By Claire Davenport
A year on from October 7, pro-Palestinian and pro-Israeli demonstrators gathered on Columbia University’s campus, separately mourning Israelis and Palestinians killed in Hamas’s attack on Israel and in Israel’s military response in Gaza.
A memorial for the 250 Israelis taken hostage by Hamas last October 7 covered the South Lawn of the Columbia campus — the same space where, last spring semester, pro-Palestinian protesters had set up an encampment to press demands that the university divest of any financial holdings in Israel.
The memorial installation, guarded by security, included giant milk cartons with blown-up images of the faces of hostages. On one side of the lawn, a collection of teddy bears were covered in red paint to symbolize the 1,200 Israelis killed by Hamas on October 7.
Near the South Lawn, two different crowds gathered Monday morning on the steps to Low Library. On the west side of the steps, around 100 pro-Israeli demonstrators wore “Bring Them Home” t-shirts and held Israeli and American flags as they mourned the Israeli dead and demanded the release of the remaining hostages.
“We are not fighting today. We are mourning,” one speaker said, a message intended for passersby and for the nearby crowd of pro-Palestinian protesters.
That group stood just a few yards away, separated from the pro-Israeli vigil by barricades and security guards. As the pro-Israeli group talked about the October 7 Hamas attack and read names of still-missing hostages, the pro-Palestinian protesters took turns reading the names of the over 41,000 Palestinians who are reported to have been killed in the Israeli military’s response.
“There are no words for what it feels like to get a text that over a dozen of your extended family members have been killed,” one Pro-Palestinian protester said, encircled by hundreds of supporters.
In anticipation of the demonstrations, Columbia on Monday was once again on high security, with reduced access – only current students, faculty, and staff with valid i.d. were allowed on campus.
“We understand that there has been a call for a walkout as part of a larger protest effort across New York City,” said Interim President Katrina Armstrong in a letter to the Columbia community Sunday afternoon. “This walkout was not registered through the process established by the Guidelines to the Rules of University Conduct and thus is not sanctioned by the University Senate or the University administration,” the email continued.
Despite the lack of official approval, security did not try to stop the pro-Palestinian group. After a round of speeches on the Low Library steps, the group marched in a circle around campus, returning to the front of Low Library, where the pro-Israeli protesters blasted music by Israeli singer Ofra Haza and sang the U.S. national anthem.
Both gatherings remained peaceful and kept to their separate sides on the Low Library steps, but neither side made an effort to engage with the other on the somber day.
“Let us mourn in peace,” said one of the pro-Israeli demonstrators. “Do not engage with the indifference of the Columbia administration.”
“We are not engaging with the Zionists today,” organizers of the pro-Palestinian protest instructed their group. “This is about us. This is about mourning our martyrs.”
Nearby on the east side of the South lawn, “Listening Tables” set up by the administration to encourage dialogue about the conflicts at Columbia remained mostly empty.
Around 1:30 p.m., the pro-Palestinian student protesters walked out of the Amsterdam gate to join other protests in the city organized by Within Our Lifetime, a Palestinian-led community organization.
Within Our Lifetime protests started around midday by Wall Street and were expected to end at Columbus Circle around sunset. But shortly before the appointed time, the group released an update on X saying that due to threats they had received, they would no longer be marching to Columbus Circle. Instead, their protest ended in Madison Square Park a little after 7:30.
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2 Questions: 1) Does protesting for Hamas (terror organization) to return the hostages they stole mean you’re anti-Palestinian? (I would say no) & 2) Does protesting to stop the killing of people in Gaza mean you’re anti-Israel or antisemitic?
