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Israel intent on Rafah invasion despite global backlash
Ian Bremmer shares his insights on global politics this week on World In :60.
How will the international community respond to an Israeli invasion of Rafah?
Very, very badly. You see that the Israeli prime minister and War Cabinet continues to say that no matter what happens with the hostages and a potential deal, and everyone's trying to get one done at the last minute, that the intention is still very much to fight on the ground there. I don't think that's a bluff. And especially because it's supported by the entire Israeli political spectrum and the population, they believe that you've got to take out Hamas. And beyond that, there's also the concern about Hezbollah. So I think the international response is going to be very negative. It is certainly going to push back the possibility of any Saudi normalization, and it's going to lead to a lot more demonstrations and hostility against Israel in the United States and in Europe.
How would a Trump presidency be different from his first term?
I think the biggest issue, is that, Trump is going to be focused much more on ending, all of these cases against him, which he sees as completely unjust and that the political enemies, need to be responded to. And that means a top priority of ensuring that the leadership of the Department of Justice, the FBI, probably the IRS, are political appointees and loyalists to him. This was not a priority in the first administration. There's no Bill Barr coming back as attorney general. And I think the potential of that, to both create a new McCarthyism in the United States and also to create a structural advantage for the incumbent party in being able to ensure election outcomes much more strongly than you would in a normal, representative democracy, that is significantly at risk in that environment. That'll change the way we think about rule of law in the United States. That's probably the biggest difference.
Are growing US campus protests a sign of a chaotic election in November?
I wouldn't say that yet. We're still talking about relatively small numbers of students, and after graduations are over, I think the student protests are over. But there's no question this does reflect a significant anger among young people in the country. A lot of the people that are involved in the takeovers of buildings, for example, and the tussling with police, are not the students themselves, but people coming in, political entrepreneurs, if I can call them that, from outside. I am deeply concerned about what happens with the upcoming Democratic convention in Chicago. I think that could be very violent with lots of demonstrations. Certainly I don't see the war in Gaza over any time soon. And as a consequence of that, I think that, this is going to be a big problem and very, very challenging, as we think about the most dysfunctional and polarized US election since the 19th century, since the period of reconstruction.
With summer looming, where will student protesters turn next?
What are those demands? The movement aims to isolate and put pressure on Israel to stop its bombing campaign in Gaza by forcing universities to divest from companies with ties to the Jewish state or that profit from the war. While protests on US campuses are being driven by the war in Gaza, their impact is transcending the conflict. Some of the demonstrations have featured antisemitic and intimidating chants and posters, while politicians on both sides of the aisle have made visits to college campuses to either support or condemn them.
Schools are striving to restore order before commencement season to avoid becoming the next University of Southern California, which canceled its main graduation ceremony after arresting more than 90 students last week.
But protesters aren’t concerned about graduation ceremonies. At Columbia, a new chant, “no commencement until divestment,” can be heard from the occupied building. Ali, a senior at The New School who was involved in the takeover of Parsons and requested anonymity, laughed when I asked if he was worried about missing graduation. “We are all pushing as hard as we can to get divestment before the end of school. That’s the priority,” he said.
He was optimistic they would succeed, at least on his campus. But the overarching goal of getting the largest university endowments to divest from Israel is certainly not going to happen before students go home for summer.
So what comes next?
Hamilton Hall, the building Columbia protesters occupied last night, was also taken over in the spring of 1968 during the Vietnam War. Demonstrators back then went home for the summer, only to resurface in the thousands at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago, and, long story short: Things got ugly. The gathering erupted into violence, leading to the activation of the National Guard and the arrest of hundreds of protesters.
This August, the DNC is also in Chicago, so could history repeat itself? When I asked students whether the movement would shift from university endowments to political events, the question took them off-guard.
“People aren’t really talking about what this is going to look like during the 2024 election," said Ali. “But what I do know is that people in this movement aren’t committed to voting for a certain party.” His statement echoed the disillusionment with political parties that I have heard again and again from student protesters.
“I don’t know how Joe Biden doesn’t realize he’s lost us,” said Julia Ye, a senior at NYU.
Cornel West and Jill Stein, two left-leaning third-party candidates, have both visited the Columbia University encampment in hopes of picking up the liberal youth vote. But it remains to be seen whether students will vote for either of them, especially if doing so makes it more likely that Donald Trump wins.
What’s clear is that students are confident the movement isn’t going on vacation. “Right now, all our focus is on university divestment,” said Ye, “but this energy isn’t going anywhere. It will just take a different shape over the summer.”
