.

STATEMENT FROM MEMBERS OF JAFRA - THE PALESTINIAN STUDENT'S COMMITTEE

HARLEM, NEW YORK — Yesterday, on April 30, 2024, the administrators and boards of New York universities further cemented their role as tools of empire. In an attempt to stifle the student movement for Palestinian liberation, they unleashed the NYPD on student protesters demanding divestment and an end to genocide. Our refusal to succumb to their threats and empty promises has threatened the interests of genocidal entity and its Western imperial backers, exposing our universities' complicity in war crimes, apartheid, and genocide. Our victory, then, must be understood as a seed for the struggle to come, one that heralds seismic shifts in the popular struggle for justice and liberation in Palestine. 

Precisely 56 years ago, on April 30, 1968, nearly 700 anti-war student protesters at Columbia occupied Hamilton Hall. They were met with the brutal forces of state and para-state violence for their bravery and strategic ingenuity. Today, we stand on that same ground, facing the same adversaries, but with a resolve fiercer than ever before: acting autonomously, students and members of the Columbia community seized that same Hall and renamed it after Hind Rajab, a five year old Palestinian girl murdered by the occupation army in Gaza.

Our encampment and ensuing occupation were born of an unwavering commitment to justice. The former’s birth in April was the result of courageous students and their allies rising up to confront the entrenched complicity of our institution in the 7 months of genocide in Gaza and the more than a century of settler colonization in Palestine. Our demands were righteous mandates: to end Columbia's material and academic ties to the global imperial project in Palestine and to secure justice for victims of Zionist aggression. We exercised our right to resist.

Escalation, then, was the order of the day. After the direct action, Columbia's president, Nemat Talaat "Minouche" Shafik deployed the NYPD to our campus. Hundreds of our comrades were unjustly incarcerated, their only crime being the defense of justice against the monstrous tyranny of Zionism's genocidal agenda. Students were thrown down stairs, their bodies beaten and their hijabs ripped off. Shafik then thanked the NYPD for their “incredible professionalism and support”. Despite our campus becoming a violent police state, students continue to organize for Gaza. We are completely undeterred. 

Rather than end the massacres in Gaza, the Western forces seek to crush the Palestinian movement in the United States. Their revanchism has been both confused and savage, marshaling every tactic of counterinsurgency to prevent our mission from being achieved. In doing so, they have deepened their own contradictions. Columbia’s veneer—of enlightenment, morality, and academic inquiry—has been shown to be paper-thin, no more than a paean to immiseration and capital.

The university, local, state, and federal authorities all seem united in their efforts to crush, criminalize, and demobilize the ongoing protests while heeding none of their demands.They create a dangerous situation for themselves in the days just before summer. If the Zionist entity invades Rafah, which they insist they will do regardless of the toothless and shameful fraud that is the U.S.-led ceasefire talks, then sane people in our country will have to soberly acknowledge that the forces they oppose would rather place snipers on the rooftops of college campuses than stop the mass murder of innocents. If this is true, and it is true, then it is imperative for everyone to embrace the methods capable of compelling millions of people to rise up and to topple the western imperial system themselves. Those who enforce peace are working for those who make war. Allow this to be the first strike of many to come; allow yourselves to seize the moment the students have ignited.

COLUMBIA HONORS ITS "LONG AND PROUD TRADITION OF PROTEST AND ACTIVISM" BY UNLEASHING RIOT COPS TO BRUTALIZE STUDENTS 

On April 30th, 2024, Columbia University marked the 56th anniversary of its infamous 1968 crackdown on students protesting the Vietnam War and the gentrification of Harlem—a day remembered for over 700 student arrests and unprecedented police brutality on Columbia's campus. The raid, referred to as the "death of a Columbia," mobilized the students to completely shut down the campus.

Shafik invoked the activism of the brave students of Columbia’s history in an email sent out the morning following Tuesday night's raid. She listed the student movements focused on the Vietnam War, civil rights, and the anti-apartheid struggle in South Africa while affirming that our students today are “also fighting for an important cause.” How nice of Shafik to acknowledge the importance of our cause. It's a shame that her actions reveal that Palestinian life and liberation are not quite as important to her as filling her pockets with the blood money of her genocidal investments.

Furthermore, in the classic fashion of imperialist bootlickers, Shafik completely obfuscates the truth of what our comrades are fighting for. She decries the “humanitarian tragedy in Gaza,” as if an unavoidable, sourceless disaster struck, as opposed to the deliberate ethnic cleansing campaign carried out by Israel. 

Shafik then moves from obfuscations to flagrant lies. She claims the administration has been patient and tolerant of unauthorized protests, specifically referencing the encampment. Let us remember that, according to Shafik, suspending, evicting, and unleashing hundreds of cops on peaceful protesters one day after the encampment launched is a virtuous display of patience and tolerance. 

