Well, we're back with another edition of The Federalist Radio Hour. I'm Emily
Jishinski, culture editor here at the Federalist. As always, you can email
the show at radio at the Federalist dot com, follow us on exit FDRLST,
make sure to subscribe wherever you download your podcasts, and of course to
the premium version of our website, The Federalist dot Com as well. Happy
Friday. I'm so excited to be joined today by a student journalist and commentator
actually at Columbia University on the ground right now doing some excellent reporting, and
that would be Jonas dou He is the editor in chief and founder of the
Columbia Sundial, a campus magazine dedicated to investigative journalism and political discourse and the
latest heterodox publication in the IVY League. It's a great outlet. I absolutely
recommend you check it out. As an editor at the Columbia Daily Spectator's opinion
section back in twenty twenty two, and was an editorial intern at Reason Magazine
in twenty twenty three. This summer, he's going to be joining our friends
at the Free Press as an intern. Jonas, thanks for coming on the
show. Thank you so much for having me Emily. Yeah, of course
I'm really excited to talk to Jonas because he was one of our National Journalism
cent Our interns last summer and fantastic. Just a pleasure, Jonas to be
able to talk to you about some of the work you've been doing since then,
especially given all of the hours you've spent documenting the really historic demonstrations on
your campus right now. So first, Jonas, just tell us a little
bit about what's been going on. I know people have seen the headlines,
they've seen the clips that have gone viral, but tell us just a little
bit about kind of how this started and what's going on right now. Yeah,
absolutely, so, I think, well let me just start off with
you know, after October seventh, there I've been protests around Columbia pretty regularly.
They were very intense in October and November, and then they died down
a little bit over winter break and then kind of revived a little bit back
in January and February. But you know, Colombia is known as a protest
school. We have a culture of activism here. We have a story tradition
of kids coming in protesting for causes they believe in including infamously in nineteen sixty
eight where protesters occupied buildings and they had to call the police sin and that
was sort of diminished the university's reputation, and again in nineteen eighty five where
there were protests against investment in South Africa because of the apartheid state that was
going on there. And now the protesters today see today's movement in Israel and
Palestine as a continuation of that tradition. So then that brings us to April.
And on April seventeenth, I believe, last Wednesday, university president Minushafik
was scheduled to testify in front of the House Education Committee to talk about how
she was dealing with the rampant allegations of anti Semitism that I've taken over campus
in the surrounding community since October seventh. And so the same day that she
was in DC testifying, her pro Palestinian protesters decided that they were going to
occupy one of the lawns, one of the main lawns of the university and
set up what they called a Gaza solidarity encampment, and they had a big
science saying this was a liberated zone. They had a bunch of tents set
up and they were sitting there and they intended to stay there until the university
committed to divest from Israel. What exactly that means, we're not all entirely
sure. There's some debate around that, but that was their main demand.
They also wanted Columbia to close the opening of their Tel Aviv Global Center and
canceled the dual degree program with Tel Aviv University because alleged the Palestinian students would
be denied access on basis of their nationality. So these were some of their
demands, and they wanted Columbia to also acknowledge that it was a genocide,
along with other sort of political statements they wanted the university to make. So
you know, that happened on Wednesday, and you know, everybody was out
there observing. The university was trying to fit them to leave, trying to
tell them, you know, you're breaking the rules, you're not allowed to
camp on the campus, and you know, they refused to leave, obviously,
because this was their whole strategy. And then on Thursday, the NYPD
was basically called in. The SHIFTFI President Shaffik called in the NYPD because they
were repeated warnings and they had refused to leave, and then NYPD came in
saying, look, we're going to arrest you if you don't leave, because
you're trespassing at this point. So they ended up arresting over one hundred students.
