Launching of the University of Columbia against the last anti-Israel vandals

The administration of the University of Columbia has launched an investigation, together with the application of the law, to identify the perpetrators of an act of vandalism on Wednesday in which the anti-Israel protesters obstructed the sewerage system in the building of the building of the School of International and Public Affairs with Cement and sprinkled the Business School. With red paint.

Columbia defined spray painting as an “act of vandalism” on a Wednesday statementadding that graffiti “included disturbing and personal attacks.” He said he was “acting quickly to address this misconduct” and “identify individual perpetrators and address their actions.”

“The university has done a better job (responding to anti -Semitic incidents) compared to last year, but at the same time, the actions of these perpetrators have worsened a lot,” a second -year graduate student in SIPA who requested to remain anonymous counted Jewish intermediate. “This went from an anti -Semitic Vitriol to cement baths and causing the staff to be there during the night to scrub the fecal matter outside the bathrooms.”

In an email from Wednesday night to the students of SIPA, the dean of the school, Keren Yarhi-Milo, wrote that the women’s bathrooms on four floors of the building They were “destroyed with a substance similar to a cement that caused the bathrooms to be clogged.” The 15 -floor bath walls were also painted in spray, as well as the Business School Kravis Hall, according to email.

He Columbia Spectator reported that the graffiti included the phrase “I am afraid, please help – Hind 6 years”, a reference to Hind Rajab, a Palestinian girl killed during the war in Gaza.

In April of last year, at the beginning of the illegal anti-Israel camp movement, the protesters occupied Hamilton Hall and deployed a flag that said “Hind’s Hall”, announcing that they had renamed the building in their honor. New York City resists Gaza, the disinversion of apartheid of Columbia University and justice students in Palestine attributed the responsibility of vandalism in a publication on social networks.

Columbia’s response occurs when the university has reacted faster to anti -Semitism in recent weeks, a strong contrast compared to what legislators and students and the faculty of Jews have called a slow or non -existent response to frequent anti -Semitism than It occurs on the campus from the attacks of October 7. In Israel. Last week, the University suspended a university affiliate to participate in a masked demonstration in which four people Irted in a history of the modern class of IsraelBeef in the battery, he sang “Palestine free” and distributed posters to the students who read “crush Zionism” with a boot about David’s star.

The Columbia Student Affairs Office also demanded on Wednesday that a SIPA group chat was intended to distribute information related to the students to the students, is limited to the “only administrator” mode after several incidents of students who defend the rhetoric Anti -Semitic in conversations, a student familiar with the situation told JI.

“We have been monitoring the chats closely and, although the discussions are justified, the ASA has forced us to stop all the group of cohort temporarily until we met to find a resolution to the ongoing discussions. … I would urge everyone to reflect on how we can strengthen the courtesy in our speech while navigating this, ”wrote an administrator in a cohort chat, according to messages obtained by JI.

The graduate student of SIPA described the anti -Semitic rhetoric in the chat of the students with JI as “a constant flow of quite scandalous messages.”

“It quickly became the same two or three students of our cohort invoking the holocaust,” he said. “Osa is receiving the wives of these (perpetrators) faster than last year.”

When asked if the vandalism perpetrators on Wednesday would be suspended or expelled once identified, a Columbia spokesman told JI that the university will not comment more.