AOC backs pro-Palestinian protesters at Columbia University, saying clearing camp would be a ‘failure of leadership’
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is backing “nonviolent” pro-Palestinian demonstrators who disrupted Columbia University by setting up a camp on campus to protest U.S. support for Israel in the Gaza war.
New York progressives denounced Columbia President Minouche Shafik for allegedly threatening to call in the National Guard to disperse the group of protesters calling themselves the Gaza Solidarity Encampment.
“Involving law enforcement in nonviolent demonstrations of young students on campus is an escalating, reckless and dangerous act,” AOC wrote on X.
She added: “It represents an appalling failure of leadership that is putting people’s lives at risk. I condemn it in the strongest possible terms.”
Shafik gave up her midnight deadline after the group ignored the request to disband and extended it for another 48 hours after reportedly promising to remove a “significant” number of tents and non-students from the demonstration.
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) supports the large encampment of pro-Palestinian protesters who have flooded the Columbia University campus in recent weeks
“Involving police enforcement in nonviolent demonstrations of young students on campus is an escalating, reckless and dangerous act,” AOC wrote on X on Monday evening
AOC (DN.Y.) says the Manhattan Ivy League school is wrong to try to stop protesters from laying siege to the campus.
This is not the first time AOC has praised protesters who oppose Israel’s right to defend itself against Hamas terrorists in the Palestinian enclave of Gaza.
The team member cheered on pro-Palestinian protesters as they opened for President Joe Biden at an Earth Day event in Virginia on Monday.
Along with fellow progressive Sens. Bernie Sanders and Ed Markey, AOC told the crowd: “It is especially important today that we remember the power of young people who are shaping this country, as we once again witness the leadership of those peaceful student-led protests campuses like Columbia and Yale and Berkeley and many others.”
The daughter of fellow team member Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) was one of 100 protesters arrested earlier this week, along with protesters from Barnard College — a sister university of Columbia.
Isra Hirsi, 21, was part of the days-long anti-Israel protest at Columbia University and says she was kicked out of campus housing and banned from the dining hall after the arrest.
‘I was a bit panicky, like: where am I going to sleep? Where am I going? And also all my shit gets thrown into a random lot. It’s pretty horrible,” she told Teen Vogue.
President Shafix wrote an email to the so-called ‘Gaza Plaza’ group on Tuesday evening issuing an ultimatum to voluntarily dismantle or face cleanup.
Amid the unrest, Columbia President Minouche Shafik faced calls to resign. She wrote in an email to the community that they must disperse or they will be cleared out
AOC condemned reports of threats to police or the National Guard
Columbia intimidated the protesters and allowed their encampment to remain on campus for an additional 48 hours after a dispersal deadline passed
On Tuesday evening, it was also reported that NYPD counter-terrorism officers were mobilizing to finally put an end to the protest.
Republican Senators Josh Hawley (Mo.) and Tom Cotton (Ark.) have called on President Joe Biden to deploy the National Guard to all campuses where Jewish students say they feel threatened by the growing protests against Israel.
Cotton called the Columbia protests “emerging pogroms.”
“If Eric Adams won’t send in the NYPD and Kathy Hochul won’t send in the National Guard, Joe Biden has an obligation to take charge and break up these gangs,” the senator wrote.
Hawley told the president to take action, writing, “We have seen intimidation and calls for violence against Jews. This blatant anti-Semitism is reprehensible and dangerous.”
“You must immediately mobilize the National Guard and all other authorities necessary to ensure the safety of Jewish American students and citizens,” Hawley wrote.
President Dwight D. Eisenhower called in troops as well as the 101st Airborne Division in 1957 to protect black students attending Central High School in Arkansas.