Students reported that throughout this year of university protests, they have seen their activist networks strengthen and expand, especially between schools. They have coordinated sending excess food donations between encampments in New York City, live-streamed the programming from different encampments across the country on their own, and been catalyzed by each other’s encounters with law enforcement.
“It was cool to see us moving in sync with the Columbia protests yesterday, even if it wasn’t officially organized,” said Gabriella, another senior at The New School who requested anonymity. “We are all watching each other on social media. We all want the same things. This movement is exploding, whether one person is calling for it to or not.”
From the inside out: Is Columbia’s campus crisis calming down?
Special report by Riley Callanan and Alex Kliment
Late Thursday night, the words “New Shafik email drop” rippled through the protest site known as the “Gaza Solidarity Encampment” on Columbia University’s lawns.
The protesters had been waiting to hear whether the New York Police Department was on its way, knowing that the deadline for negotiations with the administration of university President Nemat “Minouche” Shafik was rapidly approaching.
The police would not, in fact, be coming, the email said. Shortly after that news broke, student negotiators returned from talks to report that while there had not been progress on their demands to divest from Israel or give amnesty to the suspended students, they had had a small win: No new deadline to end the protests had been set. The encampment’s leaders continue to demand that Columbia’s endowment divest from any Israeli-related holdings and offer amnesty to students suspended over the protests last week.
The agreement to continue talking, disagreeing, and protesting – without divesting or policing – came in stark contrast to the images of hundreds of students and professors being arrested on several other US college campuses on Thursday.
But what seemed like a de-escalation inside the Columbia campus gates also came after an evening in which tensions were still high outside of them. As in, right outside of them.
Starting around 6:30 p.m. on Thursday, a United for Israel March drew several hundred protesters, and almost all involved were non-students. They came in part because of media and social media coverage of the harassment and attacks that several Jewish students faced last week, in the first days and nights of the pro-Palestinian encampment.
“It’s like 1939 Germany in there,” said Amber Falk, 37, as she handed out free packets of pastel-colored 4x6 inch stickers that said “F*ck Hamas” or “From the River to the Sea, TikTok is not a College Degree!”
That idea echoed comments made the day before by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who said the atmosphere for Jewish students on American college campuses recalled Nazi-era discrimination. Also on Wednesday, US House Speaker Mike Johnson came to Columbia’s campus to suggest sending in the National Guard “if these threats and intimidation are not stopped.”
“You know, if they don’t handle this, it might be time for us to form a new JDL,” said pro-Israel protester Joey M, 36, of Brooklyn, referring to a violent Jewish extremist group, originally formed to protect Jews in New York in the 1960s. “If the government can’t protect Jews, we have to,” said Joey.
Meanwhile, across campus on Broadway, a different group of non-Columbian protesters in keffiyehs and masks chanted, “There is only one solution! Intifada Revolution!”
There’s no doubt that tensions at Columbia were immensely high last week when Riley reported that “the campus is unraveling into distrust, dysfunction, and fear.” But in the days since – which have seen one round of police arrests, the closure of campus to non-students, and the encampment itself pledging to weed out external agitators – tensions have come down noticeably.
“It's much more calm now,” said David Lederer, a sophomore wearing a kippah and waving a large Israeli flag just inside the gates. If that name rings a bell, it’s because David and his twin brother Jonathan were attacked on campus last week, supercharging concerns about antisemitism on campus.
“People will still say ‘sweep the camp,’ ‘arrest all of them.’ But I'm not like that,” said Lederer. “Free speech is free speech, just don’t harass us. I feel safe walking on campus again. Even if the change is just for the media to see, I appreciate that.”
Whether this new, relative calm can hold is an open question of huge importance – the deadlock between the encampment and the university is testing the respective limits of free speech, safe spaces, and campus rules, all in the eye of a furious national storm.
Pressure from beyond the gates – which remain closed to outsiders – is still immense. At least 10 GOP lawmakers have called for Shafik’s resignation. Vice President Kamala Harris’ husband Doug Emhoff held talks with Jewish Campus leaders on Thursday. Ilhan Omar, of the “squad” faction of progressive Democrats, has visited the encampment, where her daughter was arrested last week. And adding further fuel to the fire, Hamas itself has expressed support for the student protests.
Meanwhile, as Thursday’s campus arrests elsewhere in the country threatened to inflame protests further, the basic standoff at Columbia remains unresolved.
