The protesters at Columbia University escalated the situation on campus dramatically when several hundred pro-Palestinian students occupied Hamilton Hall, an administration building used by the dean and other school officials.
After negotiations (finally) broke down between the students and the administration on Sunday, Columbia’s embattled President Nemat “Minouche” Shafik gave the students in the illegal tent encampment until 2:00 a.m. Monday to leave the area.
When the deadline passed, the administration began suspending students with the help of campus police, who passed out notices to dozens of students.
The situation escalated from there. According to Fox News, at about 1:00 a.m., several hundred students entered Hamilton Hall and began barricading the entrances to the building. There were four maintenance workers in the building who were briefly held hostage and allowed to leave a few hours after the takeover.
The nationwide protests on college campuses have now taken a dangerous turn. The occupation of campus buildings began on the West Coast and has swept across the nation. It’s a tactic designed to force a confrontation with police.
They are going to get their wish.
The situation at Cal-PolyTech is becoming intolerable.
The building at California State Polytechnic University, Humboldt, includes the campus president’s office and has been occupied for a week by pro-Palestinian protesters who barricaded themselves inside and fought off an early attempt by the police to remove them. Protesters have since tagged walls and renamed it “Intifada Hall” by ripping off most of the signage on the brick exterior.
Inside, they painted graffiti messages like “Time 2 Free Gaza,” “Pigs Not Allowed,” and “Land Back,” according to a video posted by the local news site Redheaded Blackbelt. They occupied and defaced the office of the president, Tom Jackson Jr., spraying “Blood On Your Hands” across one framed wall hanging and “I Will Live Free or Die Trying” on his door.
Back in Columbia, “An autonomous group of students has taken matters into their own hands. They will remain in Hamilton [Hall] until the University divests from death,” a student group called Columbia University Apartheid Divest said on social media.
The occupiers are demanding that Columbia divest from companies doing business with Israel, more “transparency” on where the school’s investments are being made, and amnesty for all student protesters.
Columbia student Nicholas Fink watched as the barricades were being set up by students. “Definitely a little bit of nervousness,” he said. “No one really knows what the response to this is going to be right now.”
If the Columbia administrators start negotiating now, they lose. The only possible, meaningful response is to send in the police. If the kids want confrontation, let them have it.
People will get hurt. This is the inevitable consequence of the earlier negotiations that “broke down.” In truth, the students were not interested in resolving the situation, making the negotiations part of their performance art. When the show ended on Monday, another performance began at Hamilton Hall.
The protesters have learned the lessons of history well.
Hundreds of students formed a human chain Tuesday in front the building, where civil rights and anti-war protesters demonstrated in 1968. About a dozen university public safety personnel surveyed the scene, and the New York Police Department — which must have permission from senior administrators to enter campus — were not on site.
“Shut it down!” hundreds chanted outside the building, which holds many of the school’s humanities classes, along with the office of the dean of Columbia College and the undergraduate admissions office. Classes were held in Hamilton Hall on Monday.
Later Tuesday, the protesters unfurled a banner from a balcony window at Hamilton Hall that read “Hind’s Hall,” in honor of Hind Rajab, a 6-year-old who was killed in Gaza City following an Israeli bombardment.
The stage has been set for a long, hot summer of protests and occupations. Have these half-wits even bothered to look at who they’re fighting for, who they’re going to get their heads bashed in for?
Gaza is controlled by Hamas. Hamas, by any definition — reasonable or unreasonable — is a terrorist organization dedicated to targeting and maximizing civilian casualties. The more Israeli women and children they kill, the better.
That’s not an exaggeration. That’s not hyperbole. And it’s certainly not a lie. The demonstrators are calling for supporting the goals of Hamas, which include the eradication of the state of Israel and its people.
Nice company you kids are keeping.