Hundreds of protesters gathered at Columbia University on Thursday in competing pro-Israel and pro-Palestinian demonstrations, which earlier in the day led to school administrators taking the extraordinary step of closing the campus to the public.
Students waving banners and flags competed across hedges dividing the Manhattan campus, a day after an Israeli student was attacked there. Following the Hamas attack on Israel over the weekend and the Israeli military response in Gaza, rallies also took place at other campuses in the city on Thursday.
Protests across the city were largely peaceful, but the passionate views on display and the fears that the gatherings aroused reflected the shock felt in New York at the attacks that killed thousands.
“I feel very discouraged,” said Caroline Smith, 23, a Columbia student who said more than 10 members of her family live in Israel. As she watched the pro-Palestine demonstration, she felt “deeply disturbed,” she said.
“I don’t feel supported,” Ms. Smith said. “I only feel support from my Jewish friends.”
New York City has been grief-stricken, rocked by protests and in turmoil in a densely populated and impoverished region in the week since the Hamas attack that killed more than 1,200 Israelis.
Some events, such as a rally in Times Square last weekend where protesters cheered rocket attacks on Israel, have increased tensions between the Jewish community and a pro-Palestinian left-wing movement that has gained influence in recent years. Others, like a candlelit gathering in Washington Square Park where mourners prayed for the dead in Israel and Gaza and denounced the war, were more subdued.
“Every single life lost – every Israeli murdered by Hamas, every Palestinian killed in Gaza – is a human spark that has been extinguished,” Brad Lander, the city’s comptroller, told mourners gathered in Washington Square on Wednesday evening. “We mourn these people and we mourn the loss of that human spark.”
The attack on the Columbia student, a 24-year-old who was hanging flyers at the time of the attack, was one of several in New York in the past 24 hours that police considered possible bias incidents.
According to police, a 19-year-old woman was arrested and charged with assault. Police did not identify the victim. On Thursday, a university spokeswoman, Samantha Slater, said the school was restricting access to campus “to help maintain safety and a sense of community through planned demonstration activities.”
Protests were organized at several locations the City University of New York on Thursday, including in Brooklyn and Manhattan as well as on Staten Island.
On Thursday, protesters gathered outside Brooklyn College in support of Palestinians. Photo credit: Kirsten Luce for The New York Times
More than 100 demonstrators gathered outside Brooklyn College to protest the Israeli bombing of the Gaza Strip. A smaller group of pro-Israel protesters gathered nearby.
“We have to be the voice of Palestine because they don’t have a voice right now,” said Syed Ahmad, 22, an economics student whose family is from Pakistan. “We have every right to stand up for what is right.”
Nearby, David Brodsky, 52, a professor of Jewish studies at Brooklyn College, stood with the pro-Israel protesters. “This is a time for moral clarity,” he said.
“We say, ‘We feel your pain,'” Mr. Brodsky said, referring to the other group of protesters. “We don’t deny their pain, but they need to be able to feel our pain too, and we need to be able to come together.”
The protests were largely peaceful, but tensions rose.
Several pedestrians passing the demonstrations in Midwood, a neighborhood with large Jewish residents, mocked pro-Palestinian protesters, calling them “terrorists” and “idiots.” In response, protesters chanted “Murderer!”
“You are sick people, animals, you don’t deserve to be here!” A woman standing with the pro-Israel demonstrators shouted at those gathered in support of Gaza.
The pro-Palestine group chanted “Jews, yes! Zionism, no!”, but some expressed darker sentiments. A man held a sign that read, “Decolonize Palestine by any means necessary.”
In an email to the Columbia University community, Dennis A. Mitchell, the institution’s interim provost, said Columbia is preparing for dueling protests from two groups, Students for Justice in Palestine and Students Supporting Israel.
He said one or both groups made “significant efforts” to attract protesters to campus who were not affiliated with the school “in a manner that risks creating an unsafe environment for our community.” “.
“Freedom of expression is a fundamental value that we hold dear and that encourages intellectual growth, critical thinking and the exploration of diverse perspectives,” Mr. Mitchell wrote. “However, it is important to emphasize that with this freedom comes the responsibility to ensure our campus remains safe.”
Another protest against the Israeli bombing of the Gaza Strip was planned for Friday afternoon. The group that organizes it, Within Our Lifetime, said the demonstration would take place near Times Square as part of an “International Day of Action for Palestine in Defense of the Liberation, Justice and Freedom of the Palestinian People.”
The protests have heightened fears in the city that were already high after the Times Square rally. Former Hamas leader Khaled Meshal called for protests across the Arab and Muslim world in a video message to Portal on Friday.
But law enforcement officials said Thursday there were no credible threats against New York, and the Anti-Defamation League said in a statement to Jewish leaders that it was not aware of any credible threats to Jewish communities in the United States.
Still, the police department said plans were being made to deploy large numbers of uniformed officers if necessary and that police patrols around synagogues and mosques would be increased.
“We have this situation under control,” Rebecca Weiner, the deputy commissioner for intelligence and counterterrorism, told reporters at a news conference Thursday.
In addition to the attack in Columbia, the Police Department’s Hate Crimes Task Force said it is investigating two incidents that occurred in Brooklyn on Wednesday evening.
An incident occurred near the Navy Yard near South Williamsburg around 8 p.m
Four men – two of Jewish and two of Middle Eastern descent – were waving a Palestinian flag and holding a sign that read “End the War” when a man wearing “traditional Jewish clothing” approached them on a two-wheeled vehicle, a law enforcement official said. He then snatched the Palestinian flag from the men and hit one of them with it, the official said.
Later that night, a group of men waving an Israeli flag shouted anti-Palestinian statements at an 18-year-old, a 19-year-old and a 21-year-old as they walked down the street in Bay Ridge at 11:30 p.m
Shortly afterwards, three cars parked in front of the same group of young people, blocking their path. A group of men then got out of the cars and attacked the 18-year-old, repeatedly punching and kicking him. Police said they were searching for suspects in both incidents on Thursday and that no arrests had been made.
Back on the Columbia campus, not everyone took sides over the conflict in the Middle East.
Not far from the protests, Daniel Gonzalez, a freshman, sat with his feet up, reading an article about a fundamental concept in quantum mechanics: Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle. Angry chants rang out all around him.
“It’s OK,” said Mr. Gonzalez, 19, who grew up in El Salvador. “Everyone has the right to express themselves.”
Chelsia Rose Marcius, Claire Fahy, Maria Cramer, Wesley Parnell, Karla Marie Sanford, Nina Ajemian and Michael LaForgia contributed reporting.