Over 100 Arrested After Columbia Univ. President Calls NYPD to Clear Pro-Palestine Student Protest

in New York riot police moved in on

a peaceful student protest in campus and

encampment arresting at least 108 people

at Colombia Columbia University

president manafi called the NYPD to

clear the Gaza solidarity encampment on

the campuses South lawn where Columban

Barnard students had set up one day

earlier to demand University leadership

divest from Israel New York police chief

John chel said Shafi identified the

demonstration as a clear and present

danger but that officers found the

students to be peaceful and Cooperative

shaik warned all students participating

in the encampment would be suspended at

least three suspensions of Barnard

students were confirmed Thursday before

the arrests including isra hary

 the

daughter of Congress member ilhan Omar

Thursday Showdown with the NY PD was the

largest arrest on the Columbia campus

since

1968 when police arrested over 700

students protesting the school's ties to

the Vietnam War and its plans to expand

in Harlem by building a gymnasium there

following the arrest yesterday students

gathered on the campus throughout the

night as large protests continued and

are ongoing St students got support from

many Colombia faculty online and a visit

in person from Union Theological

Seminary Professor Cornell West just

nearby who's also a 2024 presidential

candidate democracy Now spoke to

Professor West after he climbed a fence

to visit with the encamped

protesters well you know in light of our

standing deep solidarity with our

precious Palestinian brothers and

sisters who are undergoing vicious

genocide wring with a partti conditions

for so long and still being ethnically

clean we want the world to know that

their suffering ises not have the last

word there's resilience and there's a

willingness to fight and Colombia

president ought to be shame on herself

that she cannot zero in on an actual

genocide taking place before our very

eyes and be concerned about a potential

and possible call for genocide of Jews

nobody here is called for genocide Jews

nobody's here calling for annihilation

we're calling for the end of an actual

genocide the end of an actual

Annihilation how sad that Columbia

University could teach so many courses

on the clinical text of Western

civilization and can't listen to Dido or

Carl Marx they can't listen to a Martin

Luther King Jr they can't listen to

rerio Rook Kaiser most importantly they

can't listen to the cries of our

precious Palestinians in Gaza and the

West Bank so I'm in deep solidarity with

these students they represent the best

not just of Colombia not just of the

American Empire but the human Spirit

fighting in the face of domination and

occupation and subjugation and doing it

with tremendous

determination that's presidential

candidate and Union Theological Seminary

Professor Cornell West speaking to

democracy now at Columbia University in

the midst of the protest special thanks

to Hannah Ellas