this post was submitted on 09 May 2025
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... Columbia University administrators called in the New York Police Department (NYPD) on Wednesday evening to violently suppress and shut down a pro-Palestinian student occupation of the campus’ Butler Library. Approximately 78 protesters were arrested just over a year after the police-state crackdown at Columbia last April, when the NYPD swarmed the campus to arrest over 100 students and break up the “Gaza Solidarity Encampment.”

On Wednesday afternoon, a group of around 100 anti-genocide student protesters took over Butler’s main reading room and renamed it the “Basel Al-Araj Popular University,” after the Palestinian activist and writer killed by Israeli forces in 2017.

The students’ demands include Columbia’s financial divestment from Zionist organizations, an academic boycott of complicit institutions, cops and ICE off campus and amnesty for all university members unfairly targeted and disciplined for pro-Palestinian actions.

Columbia’s Public Safety officers immediately responded and violently barred protesters from leaving unless they showed identification, which created a prolonged standoff...

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[–] Darkassassin07@lemmy.ca 130 points 1 week ago (26 children)

If peaceful protest is going to be consistently met with violent police response; maybe they should stop being peaceful from the outset.

[–] Lyra_Lycan@lemmy.blahaj.zone 52 points 1 week ago (3 children)

I wonder how long it will take for enough to realise their government is not compatible with protests. Peer pressure does not encourage authoritarians.

[–] xintrik@lemm.ee 22 points 1 week ago

The running platform was making empathetic people angry; small scale protests are a badge of honor and large scale protests are a mild annoyance to be dealt with however they deem fit.

[–] standarduser@lemm.ee 7 points 1 week ago (3 children)

It won’t happen at this rate. Last thing that was closest to that was the CHOP zone in Seattle a few years ago. And that still fell through. Most protest folks that participate won’t fight back since most are against baring arms and only want it to be via peace since they are too afraid to die for something. They will shift that fear on to their peers and react as well with “I don’t want to have people miss me” or “I don’t have the time to up and remove my life from what I’ve worked towards so far”

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[–] Sweetpeaches69@lemmy.world 4 points 1 week ago

"Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable." -JFK

[–] fluxion@lemmy.world 32 points 1 week ago (4 children)

If security shows up to stop protestors from leaving, they aren't there to secure the peace, they are there to oppress.

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[–] geneva_convenience@lemmy.ml 3 points 1 week ago (3 children)

They should start doing minor acts of vandalism in places where there are no cameras like emptying all the toilet rolls all the time. But not too obviously and consistently. Just occasionally when they enter a toilet.

[–] gradual@lemmings.world 3 points 1 week ago

Personally, I'm all for vandalizing the property of zionists and their supporters.

It shouldn't even be that difficult. Could probably rig up a drone to drop bricks or paint on their cars, for example.

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[–] TheOubliette@lemmy.ml 3 points 1 week ago (11 children)

Sure, but let's step back and analyze it a little more.

Protest itself does not achieve political change. Its usefulness is in direct action or in recruiting those present into further action, education, and organizations. Liberal protests are state-sanctioned parades. Real protests tend to have an actual action to take, demands to be met, people to impact, costs to incur on others.

The terminology of "peaceful protest" is already poisoned and should be questioned. The media and politicians - and those propagandized downstream, all conflate private property destruction and violence. If a protest breaks windows, suddenly it is no longer "peaceful" and can be rejected by the propagandized as invalid and not to be supported. The US is full of such good little piggies, happy to align with the ruling class picking their pocket and doing actual violence because they exist exclusively in a world of capitalist propaganda.

Under these auspices, all direct action that the capitalist system wants to crush is, will, and has been labelled terrorism. It's already done this for private property destruction by environmentalists, peace activists during all major wars (except WWII, where American Nazis were coddled and of course did not damage private property), labor organizers, anti-segregation organizers, socialists, communists, Mexicans, Chinese, Native Americans, etc. They happily do it again against anti-genocide protesters, particularly because they can play on the islamophobic use of the terrorism label at the same time. Like all fascistic logic, they must frame themselves as the true victims, so they also happily call every critic of Israel an antisemite.

