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Chaos on Campus: Speaker Johnson's visit fans the flames at Columbia as protests go global
Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives Mike Johnson (R-La.) attends a news conference at Columbia University. April 24, 2024.
“There are so many cameras on campus my mom is going to find out I vape on the cover of the New York Times,” said a senior at Columbia University who I shall keep anonymous for her mother’s sake. But her remark accurately summarizes what it's like on campus these days.
On Tuesday, the cameras were out for House Speaker Mike Johnson and several other GOP lawmakers, who held a press conference about antisemitism on the steps of Columbia’s iconic Low Library.
Johnson demanded that the White House crack down on campus protests and called for the resignation of Columbia President Nemat "Minouche" Shafik.
“If these threats and intimidation are not stopped,” he warned, looking out at the two dozen or so tents of the Gaza Solidarity Encampment erected a week ago, “there is an appropriate time for the National Guard.”
Down below, hundreds of students booed and chanted, “Mike, you suck!”
“All students deserve protection, but Jewish students need to be able to go to class,” said House Education Committee Chair Virginia Foxx, R-N.C., in an interview with GZERO following the press conference. “Congress is investigating to see if further government action is necessary to ensure the encampment is cleared.”
With the end of the semester just days away, many Jewish students have left campus early or are participating in classes online because the protests on and outside of campus have made them feel unsafe.
The night before, the university had, at the last minute, extended by 48 hours a deadline for protesters to clear the encampment or face possible police action after organizers had agreed to take down several tents and remove non-Columbia people from the encampment.
But the protesters continue to demand three things: that the university’s endowment divest from all companies and organizations that do business with Israel or are profiting from the war, that the university publish a list of all its investments, and that the school grant amnesty for the student protesters who have been suspended in earlier crackdowns on Gaza-related protests.
“We need the university to meet our demands. That is the only way the encampment will be moved,” said students representing the protesters during a press conference. The students have vowed to stay at least through graduation on May 15 if their demands aren’t met.
Outside of Columbia, the encampment and arrests have inspired student protests around the globe. Twenty protesters were arrested at the University of Texas campus in Austin, as new protests continued erupting in places like Pittsburgh and San Antonio. Solidarity encampments have sprung up at over 40 colleges in the United States and as far afield as universities in Cairo, Paris, and Sydney, Australia.
Tomorrow brings what could be a sizable pro-Israel protest led by several prominent Christian conservative activists in the early evening and then another tense night of negotiations for the encampment.
One thing is for sure: The cameras will only multiply as this standoff comes to a head — so students who don't want their parents to catch them vaping should probably stay home.
Now Jose Andres is, he's obviously very angry. He's very upset. Who wouldn't be in that environment? He's blaming Israel, says that this was intentionally targeting his workers. I have a hard time believing that the Israeli Defense Forces would have wanted to kill his workers intentionally in the sense that they understand the blowback that would come and the idea of just going after aid workers, if the West were to find out about that, would clearly be damaging for Israel across the board. Having said that, I do believe that they targeted these convoys. In other words, they knew that they were going to hit aid workers, but they believed that one of the people in this convoy was a militant, a Hamas militant, and the willingness to take civilian casualties, known civilian casualties in order to get a target that has some value, Hamas target is not only considered acceptable, but is sort of standard practice in the war in Gaza.
So yes, they hit one of the cars in the convoy, the truck, then the second and then a third. Those targets were assessed and evaluated. These are not dumb missiles. These are guided missiles, and they know exactly what they are hitting and what they are trying to take out. The question of course is, is this acceptable? And this is not new. It is not a one-off. I mean, they apologize this time because of the high level of attention, because it's Jose Andres and because an American and Westerners were killed.
But others have brought this up in previous aid worker strikes. We saw Cindy McCain on behalf of the World Food Program connected to the United Nations, has said that this has been going on for months now, and she's brought it up and Congress members have brought it up directly with Prime Minister Netanyahu. He's promised he's going to do something about it. That hasn't been the case. Hasn't gotten much attention because there you're talking about Palestinians that are getting targeted and getting killed, and that doesn't get anywhere near the attention that Jose Andres and an American and a bunch of white people.
But nonetheless, it is a consistent level of focus of if you're trying to ensure that you are getting every high, mid and low value Hamas militant target, and there's tens of thousands of them, you are willing to accept that large numbers of civilians are going to get caught up in this. Now, who's to blame for all of this? Anyone that's saying the Israelis are only to blame for this, I strongly disagree because Hamas, as an organization is operating in civilian areas, densely populated civilian areas, in hospitals, under hospitals, in schools, under schools with human shields. They're doing so intentionally both to try to protect their fighters, but also to ensure maximum PR information war damage on the Israelis when they target Hamas so that they have to be responsible for killing civilians.
