Police and private security throng every entrance but one. Steel barriers line the streets. Students pack up belongings in their cars and leave for home - classes are cancelled, and exam plans are up in the air.
Everywhere there is gloom, and uncertainty about what happens next at Columbia University.
Students told the BBC that the university’s decision to call in police to clear a Gaza protest late on Tuesday, leading to a raid on the occupied Hamilton Hall and hundreds of arrests, has left the college community shattered.
The university president, Nemat Shafik, said that it was with great regret that she ordered the police raid against students and others she said had infiltrated the protest. It would “take time to heal”, she added in a message in the operation’s aftermath.
For students of this prestigious school in Manhattan, New York, how long is unclear.
Why does that matter, exactly? New accounts aren’t allowed to have an opinion? Or state facts?
Could you respond to the people asking for facts instead of responding to these comments, then? Someone was asking in what ways the protesters are pro-Hamas, you could start there.
Israel has left Palestine alone since 2005. They allowed Palestine to use their power and water, because Hamas (who Palestinians overwhelmingly support AND voted in) refused to build those resources in Gaza. Instead they chose to build tunnels for terror. Palestinians cheered when Israeli’s were murdered, and the protesters literally changed “from the Mountains to the sea” which leaves no room for the legal state of Israel.
If you’re pro Palestine you are pro Hamas. They happily started a fight, and they play victim when they lose, rounding up the simple minded as supporters.
