2024-12-09 Strike Barnard for Palestine Protest


Metadata

  • When: 2024-12-09

  • Where: Barnard College

  • Who:

  • Organizations: CUAD

  • Tags:

Description

Additional evidence: folder

  • CUAD announced the protest on instagram: “THIS MONDAY, we strike Barnard for Palestine!” The post continues with, “On the road to divestment, Barnard will be the first domino to fall – an instrumental piece in toppling the entire university. BARNARD FIRST, COLUMBIA NEXT. WE WON’T STOP TIL YOU DIVEST!” The 5th slide of the post reads “Administrators are puppets to the trustees’ dollars… If Barnard will only listen to its trustees, it’s our duty to target its trustees!” The following few slides target Cheryl Milstein, Diana Vagelos, and Francine Lefrak. The last slide includes an image of a statue of a person throwing a molotov cocktail.

  • At 9:05pm on 12/09/2024, the night before the planned protest, Barnard sent out an email (here) announcing “campus access restrictions” for the day of the protest. The email includes details about restrictions to campus access, unmasking requests to check IDs, and potential bag searches. The email notes that these restrictions were implemented “due to active concern for violence on Barnard’s campus”.

  • Later that night in a new instagram post, CUAD announced the location of the protest was changed to outside Barnard at 116th and Broadway. The post reads: “Barnard college to stop-and-frisk pro-Palestine students”….Several student group instagram accounts (cssw4palestine, columbia.psc, cumc4palestine, hinds_house, columbia_msa) shared the protest flier (see screenshots here). 

  • The protest began outside of Barnard’s gates around 2pm. Chants included “From water to water, Palestine will be Arab” in Arabic (here), “We will be victorious. Resistance is glorious,” and “There is only one solution, intifada revolution” (here). “Palestine is our demand. No peace on stolen land” (here at 2:17). “Free the people, free them all. Zionism will fall” (here at 0:50) as well as “There is only one solution, intifada revolution) at 2:20 and a bunch of “intifada intifada, long live the intifada”. Several individuals with arm bands (here) can be seen. The arm bands usually signify these individuals as being part of CUAD’s “Security team”. 

  • A protester gives a speech echoing the CUAD post about the trustees and their support of the “zionist entity” and obsession with money (here). “Brutal repression and fascist shut-down”. They chant “Barnard first, Columbia next. We won’t stop til you divest”

  • There were several noteworthy posters including “intifada” (here), “Bold, Beautiful, Bomb-droppers” (here), and “All of the women are resistance” (here). SJP explains this last sign in an x post (here). 

  • At some point a WOL protest joins in and the protesters march around Barnard (here). People with armbands can be found along the entire march. Participants chant “One solution revolution” (here around 0:30) “intifada intifada. Long live the intifada” (1:00) followed by “tell me what you’re fighting for. Intifada people’s war”. 

  • There were some tense interactions between the cops and protesters. For example, Protester yelling at female cop (here)

  • During the protest, one of the protesters stole an Israeli flag from a Jewish student and punched another in the face. Columbia University issued a statement the next day (here). See x post here. 

Media

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