Shafik’s email claimed the taking of Hind’s Hall was a “drastic escalation” that created a “disruptive environment for everyone and rais[ed] safety risks to an intolerable level.” Yet, the disgusting irony is that the real escalation and threats to safety were the hundreds of riot cops, including the belligerent Strategic Response Group (SRG), she called in to flood Columbia’s main campus.

Shafik reassures the Columbia community that her “first responsibility is safety.” We must ask ourselves, safety for whom? She can't possibly mean the safety of students, who have been routinely harrassed and doxxed, and even attacked with chemical weapons. Surely, she cannot claim to care about the safety of students when she was so moved to thank the NYPD for their “incredible professionalism and support,” the morning after they brutally arrested over 100 students, brandished guns inside Hamilton Hall, and even flung one student down the steps outside.

Perhaps the safety Shafik refers to is that of the school's private property--after all, in her email, she denounced the breaking of Hamilton Hall doors, seemingly using property destruction as a means to justify summoning the NYPD in droves. This move came just four days after claiming that doing so would be counterproductive and inflammatory. However, she clearly does not care about the safety of the school's property, as Tuesday night, the cops she praised for their professionalism were filmed splintering open doors, busting windows, and forcefully smashing chairs and other furniture to the ground outside of Hamilton.

We are left to deduce that the only safety Shafik speaks of is the protection of imperialist interests and profits of the University’s board of trustees at all costs. This “safety” leaves no regard for human lives-- neither those of students protesting nor those 45,000+ Palestinian lives.

In her conclusion, Shafik expresses her desire to "restore calm," which, to her, apparently means the continued militarization of campus through graduation. It's every student's dream to honor their academic achievements while being surrounded by the visual reminder of the brutality inflicted upon their peers who will be barred from graduating this year.

Perhaps most offensively, Shafik ponders the “role of a university in contributing to better outcomes in the Middle East.” Given her actions, by "better outcomes" she must mean the increasing support and wealth of the genocidal state of so-called Israel and the complete annihilation of the people of Palestine. She has made it abundantly clear she does not care about the liberation of Palestinians, nor even the liberal platitude of "peace" in the region. No, Shafik, like any other imperialist lackey, only wants to perpetuate this system to increase her power and wealth. 

APRIL 30TH - AN INFAMOUS DAY FOR BRUTALITY AGAINST STUDENT PROTESTERS

The Free Palestine movement at Columbia was not the only student escalation to suffer from extreme violence Tuesday night. Brutal police action and genocide-supporting counter protesters incited violence on campuses across the country. The CUNY encampment on 139th and Amsterdam was broken down by cops, including the notoriously brutal SRG unit. They raided the camp, pushing students to the ground and forcefully ripping off hijabs. Students were kettled by cops and pepper sprayed by their own “public safety” outside the administrative building. 173 total students were arrested from both outside and inside the encampment, including a group of CUNY students who were occupying the administration building. NYPD refused to let legal observers or medics enter the building as they conducted arrests, despite the fact that many students were severely injured. Injuries included broken teeth, ribs, and ankles.

On the West Coast, students at the UCLA encampment were attacked by Zionist agitators who came with fireworks, sticks, and clubs. Zionists shot fireworks into the camp and beat Palestinian students bloody. They hurled genocidal statements, calling for "a second Nakba" and kicking a Palestinian student repeatedly while shouting dehumanizing racist slurs. Several pro-Palestine protesters had head wounds. The Zionists attacked the camp for several hours while riot police called to the scene simply stood and watched. Once again it has been proven that the police state protects only those who uphold its same white supremacist values. As of Wednesday evening, LAPD brought snipers to campus, following in the footsteps of Ohio State and Indiana University.

While chanting Free Palestine gets students classified as terrorists, suspended, and labeled a threat to campus safety, Zionists gleefully attack their classmates with no repercussions and no congressional investigations regarding genocidal, anti-Palestine hate speech and violence. This disgusting behavior will be excused and largely ignored by the monopoly media because those who attacked the UCLA camp support the imperialist status quo. Fascists in Congress will continue to fund Israel and its genocidal army. They are happy to see such heinous acts because it makes their job of dismantling and harming the pro-Palestine movement that much easier. 

Nevertheless, the Student Intifada remains steadfast in support of Palestinian liberation. No amount of police, administrative, or Zionist violence will deter us. 

HUNDREDS GATHER TO HONOR HIND’S HALL FOLLOWING BRUTAL POLICE SWEEP

Last night, protesters gathered on Amsterdam Ave and chanted outside of Hind’s Hall. Slogans like “Hind’s Hall Forever” and “Gaza Calls Columbia Falls” were projected on the side of the building, where the student banners once hung. These protesters are a blazing reminder to the university that we will not be deterred. They can call in riot police and arrest our comrades, but we will always come back.

LONG LIVE THE PALESTINIAN NATIONAL RESISTANCE

FREE PALESTINE FROM THE RIVER TO THE SEA WITHIN OUR LIFETIME

GLORY TO ALL OUR MARTYRS