As demonstrations over the Israel-Gaza war enter their second week, some students are struggling to balance the once-in-a-generation pomp and circumstance with the once-in-a-generation protests. Seeking an idyllic spot on campus, they don caps and gowns and flash cheerful smiles for photos, sometimes to the accompaniment of variations on slogans some believe call for the eradication of Israel. Palestine will live forever. ”
Life hasn’t changed much for many students, as the end of the school year takes priority over protests. Some spend days and nights outdoors, eating donated food, selling purported university investments, and rallying university leaders to call for severing economic ties with Israel. .
In Colombia, the epicenter of pro-Palestinian university protests, there are two worlds: life inside the camps and life outside.
The encampment, which occupies a grassy field near the center of Columbia University’s main campus, is quiet and orderly, surrounded by a low fence and green shrubbery topped with a small Palestinian flag. Organizers say there are several hundred students inside, acting like part of a small village.
Leaders of Columbia University Apartheid Divest, a coalition of Palestinian and Jewish student groups, set up a campsite with dozens of blue, orange, green and gray tents on April 17th. did. The next day, the university’s president, Minoush Shafik, summoned a fully clothed New York police officer. He donned riot gear during his mass arrests, a move that only expanded the Colombian encampment.
Columbia University’s encampment is accessible through one gate, but outsiders are barred from entry by faculty in neon yellow vests. Upon entering the gates, students must walk under a sign listing the protesters’ demands on the Colombian state government: “Stop financial support for Israel.” Cut ties with Israeli universities. Don’t take over Harlem land that could be used for low-income housing. End the “targeted repression” of Palestinian students and publicly condemn the war.
There is a peer support tent offering counseling and a tent offering first aid supplies. Another tent is used as a library, displaying novels by authors Junot Díaz and Octavia E. Butler, as well as The Autobiography of Malcolm X. Other tents have hand-painted signs identifying their affiliations, such as “Engineers 4 Gaza” or “Teachers College Abolition Group for a Free Palestine.”
“We turned this into a ‘University of the People,'” said Dalia Darazim, a first-year Middle Eastern studies major who has been in and out of the camp since its inception. Some professors have offered to hold classes on-site, she added.
There is a designated food tent in one corner of the camp, adjacent to the campus library and student center where protesters use restrooms. The aroma of food such as pizza, tomato sauce, and knafe wafts through the air. The students relied primarily on donations from pro-Palestinian supporters in New York City, and local restaurants delivered fresh food free of charge, protest organizer Mohammad Hemeida said. A junior studying history and political science.
Nearby, dozens of packages of Top Ramen, Goldfish, granola bars, raisins, creamy peanut butter, and Ritz crackers are stacked. “There are people on top of the food tarpaulin doing the job of just making sure we have enough of every meal option,” Darazim said.
Posters posted at the encampment list demonstrators’ schedule for the day, including rallies, visiting speakers, and even a Shabbat dinner. There are also dancing and singing sessions, and some people use their breaks to design T-shirts for him or play chess. Some people take college classes online.
By now, students are used to being watched, and even when swarms of reporters arrive during the university-sanctioned two-hour access period, many students fold their blankets or hide outside the garrison walls. I continue to work in the afternoon, listening to speakers who I can’t hear.
Mr. Hemeida corralled journalists Thursday and promised to help arrange interviews, although he could not guarantee that enough students would be interested. “I’m sorry if you didn’t get the interview,” he said.
Demonstrators speak seriously about their opposition to Israel’s military tactics and their demands on the government. But they also fear being harassed on social media or having their personal information published online, and are skeptical of questions from media outlets perceived to be pro-Israel. On Friday, organizers asked reporters to respect students’ privacy and identify themselves before asking questions.
Sueda Porat, a student organizer and negotiator, told reporters that negotiations were underway with the school administration over the clearing of the campsite. But the students say they have to wait until Colombia sells companies they say have profited from the war in Gaza and grants amnesty to those who have been punished since the protests began, even if it lasts until the summer. , said he plans to stay in the camp.