As the Shafik email drop put it: “We have our demands; they have theirs.”
Slogans of war
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.
Chaos on Campus: Speaker Johnson's visit fans the flames at Columbia as protests go global
“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.
Campuses in crisis vs. Capitol Hill calm
Across the US, college students have been protesting, sleeping outside, and even getting arrested for trying to force their schools to divest from companies with ties to Israel. Meanwhile, it's been business as usual on Capitol Hill, where the Senate approved a $95.3 billion aid package for Ukraine, Israel, and Taiwan late Tuesday. The bill, which includes $17 billion in wartime assistance to Israel plus $9 billion for humanitarian aid in Gaza, is now heading for President Joe Biden's desk, where it is expected to be signed.
Student protesters have been targeting companies like Hewlett Packard, Lockheed Martin, and Airbnb, identified by the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions movement as benefitting the Israeli government, which they blame for the 34,183 Palestinians who have died from Israeli attacks on Gaza since Oct. 7. At Columbia College, the oldest undergraduate college at Columbia, 76.5% of students voted this week for the university’s $13.6 billion endowment to divest from Israel. Divestment is being pushed on campuses across the country, from Columbia and Yale to the University of Michigan and Berkeley, to name a few.
Universities appear unlikely to cave to protesters' demands and are instead bracing for chaotic ends to the semester. Columbia has moved to hybrid learning in acknowledgment that many students, particularly Jewish students, report feeling unsafe on campus. Meanwhile, colleges are weighing whether it is possible to hold graduation ceremonies without them becoming high-profile stages for protest.
Yet, despite intense student activism on campuses, there was no sign of public protest against the aid package on Capitol Hill this week.
Biden knows he is facing a possible backlash from Gen Z voters over Gaza and US funding for Israel. The president had hoped tougher talk on Israel would boost his reelection bid, but with less than seven months before Nov. 5, the protests and aid package could make it more difficult for him to get young voters to the polls.
College campus watch: The chaos is spreading
Protests over the war in Gaza were spreading to colleges beyond Columbia University on Monday. At Yale University, 50 pro-Palestine protestors were arrested, while Harvard University shut down its lawns for the week over rumors that an encampment similar to the one occupying the Columbia lawns was being organized.
Meanwhile, pro-Palestine protesters at New York University have breached school barricades and taken over the campus plaza, where they have vowed to stay despite orders from school administrators to vacate.
At Columbia – where unrest has continued to grow over the 108 students arrested last week – classes have gone online, and the “Gaza Solidarity Encampment” is bigger than ever on its sixth day. Professors held a rally on the library steps calling for university President Nemat Shafik to resign over concerns about institutional freedom after her Congressional hearing last Wednesday, and outrage over her decision to arrest and suspend students.
And it’s not just the professors. Earlier Monday, all of New York’s GOP House members signed a letter, calling on Shafik to resign. The school also lost the support of billionaire Robert Kraft, who said he’s lost confidence in the university’s ability to protect Jewish students.
Crisis at Columbia: Protests and arrests bring chaos to campus
Blankets, tents, Palestinian flags, signs, and scores of tired students were strewn across the South Lawn of the university's Manhattan campus. The protesters were camped there to demand Columbia’s divestment from companies with ties to Israel – but they knew they were playing a game of chicken. The night before, university administrators had warned that remaining in their “Gaza Solidarity Encampment” would result in suspensions and possible arrests. Still, they decided to stay, and some 34 hours later, police in riot gear arrived. Organizers yelled “phones out” as NYPD officers reached for their zip ties.
“I remember the collective fear, like everyone was having the same thought: ‘We’re really on our own,’” says Izel Pineda, a Barnard senior who delivered supplies to the encampment minutes before police arrived.
_______
Chaos at Columbia University this past week started with the encampment being erected hours before President Nemat Shafik’s congressional testimony on antisemitism on Wednesday. Shafik told Congress about last autumn’s protests on campus following the Oct. 7 attack on Israel by Hamas militants and about the incidents of antisemitism that had left many Jewish students on campus afraid to leave their dorms or attend class. She explained that the school had made progress in disciplining students, enforcing stricter protest policies, and investigating some professors.
But as she spoke, that progress began to unravel, leading to the Thursday arrests of 108 students – all of whom have been suspended and kicked off campus – and subsequent protests by students and faculty across the ideological divide. Many of the young people, especially Jews, fear for their safety, while professors are wondering if their jobs are at risk. The growing demonstrations, and the threat of further arrests, have only worked to inflame tensions – so much so that the only thing all sides agree on is that the campus is unraveling into distrust, dysfunction, and fear.
