Officials at Columbia University, facing surging tensions on campus that raised safety concerns, have announced all classes will be virtual on Monday as Passover begins.
Columbia President Minouche Shafik said in a statement the decision was made to “deescalate the rancor and give us all a chance to consider next steps.”
The move underscores how tense the situation has become at the Ivy League school and the enormous challenge facing Shafik to get the situation under control.
That’s weird, why is Passover relevant to this? I’ve been assured that these protests have nothing to do with antisemitism 🤔
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What does that have to do with Passover?
Do you believe everything people in power say? Just because they say it’s die to passover doesn’t mean it actually is. It sounds like a excuse to make the protesters seem unhinged and unreasonable to me. I have no real details of what’s been going on, but I for sure don’t trust the school leadership just because they have authority.
The article mentions how Jewish students are afraid that something will happen, which seems pretty reasonable to me given how heated the rhetoric is on this subject. The last time there was a protest at Columbia, protestors’ signs included such gems as “Al-Qasam’s Next Targets”. That doesn’t strike me as a statement hoping for peace.
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/04/21/nyregion/columbia-protests-antisemitism.html
Edit: It’s very interesting to me that simply reporting on factual events gets brigaded with downvotes here. Touching a nerve, perhaps? I think Palestine should be a state, but I will not overlook the violent and antisemitic elements on the Palestinian side either.
It could be that. But it could also be slant from both the administration and the media, who have been downplaying Israel’s actions since the genocide in Gaza started and have painted Iran as an aggressive war-mongering nation when Israel attacked the Iranian consulate first, and then continued to attack Iran while they tried to deescalate. The Passover justification could simply be a convenient excuse, and there’s no way to know for sure that any antisemitism isn’t from bad faith actors rather than the original protestors. It happened with the BLM movement, and there were even reports of undercover cops trying to incite violence amongst the protestors then, like the FBI did when they radicalized the man who would later go on to bomb the Boston Marathon. The NYPD does not have a good reputation, and the administration and the cops have been acting aggressively against the protestors. It could have something to do with:
While that sign is fucked up they were pro-Israeli counter protesters that happened to be Jewish.
If your position begins with “Death threats made to someone’s face are bad, but…” you may want to reconsider your stance. Hate and dehumanization is the source of this whole clusterfuck.
The war is a great cover for antisemitic assholes to spread their hate. The antisemitic assholes spreading their hate is a great excuse to squash legitimate criticism of Israel.
Yeah, that sign is pretty fucked up. Not a good look. However, that’s one sign. Any sufficiently large protest is going to have something that can make it look bad. It sounds like they didn’t actually do anything harmful though, so that’s good. It sounds like just some edgy humor in very bad taste (assuming it’s legit and not a plant). Is that a good enough reason to stop the protests? Do we think the same would be done if things were in the opposite direction?
Edit: Just FYI, I upvoyed you. I hold nothing against posting actual information.
I think threats of violence are a good enough reason to stop protests, but I don’t think it would be treated the same way if it came from the pro-Israel side, unfortunately. The Israeli government in particular have been getting away with far too much and I’d like to see them all at the Hague.
they happened to occupy the same time slot. that’s what it has to do with passover.
it’s kind of like when the trans day of rememberence was on Easter. Easter is a holiday that moves. it happened to move to the same day that the trans day of rememberence was always on. people got all mad that Biden put that on Easter, even though he didn’t.
this is a protest in response to police violence. that violence happened Friday. today is the first day that the people they are protesting are back at work and can be affected by the protest.
there you go, that’s everything this has to do with passover. now you know and can stop asking.
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It’s not at all, Columbia is trying to cover their ass because they raided and then suspended the protestors Friday, and could have seen some backlash to that today with more protests. Saying it’s because of Passover is the lie they’re selling to justify their actions.
Could it be that some of the protesters are antisemitic and they are using the protest as cover? I don’t know that this is the right step to take, but this is really the perfect time for actual bigots to make attacks. It’s Israel’s fault since they associate themselves with Judaism and they’re the ones perpetrating the genocide, but that doesn’t change anything.
Yeah it looks like there’s some peaceful protesting going on, that’s also attracting more extremist elements. At least that’s what I got from reading the article.
It’s always a risk when ethnic groups are involved in conflicts of any sort and there are protests elsewhere in the world. It gives bigots cover.
I haven’t seen any actual anti-semitism though, all I’ve seen is vague allusions to it by the media.
Sort of hard to know on an individual level, but it certainly doesn’t seem to be a widespread problem. I will say I’ve encountered it a couple of times on Lemmy in the past few weeks. Thankfully, they were pretty swiftly dealt with by admins.
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The protests against Israel are a perfect cover for anti semitic assholes to spread their hate. I live in an area with a large Jewish population. Plenty of anti semitic shit has popped up, the most blatant being swastikas painted outside of Jewish schools with “free gaza” tagged along side it.
I’m actually shocked to have someone say theyve seen no antisemitism in these protests. Do you live in an area with few or no Jewish people?
Considering that many of the people at these protests are jewish themselves, it’s a bit of an absurd worry.
Criticizing Israel is not anti-semitic. I’ve seen no swastikas at the protests, please refrain from being dishonest.
Considering you avoided my question, I bet it’s safe to assume you don’t live around many Jewish people.
Can’t see things happening at the protests if you don’t see the protests at all. Taps forehead
I mean, ffs, even this article is quoting someone from the pro Palestine protests that is trying to distance themselves from the anti semitic outsiders who have latched onto it.
No, you pivoted from the protests to talking about how you saw graffiti outside schools. You know that the protests are not anti-semitic so you have to try and shift things.
There are plenty of jewish people where I live, not that it’s relevant.
lol “Free Gaza” is not a protest because, well, it was done in graffiti!
You also ignored that, in the article we are responding to, from the mouths of pro-Palenstine protestors, that it is happening.
There is no doubt at this point that the claim of “refrain from being dishonest” was, no surprise, a projection.
The protestors are literally leading inter-faith prayers, and many of them are jewish. You can’t on one one say jewish students fear for their safety while on the other hand the jewish students are oarticipating in the anti-genocide protest…
There is zero evidence presented in the article that jewish students are unsafe or that there’s anti-semitism being tolerated by the protestors.
I was with you until this. Criticizing Israel’s government is absolutely legit (and IMO justified at the moment) but criticizing Jews for being Jewish is… weird.
I’m not criticizing Jews for being Jewish. I’m Jewish. What I am not is Israeli, despite them trying to associate me with them.
Gotcha, agreed. To be fair, there is a LOT of antisemitism on the Palestinian/Arab side, so the Israeli govt is not the only one causing this conflation of Israeli policy and Judaism at large.
To be fair, why do you think they’re antisemitic? Could it be the years and years of oppression under Israel, who have conflated themselves with Judaism the entire time?
This isn’t me saying that antisemitism is good, but the same reason you were confused about the ties between Judaism and Israel (and lack thereof) is probably the same thing going through their heads.
I’m going to assume you mean well, but this is bordering on “She was asking for it, did you see what she was wearing?”
They don’t. It’s called fear mongering.
Tell that to the anti semites at these protests. Which side do you think they’re on?
Chinese government moment.
Honestly? Both. I’ve heard what the Christian evangelicals who are demanding we fund Israel say about Jewish people. They may support a Jewish state but many of them don’t support their Jewish neighbors. The neo Nazis are probably opposed to Israel as well, they generally have a problem wish Jewish folks no matter where they are. It’s similar to how Jewish folks are protesting on both sides here.