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Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives Mike Johnson (R-La.) attends a news conference at Columbia University. April 24, 2024.
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.
Columbia & Yale protests: What campus protesters want
Ian Bremmer shares his insights on global politics this week on World In :60.
Why hasn't the United Nations insisted on military observers in Gaza?
Well, the United Nations doesn't really insist on things. And when they do, it's usually symbolic. Like they insist that humanitarian aid needs to get into Gaza and it doesn't happen. Or they insist that, there needs to be protections for the Palestinian civilians or that the Hamas needs to let go, release all of the illegally held hostages, and it doesn't go anywhere. So you can insist all you want. Also, keep in mind the Security Council would be vetoing that sort of thing because the US has a veto and they continue to use it on most Israel-Palestine related resolutions.
What specific demands are being voiced by campus protesters at institutions such as Columbia and Yale?
Well, I mean, the demands that got these protests started, are all about divestment of the endowments of these universities away from any corporations that do business in make money with Israel. Because of the view that the Israeli war in Gaza is wrong, the student protesters called it a genocide and that they want to end that. We've seen that kind of demand in Europe across the board. Not as much in the United States, at least not to this degree. Having said that, now that you also have students that have been suspended and arrested, surely the campus protesters are also saying those things need to be unwound. We're also increasingly seeing demands for university administrators, including presidents, to resign. So, I mean, the longer this goes, the harder it is to actually, accede to these student demands. And of course, the more polarized the environment on the ground in these universities become.
How will US aid package approval shake the dynamic of the Russia-Ukraine war?
Well, it makes it more likely that the Ukrainians can defend their front lines, at least for now. They had been losing some territory. Not a lot, but including one city. And the Russians are planning, with an additional mobilization, a new major offensive, probably end of spring, early summer. Ukrainians have a much better capability to hit back and stop the Russians from making gains there. They had been down to about 20% of the ammunition and artillery being fired against Russia, that the Russians were firing against Ukraine. This brings that back to parity through that offensive. What does this mean for 2025? Still, massive uncertainty and eventually a need to engage in negotiations with a much bigger Russia fighting an illegal war, an invasion with all these war crimes. Is that fair? No. But is that reality? Yes, absolutely. And any NATO leader you talk to privately recognizes that's where this is eventually going.
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A coalition of Columbia Faculty speak on behalf of Columbia students, in support freedom of expression, and against recent police arrests of students on the Columbia University campus, as protests continue inside and outside the university during the ongoing conflict between Israel and the Palestinian Islamist group Hamas, in New York City, U.S., April 22, 2024.
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.
Ukraine will define the future of NATO
Carl Bildt, former prime minister of Sweden, shares his perspective on European politics from Stockholm.
How is the role of NATO evolving now as the 75th anniversary of the organization coming up?
Well, it's going to be Ukraine that's going to be defining the future of NATO. Two issues most immediately: One, if NATO can take on a stronger role for coordinating military aid to Ukraine, that's been done so far by an ad hoc coalition and US support; there’s a proposal on the table for taking that over. The second is, of course, what Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg proposed on the day of the ministerial meeting in Brussels, to set up a very large fund for financing the military support in the years to come. We'll see how these two proposals evolve over the time period up until the Washington summit. And then there's, of course, the big issues of Ukraine membership.
How will the willingness of different countries to give military support be affected by what we've seen in terms of attacks on humanitarian aid in the last ten days?
Obviously, a negative impact, and a vivid debate, not least in the UK, over this decision. But I think most will be dependent upon how Israel will react, whether it will change its way of operating in terms of allowing humanitarian access of a sufficient quantity in and respecting the rights of humanitarian workers and truly respecting military law. Open questions, remains to be seen,Author Thomas Friedman on how the Gaza war could end
Listen: On this episode of the GZERO World Podcast, while the Gaza war rages on with no end in sight, Ian Bremmer and three-time Pulitzer Prize-winning New York Times columnist Thomas L. Friedman discuss how it could end, who is standing in the way, and what comes next.
Currently, a rift between the Biden administration and the Israeli government over how to handle the conflict is widening. More than 32,000 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza, including nearly 14,000 children, according to local health officials and the United Nations. And over a hundred Israelis remain hostages of Hamas. And to make matters worse, just this week, thousands of Israelis took to the streets to call for Netanyahu’s ouster, an Israeli airstrike in Damascus killed several top Iranian commanders (threatening a wider regional escalation), and another Israeli strike in Gaza killed seven aid workers in a food convoy for the nonprofit, World Central Kitchen.
It may seem premature to talk about a resolution to this conflict, but Friedman argues that it is more important now than ever to map out a viable endgame. "Either we're going to go into 2024 with some really new ideas,” Friedman tells Ian, “or we're going back to 1947 with some really new weapons."
Also, Friedman emphasizes the "codependency" between Netanyahu and Hamas, noting Bibi’s reliance on a right-wing coalition opposed to any progress toward Palestinian unity.
Subscribe to the GZERO World Podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or your preferred podcast platform, to receive new episodes as soon as they're published.
Israel-Hamas war: Who is responsible for Gaza's enormous civilian death toll?
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 ›
US House Speaker Mike Johnson is speaking about the DHS deal and the plan to avert a shutdown during a press conference in Washington DC, USA, on March 20, 2024.
