The anti-Israel tent encampment at Columbia University is being led by a group of controversial student leaders, some of whom express solidarity with Hamas and have made statements suggesting that “Zionists don’t deserve to live.” These students are negotiating directly with university leaders and have dozens of tents and hundreds of protesters on the campus lawn in Morningside Heights. One of the prominent figures in the protest camp is Khymani James, a spokesperson for Columbia United Apartheid Divest, which is demanding that the university divest from companies that do business with the Israeli military, including many Fortune 500 companies.
Rep. Ilhan Omar visited the campus and was seen shaking hands with James, and as a result of the protests, Jewish students have expressed feeling unsafe attending classes despite paying high tuition fees. The university has announced that students will be allowed to attend classes online for the rest of the year. Despite attempts by university officials to break up the camp, the students have forced them to back down and have postponed a deadline that required protesters to leave the area by Friday morning. Instead, negotiations are now focusing on Columbia addressing their divestment demands.
Mahmoud Khalil, a Palestinian graduate student and one of the lead negotiators for the protesters, has expressed concerns about participating in the ongoing protests due to the fear of losing his student visa. He has previously worked for the United Nations’ agency UNRWA, which supports Palestinian refugees. UNRWA faced funding cuts and criticism earlier in the year, but an independent review found no significant evidence of connections to Hamas, despite the claims made in an Israeli dossier.
Before the tent camp was established, the Columbia Apartheid Divest group and its leaders had previously been disciplined for making extremist statements. Some students were suspended for hosting an event promoting Hamas and expressing anti-Israel sentiment. Even though these students are technically barred from campus, they continue to share updates and messages from the encampment. Maryam Alwan, an organizer with Students for Justice in Palestine, proudly shared a photo of herself being arrested by the NYPD during a mass arrest last week.
The tent camp protest continues, with no clear end in sight and little indication that Columbia officials are considering bringing in the NYPD to remove the protesters. The protesters have emphasized that they cannot operate under time pressure and have successfully pushed back against attempts to enforce deadlines for them to leave. The persistence of the camp, along with the ongoing negotiations with university officials, highlights the determination of the student leaders in pushing for the divestment demands and expressing their anti-Israel sentiments on campus.