Fordham University students set up an anti-Israel tent encampment Wednesday, saying they were motivated by the arrests of hundreds of protesters on the campuses of Columbia University and the City University of New York.
About 25 demonstrators crouched in seven tents in the lobby of the Leon Lowenstein Center, a building on the private Jesuit university’s Lincoln Center campus, while others rallied outside glass doors. did.
The protesters, some wearing masks over their faces and wearing keffiyeh, taped Palestinian flags to the wall and beat tom drums, chanting, “Students, students, stand by! NYPD.” backed down.” “Israeli bombs, Fordham reparations, how many children did they kill today?”
Matthew Smith, an 18-year-old freshman at Fordham’s Rose Hill campus, led the chant wearing a keffiyeh and a New York City Democratic Socialists of America T-shirt.
“We are even more encouraged when we see a fascist police state oppressing us,” he said of the arrests at Columbia University, where protesters invaded and occupied university buildings Tuesday night. talked about.
“The police are on the wrong side of this,” Smith told the Post. “If the police really wanted us to stop, what they would do is go back home and protest.”
New York City police arrived just before noon and set up barriers outside the Lowenstein Center, according to reports. Video footage by Al Jazeera correspondent Gabriel Elizondo.
In the lobby of the building, demonstrators held placards with phrases such as “Withdraw from Israel,” “Free the four Palestinian students,” and “Genocide is not a Jesuit value.”
“This is a Jesuit school, and it should support our efforts to advocate for social justice issues,” Smith said of the Fordham administration.
Although the protesters were in the lobby to call on the school to divest from Israel, Smith said it was unclear exactly whether Fordham had a financial stake in the ongoing war against Hamas in the Gaza Strip. admitted.
“Fordham will not disclose at this time what investments it has in Israel or whether it is investing in companies that profit from the ongoing massacre of civilians in Palestine,” Smith said. Told.
“We’re asking them to disclose that, and if they’re investing in Israel, we’re asking them to divest.”
On Wednesday morning, the administration announced that classes and campus operations would continue as normal despite the protests.
“Fordham Public Safety stands by to keep everyone safe. For the safety of our community, the entrance to the Lowenstein Center has been closed,” the statement reads.
Although classes continued as usual, the closure of the entrance severely disrupted many students’ plans.
Johnny, a 21-year-old business student, said he didn’t know how he would get to his classes at the Lowenstein Center, where the doors were blocked.
“If you feel the need, you feel the need, but it’s pretty inconvenient to go to class,” he told the Post about the protests.
“They’re in the building that I have to go to. Now they’ve locked it down. I don’t know how I’m going to get there. I don’t seem to have the means to get to class,” he lamented.
“Kids on campus are basically just screaming at each other in a room, so I don’t see how constructive that is,” Johnny added of his peers’ protests.
“I’ve seen everything that happened in Colombia, and I expected this to happen.”
