WASHINGTON (JTA) — The Biden administration condemned the pro-Palestinian student takeover of a Columbia University building and said that their use of the word “intifada” amounted to hate speech.
“President Biden has stood against repugnant, antisemitic smears and violent rhetoric his entire life,” Andrew Bates, a White House spokesman, said Tuesday in an email. “He condemns the use of the term ‘intifada,’ as he has the other tragic and dangerous hate speech displayed in recent days.”
Bates added, “President Biden respects the right to free expression, but protests must be peaceful and lawful. Forcibly taking over buildings is not peaceful – it is wrong. And hate speech and hate symbols have no place in America.”
The condemnation came as police stormed Columbia’s campus on Tuesday night to remove and arrest dozens of students who had illegally occupied Hamilton Hall as part of an ongoing pro-Palestinian encampment that has sparked a protest movement at campuses across the country. The students, who are calling on Columbia to divest from Israel, draped a banner from the building with the word “Intifada.”
“Intifada” commonly refers to two Palestinian uprisings against Israel. The second intifada, in the early 2000s, killed an estimated 1,000 Israelis in a years-long wave of terror attacks. This year, calls to “globalize the intifada” have featured at pro-Palestinian protests and have been condemned as antisemitic by Jewish watchdogs.
This month, many of those same organizations have said the student encampments pose a threat to the safety of Jewish students, citing instances in which protesters have harassed Jewish students or called for violence against them. The Biden administration echoed those fears in an earlier statement on April 21 in which it said that calls for violence and physical intimidation targeting Jewish students and the Jewish community are blatantly antisemitic, unconscionable, and dangerous – they have absolutely no place on any college campus, or anywhere in the United States of America.”
Biden, who has robustly backed Israel since the outbreak of the Israel-Hamas war on Oct. 7, is facing increasing calls from within his party to press Israel into a ceasefire and to make it more accountable for alleged excesses and abuses in its counterstrikes. Republicans , meanwhile, see a political opportunity in the tensions inside the Democratic Party and the anti-Israel expression manifesting on campuses.
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