Democrats are seemingly divided on how to answer the anti-Israel protests and encampments which have sprouted up all through the nation, particularly within the wake of the New York Police Division’s (NYPD) raid of Columbia College Tuesday evening.
Whereas some Democrat politicians, like Sen. John Fetterman (D-PA), have expressed thankfulness that Columbia College “selected to have the police are available in and take cost,” others, like Rep. Jamaal Bowman (D-NY), slammed the police response over college students “merely exercising their first modification rights.”
“The protesters at Columbia demonstrated that there are two factions of the protesters — there’s the pro-Hamas, after which there’s the actually pro-Hamas,” Fetterman advised Semafor.
Demonstrators break home windows of a constructing on April 30, 2024, on Columbia College’s campus to barricade themselves. (Alex Kent/Getty Photographs)
Fetterman has been a staunch supporter of Israel within the aftermath of Hamas’s October 7, 2023, assault, which noticed 1,200 folks useless and greater than 200 folks taken as hostages.
Late Tuesday night, NYPD officers in riot gear started a raid on Columbia College hours after pro-Palestinian protesters had seized management of an instructional constructing, smashing glass doorways, carrying barricades, and hanging pro-Palestinian banners from the home windows.
The raid was sharply criticized by Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) who said that “if any child” was harm throughout the raid, the “duty will fall on the mayor” and Columbia College President Minouche Shafik.
“Different leaders and colleges have discovered a secure, de-escalatory path,” Ocasio-Cortez wrote. “That is the alternative of management and endangers public security. A nightmare within the making. I urge the Mayor to reverse course.”
If any child is harm tonight, duty will fall on the mayor and univ presidents.
Different leaders and colleges have discovered a secure, de-escalatory path. That is the alternative of management and endangers public security. A nightmare within the making.
I urge the Mayor to reverse course. https://t.co/52eAEfbJjq
— Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC) Could 1, 2024
Bowman additionally criticized the police response to the pro-Palestinian protesters at Columbia College, giving a speech by which he criticized the NYPD for exercising “brutality” on the protesters.
“And for what? Merely exercising their first modification rights to peacefully assemble as they protest the collective punishment of civilians in Gaza,” Bowman said.
New York Metropolis Mayor Eric Adams (D) slammed the protesters for taking down the American flag from the flag pole and changing it with the Palestinian flag.
“You don’t take over our buildings and put one other flag up, which may be high quality to different folks however to not me. My uncle died defending this nation,” Adams mentioned.
Up to now few weeks, anti-Israel protests and encampments have sprouted up throughout the nation in help of an preliminary encampment that was established at Columbia College on April 17.
NYPD officers enter the Columbia College constructing and detain pro-Palestinian demonstrators as they’d barricaded themselves to iconic Hamilton Corridor constructing in New York on April 30, 2024. (Selcuk Acar/Anadolu by way of Getty Photographs)
The day after the preliminary anti-Israel encampment was established on the campus, a number of college students, together with Minnesota Rep. Ilhan Omar’s (D) daughter Isra Hirsi, have been suspended and a whole lot of protesters have been arrested.
Omar has supported the scholars collaborating within the encampment at Columbia College.
Whereas the primary encampment was eliminated, one other one popped up as an alternative. Finally, the college felt it was “left with no selection” apart from to name the police.
