Why protest against the war in Gaza on the campus of Columbia University?

Question

According to Wiki:

An ongoing occupation protest conducted by pro-Palestinian students is occurring at Columbia University in New York City. The protests began on April 17, 2024, when pro-Palestinian students established an encampment of approximately 50 tents, calling it the Gaza Solidarity Encampment, on the university's campus, demanding the university divest from Israel. The encampment was forcibly dismantled the next day when university president Minouche Shafik authorized the New York City Police Department to storm campus and conduct mass arrests, but it has since been restored. The arrests marked the first time the university has allowed police to suppress campus protests since the 1968 demonstrations against the Vietnam War.

But... what's the point of protesting the war on the campus of Columbia University? I could understand a protest in front of the UN, in front of the Israeli consulate, or perhaps some Federal government building... but how is Columbia University at all affiliated with the war? They have ~zero connection to Israel, they're not sending arms to Israel and they're not particularly influential in the grand scheme of things. The campus is located in a (relatively) quiet part of Manhattan, so it's not even all that disruptive to most residents of the city. So, why not take the protest elsewhere?

Answer 1

Campuses are often hotspots of political protests.

From Mai 68 to the Vietnam War protests, this is a recurring pattern amongst countries. Students have flexible time, are very socially integrated as groups, can be - loudly - politically engaged and - some might say - like the attention. There is also a logistical and sympathy benefit from protesting at the very locations where you are a customer (of education services). This isn't to downplay the reasons why protests are happening, only to note that campuses frequently see protests. Columbia has a long history there.

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Those specific students have requested that Columbia divest from Israeli interests so there is nothing all that surprising about these events taking place on campus:

In particular, students are demanding the university drop its direct investments in companies doing business in or with Israel, including Amazon and Google, which are part of a $1.2bn cloud-computing contract with the state’s government; Microsoft, whose services are used by Israel’s ministry of defense and Israeli civil administration; and defense contractors profiting from the war such as Lockheed Martin, which on Tuesday reported its earnings were up 14%.

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Are some protesters Hamas apologists?

The infamous Harvard letter was dated the very day of the 10/7 attack and directly blamed Israel for the atrocities committed by Hamas. It was not that much of an outlier at the time either, as it was signed by a number of student groups.

"The apartheid regime is the only one to blame. Israeli violence has structured every aspect of Palestinian existence for 75 years," the letter added.

I don't wish to discredit protesters as a whole by quoting this. But it is a (minor?) aspect of the protest movement. And fixing this is key to having a pro-Palestine message be taken seriously.

Hopefully few student protesters will now be as vitriolically stupid as this. In April 2024, there is much to protest about. That does not excuse letting support for Palestinian rights bleed into sympathy for Hamas. However... protests, not infrequently, are organized or include, Jewish pro-peace supporters.

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Are there valid reasons to be protesting?

This question is about the motivations of protesters, at this time, concerning this subject, at those locations. There is a flip side to my scrutiny, and utter dislike, of any apologism towards Hamas by protesters.

Easiest way to express that is to paraphrase a comment made under this very answer:

It's not even about Israel! They hate Jews and are antisemitic.

Much of the world reacted with great sympathy to Israel's suffering on 10/7. Six months later, with casualty rates approaching that of those of of European nations after six years of WW2, with a war being waged with controversial methods and with debatable adherence to IHL and the Geneva conventions. With no end in sight, no clear view of when Israel will stop, no insight on their post-war intentions, and with Western nations having had to resort to air drops to feed civilians at times?

Pull the other one! It's too easy, when asking about motivations, which this question does, to answer it * by blaming it on all of the protesters being somehow, solely, motivated by atavistic antisemitism. And to pretend there is nothing to protest about the Israeli government's actions.

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Are these protests being policed even-handedly? Competently?