Graduation preparations have begun in Colombia. Rows of metal risers are visible on the quad and signs have been installed. But there are obstacles. The stage usually extends to the grass where the encampment is located.
The protests have also made students’ lives outside the camps insecure. Protesters gather daily outside the university’s main gates, which are manned by dozens of New York state troopers and security guards. On Friday, some demonstrators held signs that read “Israel is responsible for 75 years of tragic bloodshed” and chanted “overthrow the state of Israel”. Some held up photos of Israelis held hostage by Hamas since the Oct. 7 attack and argued with pro-Palestinian advocates. Another group spread blue tarpaulins on the sidewalk and prayed.
One man complained to security about a demonstrator holding a sign comparing Israel to the Nazis.
“Free speech, white people,” the protester responded.
Many students put on earphones and make their way past the commotion to security, where they must scan their school IDs to enter campus. Once inside the campsite, some people will take photos and videos. Some people avoid watching, avoiding reporters and news cameras.
But there are glimpses of normalcy. On Friday, students were basking in the sunny courtyard, eating lunch at patio tables, reading books and smoking cigarettes across the camp’s boundaries.
Henry Sears, a fourth-year political science and Middle East studies student, bowed his head Friday as he walked in front of the encampment. He said the campus used to be a safe place for him and his friends, who would gather in their classrooms at night to watch 1980s movies on a projector. Now he spends most of his time off campus, wondering why his student body has become so divided.
“We need to be able to talk to each other and have difficult conversations,” Sears said. “This is a university. Now is the time for us to do this.”
Aryeh Krisher, a Jewish graduate student studying applied physics, studied the Israeli hostage photos posted on the wall late Friday. She explained that three days earlier, Jewish students had posted photos of hostages taken by Hamas. He pressed down the duct tape so the photo would remain hanging.
Krisher said she left campus for Passover on April 19 for her home in New Jersey and planned to return a few days later. Following protests on campus in which Jewish students said they were victims of harassment and verbal abuse, Krisher said he was postponing his return to campus until Friday due to safety concerns.
“If we could have anything we wanted, the number one thing would be… people smiling at each other,” Krisher said.
About an hour later, Jewish graduate student Jonathan Swill took advantage of the sunny day to sit in a black lawn chair near a wall of Israeli hostage photographs. Swill was there to see photos of his family friend Alon Ohel, who was taken hostage by Hamas at an Israeli music festival.
He blocked out the echoes of chants from the camp by loudly reciting portions of the Psalms, passages from the Hebrew Bible. Swill originally came to Columbia for the biomechanical engineering program, which he graduates next month, and he said he can’t wait to move to Israel to start an orthopedic company.
“I hope I never have to come here again,” he said.
As he read, students in light blue caps and gowns watched the encampment from the top of the administration building’s stairs. Adam De Pico and Luisa Klein Belting, graduate students studying public administration, said camp activities set the tone for the entire campus. While the afternoon’s rallies and arrests were frightening, Friday’s peaceful afternoon protests were uplifting, they said.
“It’s great to just enjoy the last days of being here. It’s a very special environment.”
Some graduates did not want the encampment to appear in the background of their graduation photos and asked photographers to avoid it. But De Pico said he likes it. He wants to remember the protests that defined his final months at school.
“It’s now part of the fabric of this organization,” he said.
Two realities rarely match
On Thursday, Hemeida called the encampment “one of the most amazing acts of solidarity we have ever witnessed.” A few feet away, another student, Natan Rosenbaum, called it a “hostile takeover.”
About an hour later, Shira Ghez, a Jewish student majoring in computer science, shouted into the camp’s microphone.
“I believe in the right of the Jewish state to exist! And your demands that Zionist students be expelled from campus, removed, and cease to exist is pure racism,” she said. . “This hatred must stop!”
From inside the encampment, students began shouting, “Free Palestine! Free Palestine!”
Guess spoke out and asked them to stand together against hatred. No one did.
