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Tag: Columbia

15 Months of Protest Art for Gaza

Posted on by neversleep

Admin note: only New York sections included

Over the last 15 months, artists have mobilized against Israel’s attacks on civilians in Gaza, which organizations including Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch have determined to be consistent with genocide. After multiple failed attempts, Israel and Hamas agreed to a mutually negotiated ceasefire deal that went into effect on Sunday, January 19, with an initial phase stipulating a halt in Israeli attacks on Gaza for six weeks. The deal will reportedly allow humanitarian aid to enter the Gaza Strip as Palestinians are permitted to return to their locales and Israeli hostages and Palestinian prisoners will be released in stages. Still fragile as it unfolds day by day, the US-backed ceasefire deal marks a precarious break in the onslaught of violence and destruction throughout Gaza. On Monday, January 27, tens of thousands of displaced Gazans began to return north.

In their international push for a permanent ceasefire, artists have developed visual languages to demand institutional divestments from Israel and call for an end to violence against Palestinians in Gaza and the Occupied West Bank. Many have either foregone or been denied life-changing career opportunities in their public advocacy for Palestine, underscoring the importance of community, solidarity, and artistic freedom in the broader culture sector.

Below are some of the most impactful moments of artistic protest for Gaza since October 2023.

Continue reading “15 Months of Protest Art for Gaza”

Columbia University suspends one student as it expedites investigation into Israeli history class disruption

Posted on by neversleep

January 24, 2025

Columbia University says it has suspended one student after “expediting” its investigation into a group who disrupted a class on Israeli history.

Demonstrators handed out flyers with “violent imagery” to students attending a History of Modern Israel class on Tuesday, the university said in a statement.

Columbia said it identified and suspended one student involved, pending a full review, and that its investigation remains active.

It was the first day of Professor Avi Shilon’s class, and students had only just been introduced to the course when protesters – whose faces were covered and appeared to be wearing keffiyehs, entered and distributed anti-Israel leaflets, student Elisha Baker told [news source].

One flyer shows a burning Israeli flag underneath the words “Burn Zionism to the Ground,” and another depicts a large black boot about to stomp on the Jewish Star of David and reads “Crush Zionism,” according to pictures taken by Baker.

“It was shocking for everyone in the class,” said Baker, a junior studying Middle Eastern history. “I’m still super excited for this class. It’s a shame that this incident is going to put us on edge inside the classroom.”

Found on mainstream news.

Actions at Columbia University on Anniversary of Hind’s Death

Posted on by neversleep

Anonymous submission from Columbia:

“Im so scared. Please come.” One year ago today, these were Hind’s last words as she called for an ambulance, while Israeli forces unleashed 355 bullets murdering her as she hid in a car. One year ago, the world failed Hind. But today and everyday we owe Hind, all our martyrs, and ourselves, action.

So today we acted. Inspired by Hind, and the bravery of every Palestinian child who has faced down Israeli genocide for the last century – whether they threw a molotov at a checkpoint, a rock at a tank, or made a call for help. So long as they resist, so must we. We attacked two targets at Columbia University. First, the Kravis Columbia School of Business, one of Columbia’s most recent violent gentrification projects into Harlem, the construction of which was conditioned on the creation of Columbia’s Apartheid Global Center in “Tel Aviv”. We will not allow this land-grab to go unchallenged. Second, we attacked the School of International and Public Affairs – the first Columbia institution to expel a student for their support for Palestinian liberation, currently run by a former “Israeli intelligence officer” – Killer Keren, and staffed by Rebecca Weiner, head of the Counterterrorism Unit of the NYPD, who directed the brutal police assault on our comrades in Hind’s Hall last May. We left Hind’s call painted on SIPA, and we cemented the sewage lines of the entire building, forcing them to shut down business-as-usual.

We are not experts in what it means to take revolutionary action. We are people – just like you – who, today, chose to act. We were afraid- to be arrested, suspended, and expelled; and that is exactly the point. The goal is not to be fearless, but to recognize that to be afraid is merely a symptom of our moral clarity. We are soberly aware of what we may lose if we act, and we are soberly aware of how much more we will lose if we don’t. The most severe consequence we could face today is not expulsion or prison time- it is the knowledge that we had the opportunity to act, and, instead, chose cowardice. The most severe consequence we could face is not only to have failed Hind one year ago, but to have continued to fail her today.

So we invite you to join us. Let us identify the actions that elicit fear in us, find the people who we can be courageous with, embrace the fear, and take collective action.

As Hind’s mother watched the scene of Hind’s Hall unfold, she said “I wanted these movements and support to come while Hind was still alive and not after… but I was still happy that there’s a possibility that Hind’s cause could move and mobilize people in this world.” Let us act together and transform that possibility into a reality.

For Hind, with love and rage from Columbia.

Found on social media.

no peace

Posted on by neversleep

Reflections on Columbia, the Student Intifada and the Culture of Counterinsurgency

28 October 2024 – by Anonymous

“The concentration of violent power in the hands of the few can occur unopposed if it is done quietly, if unnecessary provocation, which can set a process of solidarity in motion, is avoided—that is something that was learned as a result of the student movement and the Paris May.”