And the fact that Hamas is actively doing that, putting their civilians in maximum danger, maximum danger, to help ensure that they can achieve their own ideological and political goals, it means that they are responsible for deaths of Palestinian civilians. But anyone that says that Hamas is solely responsible and Israel has no responsibility, clearly isn't paying attention. I mean, if Israel is apologizing for these aid workers because they happen to be Westerners, that means that they are targeting people that is excessive, that that's not okay even if they believe that there is one militant in that group. And that would be equally true if those people that were killed were all Palestinians. It's not just because they are Australians or Americans, that their lives have value after all. And we are talking about over 30,000 people that have been killed. Two thirds of which according to the IDF are civilians.
That's an enormous number. It's a higher rate of civilian casualties per day than we have seen in any war in modern times. More than Syria, more than Iraq, more than Afghanistan, or Ukraine, or Sudan, or Yemen. That's what we're seeing in Gaza right now. And that is why the United States government has said that they will not continue to support Israel the way they have if there is not a change in protection of civilians and ensuring that humanitarian aid gets through. This is new for the Biden administration. President Biden has been very, very reluctant to have any direct consequences to the Israelis. And now you are talking about conditioning a level of military support for Israel on an active change, not just no longer attacking Rafah, which is something that Netanyahu has said he's going to do. The war cabinet has said they're going to do, and they have not yet done a ground offensive on the ground in Rafah.
But now they're saying, unless you change the rules for how you are protecting civilians and how you are allowing humanitarian aid, then American aid for Israel is going to be withdrawn, American military support. It's a hard thing for Biden to do. He's going to get a lot of opposition both from Republicans and from some Democrats and Bibi Netanyahu is going to increasingly, I suspect publicly, try to use that against him. Now, the pressure is on the Israeli Prime Minister at home. It is growing because, well, for a number of reasons. One is because they're having a hard time with whether or not there will be exemptions for Orthodox, for the Haredim, Jews that are given exemptions from military service. Benny Gantz has said, if that exemption continues, that he's not going to stay in the government. On the other hand, the far right, the religious right have said that they will no longer support Netanyahu and his coalition if he backs away from that.
Now you've seen that Gantz has said that he is no longer going to support the government going forward. He's calling for elections, though if he pulls out of the war cabinet, then they still have a coalition in the Knesset. So it's not an immediate push away from Netanyahu, but the pressure is growing. Clearly Bibi is more willing both to continue and escalate the war, but also to take the fight directly and politically to Biden and the United States to do what he can to stay in power. So that pressure's growing. That certainly is part of it. It informs why we're seeing more talk of growing strikes into Lebanon, deeper into Lebanon that could bring Hezbollah into the war. This also informs the decision to attack right next to the Iranian embassy in Damascus, taking out a high-level IRGC leader that is providing support in the proxy war in Syria against the United States, against Israel makes it more likely, whether by accident or through direct escalation that the United States and Israel are eventually in a war with Iran.
And the one part of the conversation between the Israeli Prime Minister and Biden that was clearly aligned was when Biden told the Israelis that they are very aware of the expanded threats from Iran against Israel. And the US will do everything they can to support Israel in that fight. So this is a really, really sticky situation politically. It is a very dangerous military situation in the region. It is one that is clearly hurting Biden at home. It's likely to get worse before it gets better. That's it for me. I'll talk to you all real soon. Be good.
- Aid trickles into Gaza – but how’s it getting there? ›
- Netanyahu and Hamas both won, Israelis and Palestinians lost ›
- Israel-Hamas war: Biden's second foreign policy crisis ›
- Israel-Hamas war: West Bank raid won't derail cease-fire ›
- Why the Israel-Hamas war is so divisive ›
- Ian Bremmer: Understanding the Israel-Hamas war ›
“Putin was my mistake. Getting rid of him is my responsibility.”
It’s clear by the time the character Boris Berezovsky utters that chilling line in the new Broadway play “Patriots” that any attempt to stop Russian President Vladimir Putin’s rise would be futile, perhaps even fatal.
The show, which opened for a limited run in New York on April 22, stars Tony and Emmy-nominated actor Michael Stuhlbarg as Berezovsky, a larger-than-life oligarch whose billions buy him into the highest ranks of Russian power after the fall of the Soviet Union. When asked by President Boris Yeltsin to find a successor to lead the fledgling nation, Berezovsky taps Putin, a former KGB agent and ex-mayor of St. Petersburg who few knew well.