Well, basically it felt like the entire school was around the lawns just
watching in the NYPD basically raid the encampment, and the whole time they were
shouting like no justice, no peace, like F the police, and also
things like NYPD KKK IOF they're all the same. IOF refers to what they
call the Israeli Defense Forces, which they call the Israeli occupation Forces. So
Thursday was when things really spiked with the NYPD coming on. But I don't
know why the administration didn't anticipate this, because then they migrated to the lawn
that was ten feet over and they just jumped the fence and set up what
is now the current Cause of Solidarity encampment there. And they've been there since
Thursday, and you know, it's grown into a fully fledged village and I'm
happy to talk about what I've witnessed there as well. And there have been
protests that they've spawned from inside the encampment as well as just around marching around
the campus, and every prop house didn't. An organization and student group from
New York City has been flooding into Morningside Heights tow one hundred and sixteenth Street
on all sides of the campus to common protest and make noise and show their
support for the encampment. And that's really made it a very chaotic scene.
And even though Colombia has shut down the gates, it's Colombia id access only
it's you can't avoid them. You can't avoid them. They're everywhere, They're
always there at all hours. The encampment is in the center of a campus,
and especially at night, even until like one two am sometimes they're out
there protesting. So that's the situation as an overview right now. No,
that is an incredible overviewing, extremely helpful, and I think it was also
a very like fair overview. One of the things I want to zero in
on just quickly is that question about the permission for camping, because I think
a lot of this actually does have to come down to if you know,
civil disobedience, for example, is about being disobedient to you know, existing
regulations or laws. Is anyone denying that students are allowed to pamp that they're
following all of the university laws. It seems to me like something that's baked
into this protest is explicitly disobeying some of the rules of the university. See
this is a really good point, because this is a question that has fascinated
me since last Wednesday. And I think you're right that this is a form
of civil disobedience, and I think most of the protesters would call it a
form of civil disobedience. However, where I don't understand where there's some confusion,
especially among people who are not sort of in the encampment and are looking
on or people that are on the pro Israel side, is the whole point
of civil disobedience is that you are breaking the law, is that you are
willing to pay a price. It's peaceful, but you're willing to pay a
price for it. And what the protester's done is they've used the language of
the First Amendment, They've used the language of free speech, and they've used
the language of peaceful protests to now try to convince the administration and the student
body to indulge them in their unlawful behavior, which is not what civil disobedience
is about. You can say that you have a First Amendment right to peaceful
protests, and I fully support that. But as soon as you start saying
you have a First Amendment right to break university rules and to you know,
not face consequences for your action, then it becomes you're trying to You're trying
to, you know, have both sides, and that's that's it's not how
it works basically, right like Rosa Parks and Martin Luther King, like,
there's these stoic images that are very powerful in American history. They weren't denying
that these rules existed. They were denying that the rules themsel are. They
were affirming that the rules themselves in many cases, you know, lunch counters
or the bus were immoral. I don't know that there's actually been a concerted
effort to say students, you know what their main point of the protest is
not students should be able to camp on the law. And the point of
the protest to your point, John Us that you made is about divest like
BDS divest, Columbia should divest from Israel. Yes, precisely, that's their
point, the encampment is just a way to get attention for it. And
one of the things I'll give you some examples of some of the discourse we've
been seeing around this is that, you know, Students for Justice in Palestine
or Columbia University APARTHI divest, which is a coalition of over one hundred clubs
that have supported the divestment movement. They routinely put out statements saying Colombia is
cracking down on peaceful protests, Colombia doesn't support free speech, there's a crackdown
on free speech, and they've they've used this sort of language to now gain
support from students who otherwise would have been indifferent. But they're like, wait,
hold on a second, I support peaceful protests, I support free speech.
Why are people getting arrested for peaceful protests? But the thing is that,
yes, it's peaceful, but it's not free speech. And you know,
another thing is that you know, they're they're starting to say things like,
you know, breaking news, Columbia has denied our request to set up
tents despite the cold and the rain, as if they didn't have dorms and
apartments that they themselves had. So it's it's just they've sort of shifted the
reality of the situation to now normalize camping as a valid, valid form of
protests and they don't want to face any consequences for it. So that again,
it does get to an important point and it speaks to the NYPD response,
and Jonas, maybe you can tell us a little bit about what the
kind of heart of that debate is, because on the left they're saying,
you know, this is a sixty eight esque crackdown on peaceful protesters. I
imagine there's some more nuance to it from someone who saw that up close.