All of this bombards the US population 24/7. Americans exist in a haze of accusations and terms they barely understand, trying to slot it into what could only charitably called an ideology - the naked reactionaries in red and the obfuscated reactionaries in blue.

All of this is to say that the greatest barrier in the US is education, and education begins with agitation, e.g. these protests in any form. Get as many people as possible to show up to the next thing, to organize the next thing, and spread knowledge.

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[–] Viking_Hippie@lemmy.dbzer0.com 43 points 1 week ago (9 children)

The students’ demands include Columbia’s financial divestment from Zionist organizations, an academic boycott of complicit institutions, cops and ICE off campus and amnesty for all university members unfairly targeted and disciplined for pro-Palestinian actions.

Not a single one of which wouldn't be a given in a sane and civilized modern society.

Columbia’s Public Safety officers immediately responded and violently barred protesters from leaving unless they showed identification, which created a prolonged standoff...

Because of COURSE they did!

When it comes to Apartheid regimes (and indeed most big picture stuff), student protesters are always on the right side of history and the people who derive income directly dependent on the atrocities continuing always react with the subtlety and intelligence of trying to remove a splinter with a machete.

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[–] Legge@lemmy.world 35 points 1 week ago (2 children)

Columbia is speedrunning fastest university decline in the public eye

[–] geneva_convenience@lemmy.ml 8 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (1 children)

People will forget about it all 2 months after it ends. They have the memory of a potato. Americans still praise NYT after the WMD lies.

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[–] cyd@lemmy.world 31 points 1 week ago (2 children)

I gotta say, Hong Kongers put up way more of a fight than Americans seem to be. Hong Kong Polytechnic University went through a full blown siege in 2019. Six years later, in the land of the free, student leaders get picked off and any protests that manage to get going are easily crushed by the police.

[–] comfy@lemmy.ml 19 points 1 week ago (1 children)

fwiw, Hong Kong protestors were protesting about their own home, rather than these universities protesting in international solidarity against their university's investments and policies. I'd kinda expect the Hong Kong ones to be defended more viciously.

[–] cyd@lemmy.world 10 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

More specifically, the Hong Kong protests were about the possiblity of HKers being sent to the mainland. Here and now we have multiple actual renditions of US residents to El Salvador and elsewhere (including one of the protesters!)...

[–] geneva_convenience@lemmy.ml 4 points 1 week ago

The Hong Kong dudes threw tear gas back. If American protesters do that they get shot and killed. Even sitting down peacefully with a flag gets American protesters painted as violent terrorists.

[–] chilicheeselies@lemmy.world 18 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Are people still applying to go to school there?

[–] nsrxn@scribe.disroot.org 3 points 1 week ago

zionists who want a chance to sue for discrimination. imagine their shock if their entire class shows up wearing Israeli flags etc. the disappointment.

[–] Sweetpeaches69@lemmy.world 15 points 1 week ago

"Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable" -JFK

[–] anachrohack@lemmy.world 9 points 1 week ago (2 children)

shut down a pro-Palestinian student occupation of the campus’ Butler Library

I don't understand, though. Were they expecting not to be arrested? I thought that was the point of civil disobedience. What was the point of occupying the library if not to instigate a response from police or campus police?

[–] meeeeetch@lemmy.world 18 points 1 week ago

They probably were intending/expecting arrests. There are probably protesters who didn't go into the library because they specifically don't want a criminal record (especially if they're on a visa or some such).

And you can see in the comments here how angry the arrests are getting some people.

That's the goal of a lot of nonviolent protest. Get your allies loud about it and split some moderates away from the authorities that they hadn't really thought of as "the bad guys" before.

[–] pyre@lemmy.world 3 points 1 week ago

funny how occupation is unacceptable all of a sudden

[–] rhvg@lemmy.world 8 points 1 week ago

If trump admin is smart enough, they will bus police from other states to go to New York, learn and practice, trump will soon have his Schutzstaffel

[–] barneypiccolo@lemm.ee 5 points 1 week ago

I'll bet Columbia's fall enrollment will be greatly decreased. If I was a student there, I'd definitely be going somewhere else in the fall.

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