Top US university suspends groups protesting Israel's bombardment of Gaza
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Pro-Palestinian protesters and pro-Israeli counter-protesters demonstrate at Columbia University, in New York, in October 2023.
PHOTO: NYTIMES
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NEW YORK - A prestigious US university has suspended two student groups that organised protests against Israel’s bombing campaign in Gaza, saying they violated campus policies.
Professor Gerald Rosberg, Columbia University’s chair of the special committee on campus safety, said on Friday that Students for Justice in Palestine and Jewish Voice for Peace would be suspended throughout the fall semester.
“This decision was made after the two groups repeatedly violated University policies related to holding campus events, culminating in an unauthorised event on Thursday afternoon that proceeded despite warnings and included threatening rhetoric and intimidation,” he said, in a statement.
Jewish Voice For Peace – a growing national anti-Zionist organisation on the left – called the decision an “appalling act of censorship and intimidation by the administration” and demanded an “immediate reinstatement” of Columbia’s student chapters.
“The students in these groups are acting with moral clarity. They are protesting war and trying to save lives by calling for a ceasefire,” the statement said.
Columbia’s SJP chapter, meanwhile, said “you can shut our organisations down, but can’t stop our hearts from beating for liberation, humanity, and the freedom of Palestine.”
The suspension strips the groups of funding and means they cannot hold events on campus.
Prof Rosberg said the suspension would only be lifted if the two groups showed “a commitment to compliance with University policies.”
“This ensures both the safety of our community and that core University activities can be conducted without disruption” during what Prof Rosberg described as “charged time,” with protests in the United States – including some involving college students – having turned violent.
Hundreds of Columbia students had walked out of lectures on Thursday, US media reported, to attend a protest organised by the two groups in which they called on Washington to push for a ceasefire in Israel’s assault on the Palestinian militant group Hamas, which launched a deadly cross-border raid on Israel on Oct 7
The Israeli operation has killed more than 11,000 Palestinians, according to Gaza’s health ministry in the Hamas-governed territory.
Some media reports said students at the Thursday protest called for the school to label Israel’s assault on Gaza a “genocide,” and demanded the university boycott and divest from Israeli institutions.
Across US campuses including Harvard, Stanford and New York University, bitter clashes involving students, professors and administrators