I actually haven't delved into the like NYPD question very closely myself, So could
you maybe walk us through a little bit of what was going on with that?
Yeah, So on last Thursday, basically the university had been repeatedly giving
them different deadlines, different notices, being like, hey, look your brain
making all of these rules. You have to leave now or you could face
suspension in other consequences. And they knew that the police was a possibility,
They knew that the NYPD may be called in, and they, according to
some reporting done by some journalists on the ground that day, they had taken
a vote basically saying, are you willing to get arrested for this? And
it was a blind vote, and not a single person raised their hand,
according to somebody who counted the votes, and so they were they're ready to
be arrested. And so around one pm people started noticing the NYP buses were
around campus people and then officers started coming into campus and entering the lines and
announcing over megaphones that you know, if they left now, they wouldn't face
consequences. But they continued to stay there. So eventually they were put into
zip ties and and you know, escorted off campus. And I think that
they really did try to make this like nineteen sixty eight. Starting from the
first day of the encampment, they posted on Instagram doing like a nineteen sixty
eight picture versus a twenty twenty four picture, and so they really do see
themselves in that mold. But it's a very different experience, and that's not
something that they're talking about a lot. I spoke to presidential candidate Cornell West
on Thursday, who was on the new encampment after the protesters had been arrested.
We had a couple words with him. We had a couple of questions
because he has been around for a while and he knows what nineteen sixty eight
was like and what he says. He obviously is pro Palestinian, and he
supports their whole cause, and he supports the divestment. But we asked him
what he thought about nineteen sixty eight versus twenty twenty four, and what he
said was it's different because the students in nineteen sixty eight could actually have been
drafted into the Vietnam War. And there was actually a lot that the university
could have done to support the causes that they were protesting, one of which
was the building of a gym in Morningside Park, which is just a few
blocks from campus. Columbia wanted to build a massive gym on public land,
and to compromise with the Harlem community, they would have offered a portion of
it to be accessible to the Harlem community. And given the racial dynamics of
that era, that was very controversial and it felt like segregation, especially Columbia
being a very much mostly white school back in nineteen sixty eight, So that
was something that was actually in Colombia's control. You know how many civilians that
gets killed in Gaza is not really in Colombia's control, so there's a major
difference there. And what mister West told us was that the students today have
to think a lot more critically in order to understand why they're supporting the movement,
as opposed to before, it was very easy to see the connection.
And where I differ from West is I don't think students are thinking critically at
all. I don't think they understand what they're supporting and how the university can
actually support their cause. And I don't think they understand very much about the
movement in general. American jobs are good, bad, and ugly. The
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your podcasts, Okay, I want to That's exactly where I wanted to go
next, because on the show that I co host with Ryan Grimm, who
somebody who's very much in this anti Israel space, we u and it's,
you know, it's a good upper coortunity to kind of go back and forth
on some of this stuff. But it was what we interviewed one of your
peers actually for sure, Columbia law student who is a leader in the encampment
and is also Jewish. And so we've talked a little bit about what the
anti Israel left might be getting wrong in the national conversation here about what's happening
on the ground and campus. Jonas, I wanted to get you to talk
a little bit about what the protest actually looks like because as we are talking,
like I've been writing a story this afternoon about how I think you're right
that genuinely a lot of the students here have no idea what they're actually or
I don't have sort of have a fuzzy idea of what the protest is actually
capable of accomplishing, what the ends are, how their intended ends might match
up with some of the more radical organizers intended ends. Can you just give
us a little bit of a picture of who these students are as you've talked
to the over the last couple of weeks. Yeah, absolutely, So I
think my first impression when I step on to Columbus campus is, you know,
why are all these white and Asian and just non Arab people wearing cafeinists.
It's like, just it It's become a little bit absurd at this point.