Hard Numbers: US government shutdown averted, Nigerian schoolkids rescued, Israel’s hospital raid proves deadly, Search for Mexican kidnap victims continues
1.2 trillion: The Senate passed the $1.2 trillion spending bill on Saturday in a 74-24 vote, enabling President Joe Biden to sign it into law and avert a partial government shutdown. This will keep the lights on for roughly three-quarters of the federal government until October, raising military pay and increasing funds for US-Mexico border patrol.
137: Nigerian authorities on Sunday rescued 137 schoolkids who were kidnapped two weeks ago in the northern state of Kaduna, with 76 girls and 61 boys found in the neighboring Zamfara state. Earlier reports suggested that 287 children had been kidnapped, but that number was an estimate, and authorities say all of the kidnap victims have been found and will soon return home.
170: Israel says its raid on Gaza’s largest health facility, Gaza City’s Al-Shifa Hospital, has killed 170 Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad militants, with more than 800 detained. Israeli special forces and tanks encircled the hospital early last week, forcing thousands of Palestinians who had been sheltering there to evacuate. On Sunday, Israel reportedly surrounded two more hospitals in Gaza.
42: After 66 people were kidnapped Friday in the northwestern Mexican state of Sinaloa – home to the infamous Sinaloa Cartel – authorities have worked over the weekend to rescue 42 of the hostages, including 18 children. The search continues for the remaining 24.Gaza caught in the crossfire as Hamas, Israel, and the US near an impasse
The war in Gaza continues, and there are reasons to believe it’s going to persist for a long time still.
There had been a lot of hope that Israel and Hamas would have made a breakthrough deal by now trading an extended (albeit temporary) cease-fire lasting some six weeks for the release of a significant number of Israeli hostages and Palestinian prisoners. Just a week ago, it seemed likely that such an agreement would be reached before the start of Ramadan after Israel reportedly accepted the terms put forward by the United States, Qatar, and Egypt.
But with Ramadan now underway, the much-vaunted deal continues to be just out of reach. And there’s plenty of blame to go around.
Above all, Hamas now refuses to accept anything short of a permanent cease-fire and complete withdrawal of Israeli troops. The group has been emboldened by President Joe Biden’s warning to Israel that a ground incursion into Rafah absent a credible plan to protect civilians would cross a “red line” – the clearest reflection yet of the growing divide between Biden and the Israeli government.
Hamas is exploiting this rift, essentially daring the Israelis to storm a city where 1.5 million Palestinians are presently sheltering under dire humanitarian conditions with nowhere to go, just so it can weaponize civilian casualties and international outrage against them. By choosing continued fighting over a temporary cease-fire, it is putting Palestinian lives at maximum risk – as it has all the way through – to further delegitimize Israel, drive a wedge between it and the United States, and bolster its own political standing. Consider me shocked (not).
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, meanwhile, is doing what he knows best: trying to stay in power. What that means is not only that he has little interest in ending the (extremely popular) war – as he has all the way through – but also that he is more than willing to openly ignore, and even defy, Israel’s closest ally when politically expedient. Case in point: Netanyahu responded to Biden’s red line by declaring that Israel’s own red line is Hamas’ continued existence and promising to go into Rafah despite Biden’s opposition.
This was a rare instance in the war, however, when Netanyahu actually spoke for the entire Israeli war cabinet and the majority of the Israeli population rather than his private interests. Polls show that whether or not they like Bibi, and most of them don’t, the vast majority of Israelis do support the complete destruction of Hamas (whatever that means) and don’t want their military to stop short of achieving it (unrealistic as it may be). If that requires ground warfare in Rafah to take out all the organization’s remaining military capabilities, tunnels, and senior leaders, so be it. And if that comes at great loss of civilian life, creates tension with the US, and costs Israel more support on the international stage, well … that’s a price they’re willing to pay.
Accordingly, the expectation is that Israel will move forward with offensive operations in Rafah sooner or later. (Hamas no doubt is aware of that, which is partly why they continue to hold large numbers of hostages; after all, if they let them all go, what would be left to stop the Israelis from taking out their entire leadership?)
When the ground invasion happens, Biden will have no choice but to act on his red line, issued in response to mounting pressure from within his own party (not to mention blowback on the international stage) to distance himself from the Israeli government. But there’s only so much the president can credibly do given the bipartisan consensus – and his own personal support – for continued military aid to Israel no matter what … which, in turn, helps explain why the Israelis will go ahead with the Rafah incursion in the first place.
If I had to guess, the administration’s response will include a temporary pause in the delivery of some high-profile offensive weapons systems. But defensive systems like the Iron Dome won’t be affected, and the core US-Israel security relationship will remain unchanged. Progressives in Biden’s Democratic base will castigate the response as woefully insufficient … but that won’t stop Trump and most Republicans from seizing on the opportunity to claim Biden is abandoning a US ally American voters actually care about, dwarfing the damage from the botched Afghanistan withdrawal.
The domestic political impact of the pause on Biden will far outweigh its material constraint on Israel’s military capabilities, putting the president in an unenviable position. Everyone knows there is no credible risk to continued US military support for Israel. The fact that the Biden administration is having to airdrop humanitarian aid and deploy the military to circumvent a blockade being imposed by one of its closest allies makes it painfully clear that Washington has very little leverage over Israel’s actions … but no less responsibility for them in the eyes of much of the world – and many Americans at home.
That poses a serious and growing political challenge for the president in an election year … and a risk of wider radicalization worldwide, in an environment where Israel and the United States have lost the global information war and are becoming more isolated, with no easy way to contain the fallout.