Are antisemitic comments being made in the Columbia University pro-Palestine encampment? This student says no.
A pro-Palestinian protester at Columbia University told The Recount that she had not seen any antisemitism in the on-campus protests — and said she'd consider it “unacceptable and abhorrent” if such claims were true.
Some media outlets and students have reported hearing people making antisemitic comments and slurs around the protests, but the student said she had not personally heard or seen anything of the sort.
“It’s really kind of offensive that people think that that's a possibility, just given the amount of Jewish people that are currently here and have been here all day. I mean, why would they be here if that was happening?” she told The Recount Senior Social Media Manager Danielle Wolf in an interview Monday. “There haven't been any reports I heard of, of anything in the camp. I think it's been some reports of people at the gates, outside on the streets. Those are not Columbia students.”
“I think it's quite frankly incorrect, unfactual, offensive that people would think that that's a possibility, because you can't call for freedom for Palestinians if you're going to call for harm of any minority in the United States," she added.
The student questioned the origin of such claims of antisemitism, and theorized that any hate speech was coming from “outside agitators” who were not part of the encampments.
“I personally don't really understand where this is coming from. I've been here all hours of the day and I don't think that that's my personal impression,” she continued. “If I've seen something, I would interrupt it directly. … I would find that unacceptable, abhorrent, if I was to witness something like that.”
“Columbia University is an open campus. For years it's been like a sort of park-like place, so if there are outside agitators or people that come in, there's not much we can do to prevent that beyond interrupting it. And CUAD [Columbia University Apartheid Divest] itself and all the organizations present have put out a statement explicitly criticizing anything that might have happened, because we don't want to be associated with that.”
