Maelstrom: Hooded figures break into Columbia buildings, take hostages; UCLA protestors block Jewish students from classes
It's getting to be a maelstrom out there, with weak university responses emboldening pro-Hamas campus protestors.
Columbia University bought itself a boatload of trouble by ignoring its own deadline yesterday to make protestors clear out, although suspension notices were reportedly issued to some.
Now pro-Hamas protestors are taking over school buildings and taking hostages. Last night, hooded men crawled up the university building known as John Jay Hall where the administrators work and got out hammers to smash glass to break into the building, barricading it with junked furniture, and taking three maintenance workers in the building hostage. And like the Munich Olympics terrorists of 1972, they put on their black masked skinsuit ensembles and crawled up into a freshman student dorm full of 18 year olds called Hamilton Hall and took it over.
Columbia University will not recover from this. There is nothing peaceful about this protest.
— Spitfire (@DogRightGirl) April 30, 2024
Listen carefully to the audio…..pic.twitter.com/uJ0dw22bKK
Columbia protesters have completely crossed the line. They’re smashing into Hamilton Hall. pic.twitter.com/BtvVuDihfm
— Ian Miles Cheong (@stillgray) April 30, 2024
Anarchists dressed in all black are breaking in through windows at the Columbia College campus in NYC.
— Viral News NYC (@ViralNewsNYC) April 30, 2024
This is bad pic.twitter.com/Lp7vmBpGqI
Hamas supporters have reportedly taken hostages within the University now.
— Wall Street Silver (@WallStreetSilv) April 30, 2024
pic.twitter.com/R35KkjXLpm
They're also reportedly physically assaulting and beating up Jewish students now.
And the faculty have joined, creating a new problem:
Columbia waited too long
— Phil Holloway ✈️ (@PhilHollowayEsq) April 29, 2024
Now faculty are in on it
They’ll never get this toothpaste back in the tube
It was a mistake Columbia will regret to let them get a toe hold in the first place
pic.twitter.com/FSwvG5Y5iA
And in the swamp style, a 'consultant' and NGOs have crawled out of the woodwork:
63-y-o “professional protest consultant” Lisa Fithian giving orders to students how to riot, vandalize & break into @Columbia tonight
— Visegrád 24 (@visegrad24) April 30, 2024
Might this interest the authorities?
She was involved in the violent Seattle protests in 1999 & member the national team of Extinction Rebellion pic.twitter.com/5K8tqh3tTG
The NGO Network Orchestrating Antisemitic Incitement on American Campuses » ngomonitor https://t.co/cxVSYTMTye
— Bill Ackman (@BillAckman) April 29, 2024
And just to leave the point clear, they haven't actually abandoned their smelly encampments on the school lawn, either. That's a standing rebuke of the administration that told them to clear out or else. Well, they're still there. Graduation is a week away and it takes at least a week for the university to set up for the big ceremony on that same lawn. The university is now the fly caught in the spider's web, unable to move, just waiting to get its blood drained from these predators with unreasonable demands claiming to be 'peaceful protestors.'
Meanwhile, at UCLA, the weak, irresolute response from its administration has now allowed thugs in black to block Jewish students from attending their own classes and studying in their own library. The beasts have taken over, and the university says it intends to do nothing.
Masked Palestine activists block student wearing a Star of David necklace and refuse to let the student enter his own University because he is Jewish… pic.twitter.com/e9PAzBjiEa
— Freakouts & Crazy Content (@FightMate) April 29, 2024
This is outrageous and dangerous - masked Hamas thugs are allowed to block Jewish UCLA students from their classes. Where is UCLA President Michael Drake? Chancellor Block? Where is LAPD? Where is California media? Hey UCLA Law School grads - need some work? https://t.co/mTnljTUoJ0
— Katy Grimes (@KATYSaccitizen) April 29, 2024
NEW: Jewish UCLA student blocked from entering his own school while he tries attending class.
— Collin Rugg (@CollinRugg) April 29, 2024
Eli Tsives was refused entry by pro-Palestine students on campus according to his post on IG.
"They didn't let me get to class using the main entrance! Instead they forced me to… pic.twitter.com/ui2rYJxny3
Nor is that administration willing to help its own students:
"So the University (UCLA) has taken a stance that we will not in fact help or allow Jewish students get to their classes."
— SCRIBEMOON (@SCRIBEMOON) April 30, 2024
"we have received a directive to NOT intervene at this time yes."@bariweiss @GuyBensonShow @marklevinshow@MichaelRapaport @PatriciaHeaton @DanaPerino https://t.co/GI2zsu8m6S
It's definitely an escalation, and coming at the same time, happening at the most prestigious universities in the largest cities in the U.S. has the feel of a directive given.
If this were a peaceful protest, as these university leaders are treating it, the protestors would have made their point and gone home. But it's not. It's a coercive thug action, as if might makes right, and never mind about the debate of ideas that a university is supposed to be about. The Columbia president is going full 'Clark Kerr' and allowing protestors to crawl all over her. Claudine Gay must be breathing a sigh of relief that at least one university president at these antisemitism-plagued schools is doing worse than she is. The Columbia president, Minouche Shafik, has pleaded, pleaded, with the protestors to leave the premises because graduation is coming up and the kids graduating had already been denied their high school graduations due to COVID lockdowns.
They say they'll clear out the day before the graduation, meaning, Columbia is taking their word for it and good luck if they change their minds. They already know that there are no consequences for them for failing to heed Columbia deadlines:
No, @Columbia can’t just give the urban terrorists until the day before graduation to clear the campus. Setting up the Columbia campus for its massive outdoor graduation is a multi-week job. They need to go now.
— Jake Novak (@jakejakeny) April 29, 2024
It's like the student protests of the 1960s are part of the script, where the punks took over the university president's office, set fires, and held the president hostage. The leader of that group, Mark Rudd, did get expelled from the school, but there is no such talk of it now, and students protesting are calling for full amnesty for their disruptions. The university, thus far, has been unwilling to act, despite having called the cops to the scene, to, what, twiddle their thumbs? It's the weakest response from a university yet, which is why the thugs are taking over.
What a mess they've got now, both Columbia and UCLA, as well as a host of other campuses that have failed to act resolutely against disruptive protestors, as Florida's universities have. With no sign of any of it really ending, all we can look forward to now is for it to get worse. What a sorry ending they're all facing.
Image: Screen shot from Twitter video.