Columbia Professor Jack Halberstam is weighing in on the growing tensions on campus ... after pro-Palestinian protesters occupied a building at the Ivy League school.
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00:00I get that you're supporting their right to protest, and I think a lot of people have
00:07said that they absolutely have the right to protest.
00:09But when you have students violently taking over a building, that's not going to lead
00:16anyone to feel safe either, is it?
00:18Students have occupied buildings in the past to call attention to gross injustice, including
00:24apartheid in South Africa, the Vietnam War.
00:28These students believe in their cause.
00:30And by the way, there have been months of debate and protest on campus leading up to
00:37this moment.
00:38There have been pro-Palestinian students who have been doxed, who have had their names
00:45put online by Canary Mission.
00:48So these students believe that the university is not that interested in their safety, and
00:54the university keeps amping up the potential for recriminations against them.
01:02There have been many signs—I was actually watching this morning—of intifada, from
01:09the river to the sea.
01:11That, at least to me, and I think to a lot of other people, sounds like extermination
01:17of Jews.
01:18No, it doesn't.
01:19Really?
01:20No, it doesn't.
01:22What does river to the sea mean to you, then?
01:24There are many people who have written about that phrase, and of course there will be people
01:29who will interpret it as being about the erasure of Israel.
01:34But many of these protesters do not challenge Israel's right to exist.
01:41There's just a question about the relationship of Israel to the Palestinian territories.
01:47What does intifada mean to you?
01:49Intifada means resistance.
01:52It seems to have taken on some other meaning in the way in which the media has blown it up.
01:58You have to understand that on campus right now, there are people waving huge Israeli
02:02flags who are also yelling epithets at pro-Palestinian students.
02:07Do you have any sympathy for the Jewish students on campus who are feeling aggression against
02:15them given what's going on?
02:17Is that something that resonates with you?
02:20Absolutely.
02:21I am a Jewish person.
02:22I do feel very, very empathetic to all students who feel unsafe on campus, including Jewish students.
02:32But there hasn't been the same attention to students who have claimed to feel unsafe as
02:39Muslim students on campus as it has to the students who feel unsafe as Jews.
02:45We are concerned about all the students.
02:47We, the faculty, are trying to stand with the students and are trying to make sense
02:53of what has happened in the last few weeks where the media, the Republican Party, and
02:59the university's administration has turned the campus into a circus.