The play’s director, Rupert Goold, said while the play is set in a specific moment in modern Russian history, the script has needed changes along the way as major developments colored Putin’s story.
“It does feel like the filter on it changes every day because something else happens every day,” actor Will Keen, who originated the role of Putin in London two years ago, told GZERO’s Tony Maciulis. “It feels like the play has, overall, become darker and darker. It seems to become more and more perturbing.”
“Patriots'' was written by Peter Morgan, creator of Netflix’s “The Crown” and the play puts a similarly-styled lens on Russian history. It’s Shakespearean, more melodrama than history lesson, but the characters are very real. The Broadway audience will also likely receive the show differently than the West End crowd in London, in part because of America’s long and contentious relationship with Russia, and the current polarization in US politics and discourse.
“Patriots” is playing a 12-week run at Broadway’s Barrymore theater.
Catch this full episode of GZERO World with Ian Bremmer on public television beginning this Friday, April 26. Check local listings.
Flags from across the divide wave in the air over protests at Columbia University on Thursday, April 25, 2024.
Where do we draw the line between free speech and a safe space? That’s the core question posed by the protests and the arrests raging on campuses right now over the Hamas-Israel war.
Of the many complex, painful issues contributing to the tension stemming from the Oct. 7 Hamas massacre and the ongoing Israeli attacks in Gaza, dividing groups into two basic camps, pro-Israel and pro-Palestine, is only making this worse. Call it a category problem.
What do these terms, pro-Israel and pro-Palestinian, even mean? Are they helpful, or is it time to stop using them altogether?
The fundamental flaw with these terms is that they conflate support for the existence of a country with support for the government or leaders in power. For example, does pro-Israel mean support for the existence of the state of Israel, or for the policies of the current government? They are wildly different things.
Before Oct. 7, there were already massive rallies against Benjamin Netanyahu’s government, and they have only grown louder. Are the people protesting him anti-Israel? Of course not. Patriotism and partisanship are not always the same thing. The same person who supports the right of Israel to exist – and may even fight for Israel against a group like Hamas – might just as well protest the Likud government, support a two-state solution, and want a cease-fire in Gaza. Read the popular Israeli newspaper Ha’aretz and see the diverse views and critical opinions on Israeli policy.
The same is true for the Palestinian cause. Supporting a viable, safe, prosperous Palestinian state is the normative position of most governments around the world, but that does not mean supporting the murderous agenda of Hamas, which is listed as a terrorist organization in Canada and the US. Palestinians and millions of others who are deeply furious at the Israeli actions in Gaza and Netanyahu’s policies should not necessarily be equated with supporting Hamas and their eliminationist goals. Are you anti-Palestinian if you do not support Hamas? Of course not.
The same is true anywhere. No one asks if you are, say, pro-France, pro-Italy, pro-Canada, or pro-America when they are debating a specific policy. Instead, they ask if you support a particular position or action of the government in power. Reducing this to a conflict about the right to exist as a country – for Israel or Palestine – is a road to endless war. Making this, as it ought to be, about a conflict of policy and leadership – however deadly it is right now – is the path toward resolution.
With the war in Gaza raging, it is understandable that people are being forced to take a side: Are you pro-Israel or pro-Palestinian? That gives the patina of a firm moral stance, but it plays into the hands of the most radical forces on both sides who strategically want to co-opt the reasonable middle ground for their own purposes.
Among the great propaganda victories of this war are the Hamasification of the Palestinian cause on one side and the Netanyahuization of the Israeli voices on the other (and no, this is not meant to make a false equivalence between the two, but simply to describe the political dynamics).
That’s why you see, say, signs supporting Hamas on campuses and chants that celebrate Oct. 7. That’s why there is a rise in antisemitism or, on the other side, a refusal in some places to acknowledge the deaths and suffering of the people of Gaza.
The category problem supports this dynamic and undermines the rational middle ground where, for generations, there has been a genuine if fruitless effort to find a peaceful two-state solution. It is now parodied as a sinkhole of mushy naivete, offensive bothsidesism, and false equivalencies, and protesters and their slogans shout it down. But it remains the only hope.
There isn’t a lot people can do in the face of such a long-standing bloody conflict – though joining protests is certainly one thing. But perhaps adhering to the middle ground and avoiding the broad categories that help radicals on each side is a small but effective action.
You might think that the one place you’d find this middle ground would be on university campuses, where details, nuance, and debate are supposed to thrive. That’s not happening. On many campuses today, it is now impossible to distinguish between free speech and safe space.