It's like you walk into the library and like the person who sit next
to is like clearly not like genetically or whatever connected to whatever is going on,
but they're they're wearing these scars, they're going into the encampment, they're
chanting in Arabic. So I think overall, my impression is that this has
become, you know, one of those intersectional movements like we saw in twenty
twenty with the racial discourse. Then it's very much about power structures. It's
very much about being anti Western, anti capitalist, anti you know, American
essentially, and they see Israel and the war in Gaza as just one and
the same as that, and that's how you reach the twisted logic of like
transgenders for Palestine or you know, Dykes for Divestment or Lesbians for Liberation,
all of which are real posters that I've seen and taken pictures of. By
the way, it doesn't make any sense because it doesn't matter how you know,
the government in Gaza actually treats people of these identities or women or whatever.
This is a feminist cause, this is an LGBT liberation issue because it's
all part of part of the power structure. And so you know, what
we once saw as a calls for ceasefire, you know, immediately in October,
that was what movement was mainly about. It was, you know,
let's get a seasfire, let's stop fighting. People are dying. It's now
become a you know, let's get a seaspire. But let's also call for
the you know, death to the state of Israel and also, you know,
a worldwide liberation movement, and that's what they mean when they say things
like globalize the intopada. That is again so helpful, and that also raises
the important I think conversation to be had and the student that I spoke with
on Counterpoints the other day actually sort of expressed her frustration and other organizers frustration
that may be in sort of that more power structure, let's say, ideological
persuasion about why they're actually camping out. They're frustration with some clear legitimate anti
semitism, whether it's speakers at you know, the People's mic or you know,
professional ANTIFA protesters or Antifa seeming protesters that have been doing some of those
off off campus chants. There have been plenty of stuff on campus though.
There has been plenty of stuff on campus though, of course, So Jonas,
could you tell us a little bit about what you've seen, and you
know, this isn't I don't mean this in a leading question sense, but
like how representative some of that anti semitism is of the broader attitude of you
know, your classmates. So anti semitism has been something we've been talking about
first and foremost since October, and especially this past week, anti semitism allegations
on campus have absolutely ramp up, both from a personal anecdotal standpoint and from
just a statistical standpoint just seeing you know, what's going on on social media,
what people are talking about, and so what has happened is that on
one hand, we have the encampment and those protesters who are saying things that
we have always expected them to say from the river to the sea right into
Fada, and also some things that are like vaguely anti Semitic, like like
we don't want like two states, we want we want it all Palestine will
be Arab, things like that. But at the end of the day,
these are things that are debatable that I think both sides have some sort of
like valid is this is this not anti semitism claim, It's not overtly like
we want to kill Jewish people. But then we have the outside campus protest
where people that are not Columbia affiliates have come in and just chanted just terribly
antismatic things. I captured on video protesters shouting at three Jewish friends of mine
that they wished October seventh to be every day for them just lately on campus.
This was not on campus. This was right outside of campus gates where
a lot of the outside protests have been stationed. So there was sort of
like a difference there, But then slowly it became less and less of like
a clear line between like the more peaceful stuff on campus was the not peaceful
stuff off campus. And that happened around the weekend around Friday Saturday, and
so what has happened. Part of it is because the university didn't have control
over its skates, people were sneaking in through gaps in the gates. That's
a story that we reported on and we actually have a video of somebody doing
it. And part of it is because more and more people started to join
the encampment. In that movement, people who were willing to say anti Semitic
things, and as much as they tried to control that, they haven't really
been able to get a good grasp on that. And that's how we've seen
protesters Jewish counter protesters uh splashed with water. For instance, there was a
very famous picture of a girl standing next to them with a sign that said
Alcasan's next targets Alas the military wing of Hamas and just you know, ant
very anti Semitic things happening. And and that was also around the time where
I had I had a friend go into the encampment and you know, no
visible signs of you know, Zionism or whatever other than she looked Jewish.
One of her friends was weighing a star of David, I believe, and
they didn't really like, you know, they were they were stopped at the
gate. They were they told her like, you need to agree to our
community guidelines, and they're like, well, these aren't like Columbia's rules,
so we're just going to go in if you don't mind. So, you
know, they went in. And I think it was a combination of the
fact that they seemed hostile to the rules that they had set up for the
encampment, plus that they looked Jewish that resulted in that very famous video of
the cult like people's mic chant, where they just say, we have Zionists
who have entered the camp and we're going to push them out. And you
know, we have seen more and more instances of that, of signs popping
up, for instance, saying just just calls for violence, being like,
you know, if you if you only stand with the camp, but you
don't stand with the rockets that are being fired from Gaza, you know,
you're not really one of us. There was one sign like that. There's
sort of other other murmurings of anti Semitism coming from within campus that have become
really concerned. But overall, I do I think that most of the protesters
in the encampment, you know, hate Jewish people. Probably not, but
I think some of them definitely hold anti Semitic beliefs, and a lot of
them say anti Semitic things without realizing it. Again, like such helpful nuance.