Last, but not least, the heavy-handedness displayed lately at Columbia, with hundreds of arrests, will, to anyone familiar with the historical record of protest movements, seem to carry the risk of inflaming matters and protests further. As another answer pointed out, the way these matters have been handled by universities so far seesaws between extremes, without much political savvy. It is hard to balance between freedom of expression and freedom from harassment for students whose course-taking is impacted (so far, the First Amendment seems to be a distant consideration for some, while others struggle to figure out if calls for genocide would be against their universities' codes of conducts).

* Well, no, nobody actually answered this question that way. That well-trod argument has been confined to - numerous - comments.

Answer 2

The real answer is that it is easy. Columbia University is not unique or special, there are hundreds of campuses where these protests have been organized.

It doesn't matter what the protests are about. Organizing a protest at a university is generally much easier than elsewhere because:

Easy to gather participation:

• Students are more politically active
• Students have very strong opinions (on many different issues, not just this)
• Students are also very impressionable and idealistic, and want to change the world (nothing bad in that, that's a general characteristic of youth)
• Students have free time on their hand (flexible schedules, can skip classes, no work/family commitments)

Easy to find space:

• There are a lot of open spaces that the protests can utilize, like the lawn in Columbia, or the park at Stanford.
• Disruptions are also limited to the Universities, usually, and thus don't affect the general public much. This helps shaping the message without the accompanied negativity of blocking traffic during people's commute (which in California may land some otherwise similar protesters in court)

Little repercussions:

• Universities are generally more tolerant with regards to student activities, than, say, employers or the affected general public.
• In case of public universities, e.g., UC Berkeley, a first amendment claim can be made. However in other cases, trespassing charges may be brought (by private universities or employers).

All this is true for any student political activity. A separate question may be why there's so much violence when it comes to the pro-Palestinian protests, but that's not relevant to this question.

Answer 3

None of the existing answers provide a real answer.

Answer: To get Columbia University to divest from its business with Israel-affiliated companies

From a Guardian article:

At Columbia, students are demanding the university drop its direct investments in companies doing business in or with Israel, including Amazon and Google, which are part of a $1.2bn cloud-computing contract with Israel’s government; Microsoft, whose services are used by Israel’s ministry of defense and Israeli civil administration; and defense contractors profiting from the war such as Lockheed Martin, which on Tuesday reported its earnings were up 14%.

Other groups, such as Yale University’s Endowment Justice Coalition and student groups at Cornell University, are pushing administrators to drop investments in weapons manufacturers specifically.

Students at the University of California, Berkeley, have similarly called for divestment of Israel across the board, as have student groups at New York University.

The protestors have identified links between Columbia University (and other universities) and companies doing business with or in Israel.

This isn't the first time such a campaign has happened. It also was done against Apartheid South Africa (from the same Guardian article):

In 1965, the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, Students for a Democratic Society, and the Congress of Racial Equality held a New York City sit-in calling for Chase Bank to stop financing apartheid in South Africa. Throughout the 1970s and 1980s, many campus organizers also successfully pressured their schools to cut financial ties with companies that supported the apartheid regime, including Columbia, which became the first Ivy League university to do so.

Finally, in the past such action has had some limited success:

In 2009, Hampshire College divested from a mutual fund with Israeli holdings after facing pressure from BDS activists. (Administrators officially denied the decision was boycott-related.)

Other colleges have been forced to consider the issue: in 2019, for instance, a Brown committee recommended the university divest from companies linked to human rights violations, said Olivia Katbi, organizer with the BDS movement.

Additionally: motive is not anti-semetic

From an Independent article:

Mr Ben-Menachem is one of many Jewish students who joined the protests at Columbia and other universities across the US calling for their institutions to cut ties with companies linked to Israel over the war in Gaza.

He said he has watched with amazement as the media and political figures have attempted to characterise the protests as antisemitic and dangerous, despite Jewish student organisations playing a central role in them.

Additionally (from the same article):

While Mr Ben-Menachem said there had been credible reports of antisemitism in and around the campus, they were not representative of the hundreds of protesters who had camped out to protest against Israel’s war. What concerned him more than outside agitators was the university’s attempts to crack down on the protests — including the rumours that it may soon enlist the National Guard to intervene.

