A pro-Palestinian protester outside Columbia University this week rejected allegations of antisemitism at campus protests, and claimed there’s a “weaponization of antisemitism” happening “against the people who are waging a liberation movement.”
“I didn’t hear anybody care about antisemitism before Palestinians were trying to liberate themselves,” the protester told The Recount Senior Social Media Manager Danielle Wolf in an interview Monday. “How much more do people have to take? How much more bloodshed do people have to take in order for somebody to just wage this weaponization of antisemitism against the people who are waging a liberation movement? All they want is to be free. All they want is to stop dying.”
Some media outlets and students have reported hearing people make antisemitic comments and slurs around the protests, which organizers blame on “outside agitators” rallying outside the campus.
“Fifteen thousand children have been killed,” the protester told The Recount about the war in Gaza. “Nineteen thousand orphaned children, and over 33,000 Palestinians dead, and who knows how many under the rubble. And Colombia is complicit in this. They are banning students, they are evicting students who want to take a stand against the genocide. And we're here to support them.”
Protests and an encampment have been ongoing at Columbia University for about two weeks. Demonstrators have demanded that Columbia condemn the war in Gaza and divest from companies that they say help fund Israel’s offensive, which has led to a humanitarian crisis in Gaza. Those protests have sparked similar demonstrations at college campuses around the country this week, resulting in some universities calling in the police to arrest hundreds of people.