And this isn't to downplay, by the way, some examples like Kimmanni
James. Have you seen some of those reporting journais You may have even been
I'm sure you're very aware of this with Kimanie. Actually, yes, Kimani
James one of the leaders of the encampment. So yeah, clue was in
on this a little bit, because you can explain it better than I can.
You have way more knowledge. So what's going on with Kimmanni James,
one of your fellow Columbia students, who is an organizer of this protest and
has said things like quote highness don't deserve to live. Yeah, So Kimmanie
James is a very interesting case. So when when Jessica Schwalb, the journalist
who recorded the clip of the cult La Chant, when she shared me the
video I was circulating that I was showing other people saying like this is crazy,
how this is happening. One of my friends actually recognized the guy and
said, wait, I had class with him. Freshman year. I can't
believe he's now out here saying things like that, and so, you know,
we looked him up and instantly you saw hits of him from high school
saying at a school board meeting in Boston, which is where he's from,
saying things like I hate all white people, and then tweeting out he basically
screamed that at a school board meeting because he was like a student representative of
something, and and you know, tweeting out years and years later that he
repeatedly stood by that statement. And so then you know, the so several
Twitter accounts and another journalist looked into you know, who this guy was,
and they uncovered these videos from January of him basically ranting on a live stream
saying that, you know, he doesn't think Zionists deserved to live because he
believes that it's, you know, a genocidal ideology and if you believe in
a genocidal ideology, then you too should die, and just saying things like
Zionus should be grateful that he's not out there killing them, and I think
that well, he did put the statement saying that what he said was wrong.
Interestingly, he did not use the word sorry or apologize, I believe,
And he also kind of blamed all of it on like what he called
the right wing provocateurs or something, so you know, he doesn't seem terribly
apologetic. He did say it was wrong, but I think that it's sort
of lifting, the lifting of the veil of the ideology of of some of
the more extreme people where for this this racial consciousness, this hatred of the
of people and structures they perceived to be in power, such as you know,
white people such as America, such as Israel. It's all connected from
them, and that's why they're so passionate about about this, this Palestinian cause.
And I think Kamani James and I think see you. I think Columbia
University, part that divest has really struggled to distance themselves from Kamanie James,
which only affirmed a lot of what people thought because people were like, well,
I do think that you know, the people in there, like you
know, are calling for violence and really have very anti synthetic beliefs about Zionists.
But you know, there was never any explicit evidence of then, never
any explicit demonstration of that. But now that Kammannie James's past record has resurfaced,
a lot of people are looking at and saying, well, how many
how many other people also believe the same things, And that also brings up
this issue of how the school is responding. You know, does Kammannie James
get punished, should Kamanie James get punished based on what the rules are?
You know? Basically the part of the question is does that violate you know,
saying that as a student of Columbia University, even back in January,
is there something in the Columbia University Code of Conduct that that violates? Or
would something in the code of conduct be used to say that a conservative student
or a libertarian student, or you know, any kind of student that just
sense from sort of campus leftism, would it be wheeled in a way that
is a double standard that does target you know, one of those kids,
And that brings up this bigger issue of how the school has responded in general.
Jonas so big question there, But I actually think this Kimani James case
is a good jumping off point into that that broader question of how Columbia has
handled it. Yeah, absolutely so. When I arrived at Columbia and started
becoming interested in the first Amendment and First Amendment law and pre speech principles.