Students hold hands and circle the lawns in solidarity with the pro-Palestine protesters.Will Hull
Breeding mistrust and anxiety
On Wednesday, Shafik faced three hours of questioning before the Republican-led Committee on Education and the Workforce. Questions focused on how administrators were protecting Jewish and pro-Israel students on campus amid frequent pro-Palestinian protests.
Shafik focused her testimony on disciplinary matters, noting the increased police presence, stricter policies, and the November suspension of the campus’s two main pro-Palestine student groups for not following the rules.
The committee honed in on individual Columbia professors like Joseph Massad, who described Hamas’ temporary takeover of Israeli settlements as a “stunning victory” in a highly controversial article after the Oct. 7 attack. Shafik told Congress that Massad was under internal investigation – something the professor himself had not known.
Shafik’s answers seemed to satisfy the committee. But on campus, students and faculty are far from satisfied – and the resulting demonstrations, some in solidarity with the arrested students, and some pro-Israeli versus pro-Palestinian protests, are again making campus feel more like a battleground than a safe space for learning.
“[Jewish students] appreciate all the concern about our safety, but the congressional hearing only further cleaves apart our campus and escalates tensions,” says Alina Kreynovich, a junior at Columbia’s School of General Studies.
Defying to voice dissent
After police cleared the encampment with their arrests on Thursday, other protesters reorganized on the adjacent lawn, and over 100 students began a sit-in and prepared for a second round of arrests. Organizers told them what to do if detained, wrote lawyers’ phone numbers on their arms, and voted to expand their demands beyond divestment, adding amnesty for the suspended students to their list.
Presidential candidate and progressive activist Cornel West witnessed Thursday’s arrests as he sat cross-legged among the students nearby. “Shame on the Columbia University administrators,” he said. “It's very important to protect every student.”
Many students joined the demonstrations because of the police action. “I think a lot of us came out here because of the arrests,” said a junior at Columbia College who requested anonymity. “Students shouldn’t be arrested and suspended for peacefully protesting on campus.”
Pro-Israel protesters carrying Israeli and American flags gathered together nearby holding pictures of hostages taken by Hamas and singing “God Bless America.”
Fears of violence rise
Yoseph Haddad, an Arab-Israeli journalist who was scheduled to speak at Columbia’s chapter of Students Supporting Israel, was assaulted by a protester while trying to enter campus. A man was attacked as he held a ripped, red-stained, Israeli flag. Multiple Jewish students said they were disturbed to see protesters defacing posters of hostages on the street.
Danny Gold, a Ph.D. candidate at Columbia’s Jewish Theological Seminary, said he doesn’t feel like protesters recognize how many students at Columbia – where 22.5% of undergraduates and 15.5% of graduate students are Jewish – have connections to people who were killed or kidnapped by Hamas. “One of my students has two cousins who were hostages. How does that make him feel seeing these protests where people deface hostage posters?”
Another student told me he felt like many of the protest chants were intimidating for Jewish students. “A lot of us have family in Israel, and hearing a chant like ‘from the river to the sea’ – that doesn’t call for a regime change, which would be an acceptable criticism of Israel, but for the total annihilation of the state – is frankly terrifying to many students who feel like it is a safe place for them.”
Students on both sides say they are afraid — of the university, which they believe has done too much or too little to crack down on the protests, and above all, of each other.
“It was crazy how quickly the community just turned upside down in terms of how we treat each other,” said Noa Fey, who has been a victim of bullying, online and on campus, after sharing her thoughts about the right to self-determination of both Israel and Palestine. “I’ve lost friends,” she said. “I barely made it out of the semester academically and emotionally.”
Faculty members join the fray
Many professors fear that free speech and academic freedom are under attack on campus. They are also concerned about being investigated by the university without their knowledge.
On Thursday evening, faculty members held a press conference outside of the President’s House. “The attack on students today violates fundamentally a core component of academic life,” said Joseph Howley, a classics professor. “This has not happened since 1968. And in the last 50 years, Columbia has been extremely careful about these extreme measures, and that care was violated today.”
As of the weekend, the protests have only grown, faculty members are boycotting graduation, and Jewish students increasingly still feel unsafe on campus.
“This national attention has only fueled the fringes of Columbia’s community and invites the entire country into our emotionally exhausted campus. If anything, the campus is less safe than ever,” says Kreynovich.