ADL shuts down Pro-Palestine encampments in New York City

New York, New York – Peaceful demonstrators at two different New York
universities that opposed the Israeli-led genocide of Gaza were subjected
to a brutal NYPD crackdown Tuesday evening.

The paramilitary incursion, which saw the use of armored vehicles, shields,
and batons, came just eight days after Anti-Defamation League CEO Jonathan
Greenblatt demanded protests be shut down to keep Jewish kids “safe” from
those opposing mass murder.

“Jewish students don’t feel safe on campus because they are not,” said
Greenblatt in a video to his personal X, formerly Twitter account last
week.

“We need President Minouche Shafik to do three things. Number one, we need
NYPD back on this campus or bring in the National Guard,” he continued.
“Number two, no masks on campus…And number three, the students who behave
this way need to be suspended immediately.”

On Tuesday, Greenblatt’s words appeared to echo as hordes of New York’s
finest converged to shut down nonviolent student protests at both Columbia
University and the City College of New York. Using armored vehicles
equipped with ladders, officers huddled in formation and forcibly evicted
demonstrators encamped inside Columbia’s Hamilton Hall.

The operation kicked off late Tuesday night, and culminated in the arrest
of nearly 300 people who opposed Israel’s war on Gaza. At Columbia, 119
arrests were made over minor charges, while 173 were arrested at CCNY.

At a news conference celebrating the crackdown, New York’s controversial
Black Mayor, Eric Adams, blamed an uptick in anti-Israeli rhetoric on
alleged “outside agitators” whose goal was to “radicalize young people.”

Rebecca Weiner, the NYPD’s Jewish Deputy Commissioner of Intelligence and
Counterterrorism—whose grandfather helped develop nuclear weapons later
used to obliterate Japan at the end of World War 2—said the crackdown was
necessary after individuals were spotted posing an “elevated concern.”

Shocking videos of the military-style assault quickly went viral on social
media, depicting scenes of armored shock troops clambering into the
school’s windows via a mobile “siege tower.” Officers were said to have set
up a security cordon four blocks around Columbia University, using pepper
spray to neutralize those attempting to stop busloads of demonstrators from
being transported to central booking.

By the night’s end, masked members of the NYPD’s “counterterrorism” unit at
CCNY placed a neighborhood on total lockdown, commandeering civilian buses
to facilitate the mass arrests of students. According to X/Twitter user
Jeremy Loffredo, the officers would later use the same buses for their own
transportation needs.

“This entire city-wide militarized operation was in response to college
students allegedly expressing “hateful” and “antisemitic” rhetoric [hate
speech],” he commented.

Columbia University, like many prestigious American schools, has come under
fire from Jewish power figures for a perceived failure in raking in
anti-Israel rhetoric on campus. Columbia had previously escaped scrutiny,
however, thanks to rules that prevented pro-Palestine protestors from
acting unless they gave the school ten days’ notice.

When students defied the new rules and set up a pro-Palestine encampment
anyway, the school quickly became the focus of Zionist interests, which
triggered a site visit by Greenblatt.

Greenblatt’s ADL has waged war on growing pro-Palestine activism on
campuses across the country. Leaked audio obtained from a clandestine ADL
meeting late last month revealed the organization’s new report card system
for so-called “antisemitism,” which includes plans to launch massive
litigation campaigns against universities that fail to meet up to certain
rhetorical standards.

“Why do these groups get to promote Hamas propaganda?” Greenblatt can be
heard in the leaked audio. “We want to cast a bright light on these groups.
I think what they’re doing is a breach of the criminal code.”

Taking cues from the ADL and other Zionist interest groups, mainstream
politicians in states like Texas, California, and Florida have turned
student protests into veritable battlegrounds, using accusations of
“antisemitism” as the trigger. Republicans like Tom Cotton, Greg Abbott,
Josh Hawley, and others have emerged from the unrest, appearing all too
eager to flex state power to repress the First Amendment rights of their
own citizens.

The alarmingly widespread disregard for constitutional protections has
since sparked renewed debates on free expression and the legitimacy of the
American empire as a whole.

White Civil rights activist and staunch opponent of the state of Israel,
Mike Peinovich, used the opportunity to remind followers that heavy-handed
policing by the NYPD was nonexistent during the 2020 summer of racial
reckoning. He also suggested that operations like these were just part of
an overall strategy to make support of Palestine a forbidden subject in the
leftist milieu.

“Look at the tactics the NYPD is using. Tactics like this were never
deployed against BLM riots which were far more widespread and far more
violent,” said Peinovich on X/Twitter. “This began as a campus sit-in, and
the police and Jewish agitators have provoked all of the violence. This is
Jewish privilege.”

“From the perspective of Jews, these campus Palestine protests are just as
unacceptable as White Nationalism…That is why the same level of force is
being used, and they will follow up with similar legal and social
punishments,” he commented.

“We are about to see whether leftists are really better activists than
right-wingers or whether this appearance is purely the result of system
approval. When leftists engage in non-system-approved actions, will they
fall victim to the same systemic traps? I honestly don’t know,” he said.

As Israel’s ongoing military campaign against Gaza continues into 2024,
civil unrest tied to the conflict has only exploded internationally, with
no clear signs of it slowing down. At the time of press, more than 34,535
Palestinians are believed to have been killed from Israeli war strikes and
incursions, many of them innocent women and children. Additionally, 77,704
have been wounded.

To make matters worse, the Biden administration is currently mulling over a
strategy to relocate thousands of Palestinians to the US homeland, in a
move said to provide a “permanent safe haven” for refugees forced out of
their native homeland by Israeli Defense Forces.

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