Especially as someone who was interested in journalism, I was under the impression that
Columbia, under the leadership of then President Lee Bollinger, who was a very
notable First Amendment scholar, was committed to upholding the principles of the First Amendment
even though it was a private institution. And so what that means is that
statements like Kamani's and others such basically almost every every single thing that you're hearing
from the protest in and around campus is essentially you know, protected speeches,
essentially speech that the university says, in theory they wouldn't punish students for because
it doesn't amount to direct incitement of violence, it doesn't amount to you know,
threats or harassment for you know, various reasons, because it's not consistent
or because it doesn't live up to the legal standard. And of course,
the First Amendment provides very very robust protections for hate speech and for speech like
that, and I think what we've seen since October seven under the new leadership
is a gradual erosion of those principles. And now I'm not saying that that's
necessarily a bad thing for a private institution like Columbia to do. I actually
think there might be some merits to having slightly more restrictive speech codes, but
that's something that we have yet to debate. What they've done is essentially broadened
what it means to you know, say unprotected speech or insightolence to include things
like calls for violence and calls for genesid you know, fire. The Foundation
for Individual Rights and Expression they came out with a article, a great article
after October seven saying, you know why most calls for genocide are actually protected
under the first minute, because it doesn't actually amount to a direct incitement of
violence. Obviously, these things have no place on a university campus, which
is why I think that the university has kind of a right to regulate those
kinds of speech. But what we've seen is a gradual, you know,
crackdown on speech that's not quite unprotected, but speech that is blatantly anti Semitic
or promotes terrorism or promotes violence. And so that's why we had an event
back in March. It was called Resistance one oh one, and it was
sponsored by some of the pro Palestinian groups and they invited like one they invited
for speakers, one of which was allegedly a member of a designated terrorist organization.
He was on zoom. Some of the other people were in person.
Colombia had denied this event for obvious reasons, and so they held it in
a residence hall anyways, against the rules. And in the event they said,
you know, you know our friends at Hamas and you know, there's
something wrong with being a lass fighter and just you know, things that were
basically caused for violence. And Columbia, you know, looked at this and
said, look, you broke the rules. You invited the terrorist leader.
We're going to suspend the students who are involved in planning this. And so
they did. But you know, under you know, two years ago,
what they would have said was protected expression under the First Amendment has now become
something that they're willing to discipline. And I think Camanie James, it will
be interesting to see if the university will react to his recordings in January.
I would imagine that he would face some kind of discipline for that kind of
conduct because I do think that it violates the current code of conduct about inciting
violence and calling for violence and you know, just you know, general standards
of respect and decency. Now, a few things are more enlightening than being
part of something that gets massive mainstream media so called mainstream media coverage, national
media coverage. It's always fascinating because you sort of see how the sausage is
made when you're witnessing something up close, and then you see it refracted or
reflected in the national media coverage. And Jonas, you've been on the ground
covering this, very busy covering this for a long time now. So what
is your assessment of how the national media has represented what's actually happening on campus.
I actually don't think the national media has been too far off from representing
what has happened. I do think there have been a couple instances where it's
been a little bit sensationalist. I know Fox News in particular, is very
fond of We play the clip where they like lit up flares outside campus gates,
you know, where they're like, they put the words mostly peaceful protests
in quotes, and then they play the video of the flares, which is
not at all representative of what we're seeing. I do think they are mostly
peaceful. There's a couple of instances where you're like, is that really peaceful.
There's been a couple of confrontations as well, so it does give it
a little bit sensationalist. And the fact that protests are the fact that the
media is not allowed into campus at all times, it's probably played their role
in that. But I do think the media is right when they talk about
anti Semitism, because that I think is one of the big stories here.
Now. The protesters, they'll tell you, why isn't the media talking about
is notmophobia? Why isn't it talking about hate towards you know, our people
and the real police crackdown, The police cracked down and all of that.
Or and then the one, the one they always go back to is the
chemical weapon attack in Did they call it a chemical weapon of teculate? Yeah,
Jonas, we haven't covered that on the podcast yet, so maybe just
take a moment to explain it. Yeah, Yeah, this is just this
is just a great story and I think representative of insanity that has overtaken Columbia.
