Antisemitism on the Columbia University campus has gotten “considerably worse” after school President Minouche Shafik testified to Congress, but it will cause “even more chaos” if she resigns amid the escalating pro-Palestinian protests, Jonas Du, the editor-in-chief at the Columbia University Sundial told Newsmax on Tuesday.
“What we’ve been seeing is very ironic because antisemitism has gotten considerably worse after Minouche told Congress she was taking concrete steps to address it,” Du, who recorded video of the protesters saying they want the Hamas Oct. 7 attacks in Israel “repeated 10,000 times,” said on “Wake Up America.”
He added that the comments were directed toward three of his Jewish classmates outside the campus gates.
The following night, Du said, water was splashed on Jewish counter-protesters, and “things were said, such as ‘Hamas, let’s strike Tel Aviv,’ just terrible things.”
He added that if “people like AOC [Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y.] want to call that mostly peaceful, sure, there’s no permanent physical damage, but it’s anything but peaceful, given the atmosphere on campus.”
Still, Du said that Shafik should not resign, but she should take “decisive action to clear any unauthorized protests and secure the campus.”
“What’s happening now is a lack of enforcement of basic rules,” he said. “The campus is supposed to be open only to Columbia ID holders. Jewish students, even our magazine staff, we’ve seen people crawl through the gates, people we don’t know where they’re coming from.”
This includes Nerdeen Kiswani, an anti-Israel activist and co-founder of Within Our Lifetime-United for Palestine, who is “supposedly banned from campus” but is still coming in and giving speeches, Du said.
“What [Shafik] needs to do is lock down campus and keep Jewish students safe; then we can talk about whether a change in leadership is necessitated,” he said.
Meanwhile, Nick Chimicles, an editor for the Sundial and student at Columbia, told Newsmax it “doesn’t quite feel safe on campus right now.”
“They’ve got the NYPD everywhere,” he said. “There are drones flying around. You can only get into campus in one or two places.”
He added that some “real agitators come from all over New York” and are mixing in with the student protesters.
“We don’t know where these people are coming from,” Chimicles said. “Some of the chants they’re screaming are just horrific.”
However, he said that he does not think the protesters have the nerve “to do anything really serious,” but he would not feel safe if he was a Jewish student, “especially with some of the chants that these guys are doing. I would say they should probably continue to attend class remotely.”
About NEWSMAX TV:
NEWSMAX is the fastest-growing cable news channel in America!
- Find Newsmax channel in your home via cable and satellite systems – More Info Here
- Watch Newsmax+ on your home TV app or smartphone and watch it anywhere! Try it for FREE — See More Here: NewsmaxPlus.com
© 2024 Newsmax. All rights reserved.