To Q #1- they were not “protesting” for Hamas to do anything, they were collectively mourning. But thank you for actually using the word “hostages”, since sadly no other commenters (so far) have done so. Those who yell about ‘ceasefire now’ might have more support from the ‘other side’ if they ever addressed the fact that there still exist 101 hostages, dead and alive, not even counting the 1,200 10/7 bodies left where they were murdered on that fateful day. Those who yell ‘ceasefire now’ would also do well to learn more about many of the 10/7 victims who consistently promoted peace and in fact, actively advocated for it, many along the Gaza border even making this part of their own everyday lives through their own humanitarian actions. How devastating to lose those souls as well, and how sad that so many of these supposedly educated kids don’t even seem to know about the ones who did make those real sacrifices yet ended up as dead as everyone else. You see, Hamas didn’t stop to ask who assisted and befriended the other, because they didn’t care either.
(2) No.
(1) No, but I’m not sure who the protest, as a protest (as opposed to a communal expression of grief, which is 100% understandable and legitimate), is actually aimed at. Hamas assuredly does not give a damn what a bunch of Jewish folks on the UWS think, and the Israelis apparently already have a blank check from the U.S. government, so who exactly are they addressing, and to what end?
Re second question: I would say no.
There are likely thousands of Jewish students attending Columbia. It’s pathetic that the photo shows only a few dozen students at the vigil for the October 7th Hamas atrocities.
Plenty of Jewish students are/have demonstrated for peace/a ceasefire/for Palestinian rights.
Jews are not monolithic, and Zionism is not representative of all Jewish perspectives.
October 7th was a senseless tragedy – but it followed on the deadliest year for Palestinians in decades.
The Israeli state’s genocidal has torched any legitimacy it had on the world stage. And American taxpayers are bankrolling it to the tune of $18 billion in the past year alone.
Ceasefire now.
Return the hostages
You need to look up a definition of genocide. If Israel was committing genocide, it would stop water and food from coming into the Gaza Strip and 2 million would die! Genocide is what Muslim Turks did to Christian Armenians – killing a million and half and driving them from places the Armenians had lived for 3000 years! In any case, say ceasefire is declared tomorrow. What then? Hamas and Hezbollah will rebuild and start another war in a few years and cause tens of thousands of deaths again! So what is the point of the ceasefire?
The facts about what happened to the Armenians are way more complicated than is presented here. There was violence by Armenians against Turkish people around the same time and Armenians have also perpetuated violence against Azerbaijanis such as the Khojaly massacre. Turkish people do not even hate Armenian people the way Hitler and many European Christians hated Jews. In fact there is a lot of hatred directed at Turkish people because they are more successful Muslims than others.
If anything, we can all agree that genocide is what happened to the Jews under Hitler.
This is hate speech. It is unfortunate you allow this person to spew venom on a post about 1,200 Jews being murdered.
That seems to be an accurate read of the situation to me. Why is it hate speech to also mourn the deaths of thousands of innocent women and children?
Do the students who favor divestment from Israel also want divestment from Arab countries where women, gays, and trans people are persecuted, imprisoned, and executed?
Do they want Columbia to cease business where women must cover their faces, hair, and bodies or be whipped?
Do they want divestment from countries that support Hamas, which has called for the killing of all Jews?
” Within Our Lifetime, a Palestinian-led community organization.”
Must be a nice community, eh? Could we please stop normalizing hate?!
This is from ADL, https://www.adl.org/resources/article/nerdeen-kiswani-and-within-our-lifetime-united-palestine-what-you-need-know
“Within Our Lifetime-United for Palestine (WOL) is a New York-based, radical anti-Israel organization founded in 2015 that routinely expresses support for violence against Israel and calls for the abolition of Zionism.
Since Hamas’ brutal terror massacre across southern Israel on October 7, 2023, WOL and its co-founder and leader Nerdeen Kiswani have continued to share extreme anti-Zionist and antisemitic positions on social media and at anti-Israel protests as well as in webinars and reports. “
It was pretty peaceful and completely non disruptive.
The guy with the Israeli flag and the bloody nose may not agree with you
I mourn the thousands of Palestinian civilians killed in the Gaza war and I disagree profoundly with the Netanyahu government. That said, the smartest thing the pro-Palestinian student protesters could have done was take October 7th off.
Yes