In January, students were Justicie and Palestine organized paid protest. It was
a run of the mill protest and what happened after was that a lot of
people that they started smelling at this protest, this like really bad smell,
and a lot of them reported having to go to the hospital, urgent care
whatever to get it treated. Their eyes were hurting or something, and so
they were like, this must have been like a chemical woman attack because we
saw, you know, two people. They were wearing kefias, but they
looked like they didn't know what they were doing. They looked like they didn't
know anyone there, and we believe they're infiltrators. And then they later identified
them as like former IDF soldiers who are students or something. And there is
several videos where you could kind of make out that they were holding something in
their hands, potentially like a spray bottle, and they're like, that must
be skunk, the weapon used by the IDF against Palestinians in the West Bank
to disperse protests and things like that, which is a wild claim because I
don't know how students at Colombia would have gotten their hands on that substance,
even if you're a veteran, let alone, like break like this. This
is a substance that they spray from like massive trucks in the West Bank.
This is not like something you like hold on a small bottle in your hands.
But anyways, that was a whole thing that was the basis of many
claims of you know, anti Arab hate, islamophobia. And what happened,
you know, a couple of weeks ago, is the students who were disciplined
for allegedly spraying them sued Columbia and they were like, well, you disciplined
us, you know, wrongly, and you didn't hold due process because actually
what happened was we bought we bought fart spray from Amazon and started spraying it
as students and you know the name it was, it was I think one
of them was called like forgive me, but like liquid ass. I think,
yeah, liquid You know, Columbia is fully within their rights to suspend
you if you spray liquid ass on your classmates, but it's it's not a
chemical weapon. Maybe you get sense, maybe you get to see urging care
if you're particularly sensitive, but that's essentially that story. And you know,
I do think that was you know, an unjustified that's not protected speech.
Of course he claimed it was protected expression, which I think was ludicrous,
But that whole story is yeah, yeah, well I actually think this issue
was so challenging for national media because it's one of the few areas where elite
opinion is legitimately polarized. You know, you have Bill Ackman and people who
are super sympathetic to Bill Ackman sort of on his side of this question,
and then you have virulent you know, the Karen Ataia people at Washington Post
like her, who are who are actually very very anti Israel, and so
the way they handle these stories is always fascinating to me. I don't know
if you've sort of noticed any of that yourself, Jonas, but I actually
think that's a really it's very interesting to see the kind of struggle session inside
of some of these media outlets as they try to deal with the issue.
Yeah, it is a certainly interesting thing to see just the two sides.
Just it almost feels like they're not in the same reality at times, because
on one hand, we have the people that support Israel saying, look,
there's so much antisemitism going on on campus. What has happened with our elite
colleges. And on the other hand, we have you know, Ilhan Omar
and you know that whole crew being like chemical weapon attack, anti Arab hay,
you know, crackdown on free speech for pro Palestinian speech. And you
know, from my perspective personally, I just don't think that the anti Arab
the zomophobia is anywhere near the level of anti Semitism that we've seen on campus.
I just don't think that they're comparable, just given what I know as
a journalist, but also that you know, what has happened is that these
protests, these pro Palestinian protests have really just been very very intense, and
they've really really tried to push the bounds of university rules, especially with the
encampment now, but also before they were blatantly violating the university's rules on you
know conduct and you know, the time and manner of protest. These are
you know, viewpoint neutral restrictions the university has put out. And the whole
reason that the university suspended Students for Justice in Palestine and Jewish Voice for Peace
in the first place was because they refused to you know, uphold those rules.
And so you know, they've taken violations of their rules and interpret them
as this is like a Islamophobian, this is a crackdown on free speech.