And:

“It’s absurd to say that they are gonna bring in the National Guard and the NYPD to protect Jews when it’s actually Jews who are being arrested,” he added.

Sarah, a Jewish student at Columbia who asked for only her first name to be published, was among those arrested for taking part in the encampment. She was held by the NYPD for eight hours, with her hands in zip ties, after they moved in on the camp on Thursday. She was suspended the next day, but snuck back onto campus a few days later to take part in a Passover Seder celebration with fellow protesters. --

Answer 4

It has become a focal point

3 university leaders were interviewed by Congress on their stance on anti-jewish sentiments and anti-jewish language use by student and employees in protests. 4 were originally planned to adress congress, the leader of Colombia was on travel. Expedient, many claimed, and she was also called by Congress to answer questions albeit later. She did so, and with the previous interviews in mind took a much stronger stance, even to the point of promising to sanction a tenured professor based on statements made in an opinion piece.

This was well received by congress... but very much worse received by the students and academic employees. It was a fine line to thread, and she missed it on the other side.

Colombia University has tried to be tough on protesters but it is becoming increasingly apparent that the leadership has limited options and backing. And, since the eyes of the world is now on the protestors camp; media, congress, activity groups... It has become the focal point of the culture war. One side believes that the freedom to express themselves should be ignored and that academia is a waste of time altogether. The other side thinks it is a good idea to profane, harass and threaten a particular ethnic group based on events happening half a world away.

Answer 5

Question:

But... what's the point of protesting the war on the campus of Columbia university?

Short Answer:

The protesters aren't just targeting Columbia University they are targeting Universities across the United States.

• Harvard’s anti-Israel tent camp soaked by sprinklers, as heated protests pop up across the country

• More tents pop up at Massachusetts Institute of Technology in protest of war in Gaza

• Pro-Palestinian protesters shut down event organized by Pro-Israel student groups at UC Berkeley

• Pro-Palestine demonstrators protest at Stanford

• Northeastern students set up pro-Palestinian encampment

• Northwestern University students build encampment on Deering Meadow in pro-Palestinian protest

• Notre Dame students form Pro-Palestinian protest, seek university divestment from arms firms

• Student arrested during pro-Palestine protest at UConn

Columbia University has an endowment of $14 Billion dollars. The total size of all University endowments in the United States is $839.090 billion. In doing so they are seeking to begin to deny Israel access to important investment funds. If successful, the divestment agenda will expand to corporations. Spreading awareness and support as they go. At least that is what occurred in the 60s and 80s against Vietnam war and South Africa Apartheid. The harder the police crack down the greater the support. Such movements have been very effective historically. Israeli PM Netanyahu has long stated an bds movement is an existential threat to Israel.

The protests over the Israel-Hamas war put a spotlight on college endowments

Answer

The organizers of the Israeli Boycott, Divest, and Sanction movement are mirroring the similarly named movement which successfully targeted and ended South Africa's Apartheid regime June 17, 1991, leading to multiracial elections in April 1994. They did so by targeting the regime's finances.

South Africa being a much larger and significantly more diverse economy under Apartheid than the Israeli economy. University endowments in the United States being a huge pot of investment dollars and a stepping stone to greater public awareness of their issue.

The South Africa BDS movement Protested Universities until they publicly divested. They also eventually targeted multi national companies. Together these actions denied South Africa's any significant international funds and ultimately lead to the end of the regime as financially unviable; even in the face of oppositions to the BDS movement from many of the worlds governments at the time including the United States.

The Israeli BDS movement has a long way to go to achieve the success which the South Africa Movement achieved. But this movement has long been considered by Israel an existential threat.

• It's why 48 U.S. states have laws which penalize companies who join any divestment campaign against Israel.

Wielding Antidiscrimination Law to Suppress the Movement for Palestinian Rights

• So far no Federal anti-bdsm law has been adopted.

• Israel brands Palestinian-led boycott movement a 'strategic threat'

• Netanyahu’s Declaration of War on BDS Is Its First Major Victory

• Why BDS is replacing Iran as Israel’s biggest “existential threat”