— The Urban Guerilla Concept, The Red Army Faction 1971

 

On 30 April 2024 — the 56th anniversary of the 1968 Columbia University mass arrests — the New York Pig Department besieged Harlem, locked down the entirety of Columbia’s campus, swept the Gaza solidarity encampment, and raided Hind’s Hall. This raid marked the end of the spring of the Student Intifada. Those of us who were at the barricades are still reeling from the experience. There are few moments in our lives where history opens its doors to us. Taking the leap through is disorienting, but the responsibility to make sense of this conjuncture falls squarely on those who take the leap.

Journalists and pundits have chimed in endlessly on the Student Intifada with a particular focus on Columbia University. Many of these pundits were nowhere near the action nor the partisans who made the action happen, thus they often get the basic facts of the action wrong. As one rebel once advised, “No investigation, no right to speak.” Additionally, the political orientation of the commentariat necessitated the silencing and erasure of the most radical flank of the movement. This flank played a vital role in not only the uprising at Columbia, but in the direction of the movement nationally. This essay is an attempt to both correct the record and offer up some political perspectives from a segment of this radical flank.

The next sequence of the Student Intifada remains elusive but it is important that interventions are made to push the movement in the correct direction. A minority with the correct revolutionary line is not a minority.

Continue reading “no peace”

‘Zionists don’t deserve to live,’ suspended Columbia activist said. Now his group rescinds its apology and calls for violence

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Nearly six months after Columbia University banned Khymani James, a Pro-Palestinian student activist, who said “Zionists don’t deserve to live,” the coalition that had apologized on his behalf rescinded its statement of regret – and advocated for armed resistance against Israel.

“Last spring, in the midst of the encampments, Columbia University Apartheid Divest (CUAD) posted a statement framed as an apology on behalf of Khymani James,” CUAD posted Tuesday night on Instagram. “We deliberately misrepresented your experiences and your words, and we let you down.”

In a since-deleted post on X, James acknowledged in April that he had said several months earlier in an Instagram Live video: “Zionists don’t deserve to live,” and “Be grateful that I’m not just going out and murdering Zionists.” In the now-deleted April post, he said, “I misspoke in the heat of the moment, for which I apologize.”

Columbia suspended James in April, and he since sued the university to get his ban overturned.

“I never wrote the neo-liberal apology posted in late April, and I’m glad we’ve set the record straight once and for all,” James wrote Tuesday in an X post. “I will not allow anyone to shame me for my politics. Anything I said, I meant it.”

CUAD helped ignite the protest encampments at Columbia in April that sparked a pro-Palestine and anti-Israel movement on campuses across America. In the months since that movement started, the group has taken an increasingly hard-line stance against Israel, advocating for violent uprisings against the country.

“We support liberation by any means necessary, including armed resistance,” the group said in its statement. “Where you’ve exhausted all peaceful means of resolution, violence is the only path forward.”

Found on Mainstream Media

Morning Picket at Home of Rebecca Weiner

Posted on by neversleep

Anonymous submission: The movement for a free Palestine can not and will not be locked behind or shut out by campus gates. Inside campus, outside campus — Palestine is in all of us and there will be no escape for manufacturers of genocide until Palestine is free. THIS MORNING, on the anniversary of the glorious Al-Aqsa Flood, Columbia’s top cop 🐷👮‍♀️ Rebecca Weiner was visited by her very own wake-up picket at 7:30 AM, at her residence in Brooklyn.

Weiner is NYPD Deputy Commissioner of Counterterrorism and their liaison in “Tel Aviv.” She boasts about receiving hourly updates from the NYPD’s own office in occupied Palestinian land, underscoring the financial and ideological ties between the IOF and the Amerikan police.

She was commended by Eric Adams for spearheading the brutal arrests of three hundred pro-Palestine protestors at Columbia University, including the use of live ammunition, a BearCat tank, and flash bangs grenades on protestors inside Hind’s Hall.

In May 2023, Wiener was appointed to Columbia’s School of International and Public Affairs, cementing the ties between the NYPD, the IOF, and the moneyed universities which, behind their closely surveilled gates, launder the despicable crimes of the imperial core.

Our demand is not “no cops on campus;” our demand is TEAR DOWN THE GATES. No more gentrification and policing in New York City to protect the garish strongholds of Amerikan empire; no more cops period; fuck your $2.90.

Weiner proudly boasts about her family ties to the Manhattan project. Her grandfather, Stanislaw Ulam, was one of the developers of the atomic bo

mb- tested on stolen Navajo land and used to slaughter and maim millions of Japanese civilians over generations.

No matter where you go, Palestine is everywhere. No cowardly Columbia University administrator, trustee, or faculty member will know peace while materially supporting the genocide and slaughter of Palestinian people.

Found on Social Media

Juneteenth Graffiti at Columbia University Subway Stop

Posted on by neversleep

We left Columbia University a little Juneteenth present.

They’ll have you believe this is the work of outside agitators in attempts to divide us, but newsflash- we are all outside agitators, and we are everywhere. Long live Hind’s Hall, every fascist state WILL fall.

“Columbia property” doesn’t exist when they’ve stolen everything they have. They will not see peace until they get the fuck out of Harlem, get the fuck out of Palestine, and stop funding genocide.

Disrupt. Reclaim. Destroy. The escalations have only just begun.

Anonymous submission found on CUAD Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/p/C8dBvucujxY/