Are Columbia University’s pro-Palestine protests turning antisemitic?

On the lawns of Columbia University in New York City, students camp out in their sleeping bags with posters of ‘Free Palestine’ dotting the area. Chants of ‘Azadi’ can also be heard on campus.

Hundreds of students have been participating in protests over the Israel-Hamas for the past few days — it began last Wednesday (17 April). And now, the protests have snowballed into a larger crisis, with even President Joe Biden commenting on the demonstrations.

We take a closer look at the protests and why they have sparked concerns of antisemitism.

Protests at Columbia

Starting last Wednesday, several hundreds of students took to the lawns of Columbia University to protest the ongoing Israel-Hamas war. As part of their protests, the demonstrators, belonging to Columbia University Apartheid Divest, Students for Justice in Palestine and Jewish Voice for Peace, started occupying the South Lawn on the Columbia campus.

They constructed a makeshift encampment of tents, many of which were covered in signs that read “Liberated Zone” and “Israel bombs, Columbia pays”.

There were also videos showing a small group of pro-Palestinian demonstrators chanting, “F**k Israel. Israel is a b*tch,” while waving the Palestinian flag.

Moreover, a video also emerged of a woman raising slogans in Hindi in favour of a free Palestine as her fellow protesters chant “azadi” in chorus. “Arey hum kya chahte, Azadi… Palestine ki, Azadi… arey chheen ke lenge, Azadi… Hai haq hamara, Azadi… (what do we want…freedom… Palestine’s freedom… we will snatch this freedom which is our right….),” the woman is heard chanting in the video, which shows the iconic Low Memorial Library in the background.

The woman also raised slogans like “Biden sunle, Azadi… Netanyahu sunle, Azadi… Modi sunle, Azadi.”

And last Thursday (18 April), over 100 students were arrested from the college premises after the university’s president, Nemat Shafik, said it violated safety policies. Students who were arrested, later told New York Times that they were loaded on to buses with hands tied.

One of the students arrested on Thursday was Isra Hirsi, a Barnard student who is the daughter of Representative Ilhan Omar , Democrat of Minnesota. She further wrote on X, that she had been suspended from Barnard College for “standing in solidarity with Palestinians facing a genocide”.

In fact, other students also stated that they had been suspended after being arrested and some had also been told to give up their campus housing.

And according to The Columbia Spectator, a student newspaper, the swoop by officers marked the first time mass arrests had been made on campus since Vietnam War protests in 1968.

Antisemitism and safety concerns

The decision to arrest the students attracted criticism from several corners, including the Columbia and Barnard chapters of the American Association of University Professors. In a statement on Friday, the chapters said: “We are shocked at her failure to mount any defence of the free inquiry central to the educational mission of a university in a democratic society and at her willingness to appease legislators seeking to interfere in university affairs.”

However, Shafik stood by her decision, saying “the individuals who established the encampment violated a long list of rules and policies”.

On the other hand, there have been concerns that the rally and demonstrations have acquired antisemitic tones, with students fearing their safety on campus. One report stated that Jewish students had been harassed, with footage appearing to show activists telling students to “go back to Poland” and that 7 October is “going to be every day for you” – referring to Hamas’s attacks on Israel.

Chabad at Columbia University, a chapter of an international Orthodox Jewish movement, said in a statement that protesters had also told Jewish students, “You have no culture”, “All you do is colonise” and to “Go back to Europe”.

As per reports, there were also chants of “Burn Tel Aviv to the ground. Go Hamas, we love you. We support your rockets too.”

And following these statements and the continued harassment, a rabbi linked to the Ivy League school urged Jewish students to stay home. Rabbi Elie Buechler told students in a Whatsapp message, “The events of the last few days, especially last night, have made it clear that Columbia University’s Public Safety and the NYPD cannot guarantee Jewish students’ safety in the face of extreme antisemitism and anarchy.

“It deeply pains me to say that I would strongly recommend you return home as soon as possible and remain home until the reality in and around campus has dramatically improved.”

However, after that message was sent to students, Campus Hillel issued a contrasting statement on X, saying it does not believe Jewish students should leave campus, adding, “We do believe that the university and the city need to do more to ensure the safety of our students.”

Condemnations pour in

New York City mayor Eric Adams, reacting to the scenes unfolding at Columbia, said that he was “horrified and disgusted with the antisemitism being spewed” and had instructed the police to investigate “any violation of law”.

The White House also got involved, at least to condemn the hatred.

“Calls for violence and physical intimidation targeting Jewish students and the Jewish community are blatantly antisemitic, unconscionable, and dangerous — they have no place on any college campus, or anywhere in the United States of America,” White House Deputy Press Secretary Andrew Bates said in a statement on X.

“And echoing the rhetoric of terrorist organisations, especially in the wake of the worst massacre committed against the Jewish people since the Holocaust, is despicable.”

US president Joe Biden at the start of the Jewish holiday of Passover said it was necessary to speak out against “the alarming surge of antisemitism – in our schools, communities, and online”.

“Silence is complicity. Even in recent days, we’ve seen harassment and calls for violence against Jews,” Biden said. “This blatant antisemitism is reprehensible and dangerous – and it has absolutely no place on college campuses, or anywhere in our country.”

Spreading to other campuses

And the protests at Columbia aren’t single in nature. They have also spread to Yale in Connecticut. Anti-Israel activists have set up a “liberation zone”. There are also reports that a Jewish student was jabbed in the eye with a flag pole by an anti-Israel protester on Saturday night.

Since the 7 October attacks, American universities have become a hotbed for such protests. Presidents of multiple universities being questioned by the Republican-majority House over reported rises in antisemitism on college campuses, with Harvard and the University of Pennsylvania’s presidents later resigning.

Last week, the University of Southern California faced protests after the university cancelled the valedictorian speech of Muslim student Asna Tabassum , who had posted on social media in support of Palestine. In northern California, tensions remain high at the University of California, Berkeley, after pro-Palestinian students criticised Israel at a dinner hosted by Berkeley’s law school dean, Erwin Chemerinsky.

With inputs from agencies