United States – The US Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump said yesterday it “was a beautiful thing to watch” when New York police officers raided a building at Columbia University that was occupied by pro-Palestinian students and made provision for tougher measures against possible campus demonstrations across the country.
Trump’s Support for Tougher Measures
“NYC was under assault last night,” Trump said at the Wisconsin campaign rally, chanting praises to the cops and reporting the arresting of about 300 protesters at CCNY and Columbia, who he referred to as “raging lunatics and Hamas supporters.”
What the students are asking for differs from one school to the other. Yet, the majority of them are urgently calling for a ceasefire in the war with Gaza and that their own university should disinvest from companies with military links to Israel, as reported by Reuters.
The focus of Trump’s comments was the movement of students to different US universities in order to protest against the war in Gaza. Trump wanted to use this to show that there was turmoil on campuses.
Republican lawmakers were blaming some university managers for irresponsibility in eliminating antisemitic statements and bullying. Some students say they do not advocate violence, while they also demonstrate pro-Israel counter-protesters. Still, a few Jewish students have reported feeling unsafe on campus and uncomfortable with chants they see as antisemitic.
“I say remove the encampments immediately, vanquish the radicals, and take back our campuses for all of the normal students who want a safe place from which to learn,” Trump said.
Student Activism for Ceasefire and Divestment
The most significant wave of student activism since the anti-racist protests in 2020 has resulted from the Oct. 7 attack on southern Israel by Hamas militants against from the Gaza Strip and the Israeli action of reacting to the Gaza territory known as the Palestinian enclave.
The way that Columbia police responded to that boy was criticized by some faculty members on campus.
Columbia University Senate Resolution
Over the past week, the Columbia University Senate introduced a resolution saying the school’s administration has contradicted academic freedom and ignored the rights of the students and faculty staff by bringing in the police and shutting down the protests.
Trump tried to blame the mess on the previous Democratic US President, Joe Biden, who had his officials criticize physical force as well as antisemitism and who declared support of peaceful protests, which have campaigned for humanitarian aid in Gaza, and the university divestment from companies, which support the Israeli military.
The other Trump comment concerns the suggestion by the Biden team, specifically in regards to the U.S. White House press secretary’s words dated Wednesday, to move out some Palestinians related to the US to the US.
During Trump’s term, he advanced a hard-line policy on immigration. At other times, he has employed dehumanizing labels when referring to refugees and immigrants living in the US without permission. This language, his opponents argue, is meant to create oppression and invigorate his political base.
“Your towns and villages will now be accepting people from Gaza and various other places,” Trump said, eliciting boos from the crowd. “Under no circumstances shall we bring thousands of refugees.”
Last week, Trump capitalized on his freedom of speech by blaming the angry protesters against the Palestinians as the ‘tremendous hate’ group while at the same time maintaining that the white nationalists’ rally in Charlottesville was small in comparison to when he was the president.
Trump’s Immigration Stance and Rally Speech
According to poll data, Trump was giving rallies in the states of Wisconsin and Michigan on Wednesday. In these states, he found himself in a close race with Biden. He was gearing up for the Nov. 5 election, as reported by Reuters.
Trump’s Tuesday night trip to the two battleground states was the first major campaign event he had following the April 15 start of his New York criminal trial, where he is accused of falsification of business records in payment to an adult actress.