"Xi has made it clear he plans to go solve the Taiwan problem while he's still in office." That's New York Times national security correspondent and New Cold Wars author David Sanger on why China's leader is setting his sights on the slender island off its eastern coast. Xi Jinping has made no secret of his belief that Taiwan belongs to China and that it is a national security imperative to bring it under Chinese sovereignty. But it's also an American national security imperative to prevent Xi from doing so, says Sanger. That's because the small island nation still manufactures the vast majority of the critical semiconductor microchips that power our modern world in both China and the United States.
"What Biden has done here in the semiconductor field of trying to choke the Chinese of the most advanced chips, but also the equipment to make those chips while trying to build up here, is the right step." At the same time, however, the Biden administration's push to manufacture more chips in the United States may also imperil the "silicon shield" that currently protects Taiwan from its Chinese neighbor. Nevertheless, Sanger argues that it's not just an industrial imperative for the United States to become self-sufficient in this area. It's a national defense imperative one as well."For our long-term security, it is much more important to build those [semiconductor factories] fabs than it is to build those aircraft carriers."
Catch GZERO World with Ian Bremmer every week on US public television (check local listings) and online.
Officials attend the opening ceremony for the North Korean Embassy in Tehran, Iran in this undated photo released on August 5, 2017 by North Korea's Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) in Pyongyang.
Pyongyang’s Minister of External Economic Relations Yun Jong Ho became the first North Korean official to visit Iran in half a decade on Tuesday. The trip is officially about economic ties, but the US State Department said it was “incredibly concerned” about possible missile and nuclear technology cooperation.
There’s precedent: Tehran has borrowed Pyongyang’s missile designs for its own weapons and admitted to using North Korean missiles during its 1980-1988 war with Iraq. Today, North Korea has intercontinental ballistic missiles that Tehran can’t yet field.
“Given Iran's preoccupation with its strategic position, searching for increased deterrence against both Israel and the United States, the fact that it would welcome a North Korean delegation right now is significant,” said Eurasia Group Iran analyst Greg Brew. “It's also significant that this visit is taking place while Iran's national security advisor is in Moscow,” he added, noting that Russia has been the glue in ties between all three countries.
Both Iran and North Korea have shipped Moscow weapons to use in Ukraine, which Eurasia Group labeled one of its Top Risks for 2024. There’s a political benefit for North Korea on top of the aid Moscow reciprocates: attention from China. Wary of losing influence over Pyongyang, China responded to the closer Russo-Korean ties by launching its own diplomatic press, including a visit to Pyongyang from politburo member Zhao Leji this month. Pyongyang may be trying to run the same play with Tehran.
“From North Korea’s perspective, if all they have to do is bat their eyelashes at another suitor for China to roll out the diplomatic red carpet, that seems like a well they can go back to with Iran,” says Eurasia Group North Korea expert Jeremy Chan.TikTok logo displayed on a phone screen is seen through the broken glass with American flag displayed on a screen in the background in this illustration photo taken in Krakow, Poland on April 24, 2024.
We appear to be at a curious “hinge moment” in history where great powers are engaged in intense rivalries but at the same time are finding ways to cooperate.
Congress and President Joe Biden have just told China to sell TikTok, the social video-sharing app, or it will be banned in the US. It has also just voted to send $8 billion in military aid to Taiwan, a move the Chinese have described as a “dangerous provocation.”
At the same time, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken is in China attempting to thaw relations. He follows on the heels of Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen and recent calls between US and Chinese defense chiefs to discuss their differences.
Similar dual-track diplomacy is happening in other Western countries. Germany is “derisking” its relations with China, yet Chancellor Olaf Scholz visited Beijing earlier this month. Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese undertook a state visit to China in November, the first since 2016.
Canada’s government ordered a national security review of TikTok last September and has already banned the app on government devices. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said Canada is watching the debate in the US, and observers have little doubt that Canada will follow Washington’s lead, if the app is banned – just as it did when it blocked Huawei from its 5G network in 2022.
Sino-Canadian relations are likely to get cooler before they warm up. Interim findings of a Canadian public inquiry into foreign interference in the 2019 and 2021 elections by China will be released later this spring – details that are unlikely to lead to calls for rapprochement.
At the same time, Foreign Affairs Minister Mélanie Joly is sending her senior diplomat, David Morrison, to China as a prelude to an official visit.
The general sense is that we all have to coexist in the same neighborhood, albeit, in the words of US National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan, “in small yards with high fences.”
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