Inside the Pro-Palestinian Occupation of Columbia University

NEW YORK—Walking past Columbia University’s pro-Palestine encampment can be stressful for Zohar Ford, 19, but at no point has the undergraduate physics major felt unsafe on campus.

“They seem measured and reasonable,” Mr. Ford told The Epoch Times. “I don’t agree with all of their demands but it’s overall a positive and peaceful movement. I do know a lot of Jewish students on campus who feel unsafe.”

Mr. Ford, who practices traditional egalitarian Judaism, was among the Columbia University students who attended an April 23 press conference. It was the sixth day of an occupation by hundreds of people living in tents on the west lawn of the campus.

Although Mr. Ford is not associated or affiliated with any of the student groups that are staging the protest, he questions why, after only two days of protests, the New York Police Department strategic response team was called in.

“It seems like a very extreme measure but in the context of [Columbia University president] Minouche Shafik going to Congress and getting yelled at for 3 hours, it makes sense she felt she had to do something dramatic,” he said.

At the press conference, Columbia University student and encampment member Kymani James told reporters that their lead negotiator is in discussions with university administrators. However, he declined to provide more details on the status of the talks.

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An encampment colleague of Mr. James, who only identified herself as W, called the occupation a “Gaza solidarity encampment” and described the hundreds of people participating as being in “high spirits.”

“We are united in our cause,” she said. “We are building community. We are eating together. We are keeping each other safe and warm. We are putting our principles into action and we plan to continue to do so by being here every day until Columbia divests.”

“It is the height of irony that Columbia University administration officials are echoing the calls of extreme right-wing Republicans in Congress to use the U.S. military to suppress the student movement at Columbia,” the People’s Forum stated.

In actuality, there are both Democrat and Republican politicians who have sided with Jewish students against the pro-Palestine occupation of Columbia University.

Earlier in the week, U.S. Representatives Josh Gottheimer (D-N.J.), Dan Goldman (D-N.Y.), Jared Moskowitz (D-Fla.), and Kathy Manning (D-N.C.) walked through the campus with Jewish students and visited the protest encampments.

Members of Congress grilled Ms. Minouche on April 17 in Washington about claims of anti-Semitism and civil unrest at the Ivy League institution.

Subsequently, on April 18, more than 100 protesters were arrested including the daughter of Congresswoman Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.).

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“The students being arrested is an example of Columbia trying to use state-sponsored violence in order to quash student protests,” Jared Kennel, 26, told The Epoch Times.

“That didn’t work because when they arrested 100 people, 1000 more showed up to take their place.”

Mr. Kennel, a Columbia University graduate student, feels perfectly safe on campus despite being openly Jewish.

“I do not hide my Jewish identity,” he said. “Anybody who is claiming that these protests are anti-Semitic or that this has created an unsafe environment for Jewish students is trying to distract from what the messaging of these protests are, which is to end Columbia’s complicity with genocide in Gaza.”

The encampment is located adjacent to high-rise silver bleachers, which were installed in preparation for the university’s annual graduation festivities scheduled for May 15.

But before the occupiers will willingly dismantle their tents they want divestiture of the university’s finances from companies and institutions that profit from alleged Israeli “apartheid”; an end to alleged “land grabs” in Harlem and Palestine; no policing on campus; and an end to academic ties with Israeli universities, including a dual degree program with Tel Aviv University in Israel.

“The dual degree program actively recruits former Israel Defense Forces soldiers from Israel to here, and it is unfair to our Palestinian students to force them to share a campus with the people whose jobs it was to occupy their homes, occupy their territories, and terrorize them,” Mr. Kennel alleged.

Basil, 23, a Columbia University graduate student and member of the Palestinian Student Union who would only identify herself by first name, has participated in the encampment almost every day.

She told The Epoch Times that sleeping in a tent is uncomfortable but nothing compared to what Palestinians are experiencing in Gaza.

A 21-year-old Bard College senior, who would only identify herself as Ari and covered her face with a Palestinian keffiyeh scarf, began sleeping at the encampment on April 19.

“There’s some bathrooms we have access to during the day and showering,” Ari told The Epoch Times. “We’ll do anything to support our Palestinian brothers and sisters and siblings and if that means I don’t get to shower until our demands are met, we have deodorant.”

Ari is Jewish and said that other Jewish students are “absolutely safe” on campus.

“If you come to this encampment, you’ll see that Jewish students are actually more than safe,” Ari added. “We are welcomed, and we are embraced.”

The occupation includes people who are pro-Israel, such as Isidore Karten, 23, a 2022 graduate of Columbia University.

Mr. Karten, who lives on the Upper East Side and practices modern Orthodox Judaism, defended Columbia Business School assistant professor Shai Davidai who was banned from campus on April 22 after he tried to organize a counter-protest.

“He did nothing wrong,” Mr. Karten told The Epoch Times. “The school should invite the police to remove these students.

“They have no right to inhibit anyone’s education. People have to wait in lines to go to class. People are being intimidated. I’m being intimidated and I’m being pushed.”