That's just my personal perspective, but I do think that it's there's something there's
something going on where the people in the elite media and the people that are
speaking out on this are just looking at completely different sets of facts. I
don't think necessarily that they're mutually exclusive. I think a lot of the things
both sides are saying can be true. But I just think that they should
be more nuanced when it comes to They should recognize that, you know,
there's been a lot of hate on campus, and there's been a lot of
events that have taken it over which has resulted in just an untenable environment for
any institution of higher education. Yeah, that's a good point, Jonas,
Now correct me if I'm wrong. I think you've actually been to Israel,
Right, that's correct. I visited Israel in twenty twenty two, about two
years ago, right, so fairly recently. And maybe you could talk a
little bit about how that experienced influences or has influenced the way that you've covered
this topic, included a lot of people who are covering this haven't physically been
there, haven't physically seen the country, seen the land. I imagine that's
changed how you've looked at all of this, Jonas. I think it certainly
impacted how I view the situation, especially when it comes to protesters demands when
it comes to the conflict itself in the Middle East, rather than Colombia's own
actions. And so some instances that I think of are just Israeli society as
a whole. It's a real country. It's a country that's been around for
you know, decades and decades, and there are people who have built lives
there. There are people there who love the country and have families, and
you know, it is a real place. That people here oftentimes say that
you can just disappear with the snap of a finger. It's not true.
It's you can't just erase Israel from the map and expect that to be a
starting point for policy discussion. And so I think that's the first thing that
I think of a lot of time when they call for you know, one
state, or for an Arab state and things like that. On the other
hand, as an American, I was able to go into the villages in
the West Bank, into I believe, Area A and see just what it
was like in those villages under Israeli occupation. And I think one thing that
I do think of sometimes is that the settlements are, you know, a
real barrier to the peace process. I think the settlements have put up a
lot of uncomfortable questions and discussions for Israelis when it comes to negotiating a Tuesday
solution. And one city that I think of is when I visited Hebron,
and in the center of Hebron, they have the market, and a lot
of the markets have shuddered because of various conflicts and uprisings that have been around
for recent years. But it's essentially they have the market on the ground level
and the apartments and the homes that are above the apartment have become part of
the settlement. It's one structure, but it's basically divided vertically, and so
when you're walking through the market, there is a barbed wire fence above you,
and so the Israelis live above and the Palestinians live below. And you
know, obviously a lot of these Raelies that move into these kinds of settlements
are more extremist, and so what they've done is sometimes they throw trash and
other things onto the fence, onto the palatinions below. There's even bottles of
urine that I saw and took pictures of the concerns of the Palestinians who are
actually advocating for a two state solution, especially when it comes to the settlements,
they're very real. It very much is surreal to see a city divided
like that. And you know, we walk into the settlement later as Americans,
and you know, they let us in, but it's you know,
it's completely silence, it completely dead. You wouldn't know that there is a
whole Palestinian city underneath. And so I think about these things and the experiences
that I've seen on the ground. When I hear people trying to have discussion
about a potential peace process, you don't hear a lot of those discussions these
days. It's mainly just yelling and protesting. But when they do a lot
of it is sort of absence the nu once on both sides that I think
we need really appreciate that perspective, Jonas, and I think it shows that,
you know, when people put the truth first, you can come to
these questions with all sorts of different ideas, beliefs and experiences and still just
you know, do great journalism. So I just appreciate you coming on the
show, Jonas, and I hope you're saying safe and hope you're you know,
feeling like this is something that is going to be an experience that you
will carry with you in valuable ways for years to come as you move into
your journalism career. I'm sure you've had a lot of like just life lessons
in general over the course of the last couple of weeks. Absolutely, absolutely,
I don't think I'll ever forget the events of every single day that I've
happened this past week. What a time it is to be a Columbia student,
seriously, And where can people read the Columbia Sundial, which they know
about how to get updates from you and from your paper. Absolutely, they
can find the Columbia Sundial at sundial Dashcu dot org. That's sundial dashcu dot
org. And they can find my work on my x page which is at
j O n As. Y do Jonas? Why do go ahead and give
Jonas a follow? And Jonas, actually, I know you're entering with the
Free Press this summer. That reminds me to plug. We have Nelly Bowls
coming up in a couple of weeks on this podcast, so stay tuned for
that. And Jonas, I hope you have a great summer over there with
the free press. Keep up the good work. Really really appreciate it absolutely.
Thanks so much for having me, Emily. You've been listening to another
edition of The Federalist Radio Hour. I'm Emily Deshenski, culture editor here at
the Federalist. We'll be back soon with more. Until then, be lovers
of freedom. And then just for the hearn the fame, boice the reason,
and then it faded away.