On January 19, a protest against the Israeli genocide in Gaza was attacked by counter-protesters using the chemical agent, known as “Skunk.” The university bears full responsibility for all violence against the pro-Palestine movement on campus.
On Friday, January 19th, 2024, at 1 p.m., the Columbia University Apartheid Divest coalition (CUAD) held an emergency protest outside of Low Library against U.S. attacks on Yemen and the ongoing Israeli genocide in Gaza, which has killed over 25,000 Palestinians.
A group of counter-protestors, some of whom were affiliates of the Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF), gathered in opposition, verbally harassing and provoking the students. Both internal security from CUAD and Columbia Public Safety officers, including John Murillo, the Director of Public Safety, were present. However, Public Safety turned their backs to the counter-protestors and faced the CUAD protest, a clear indication of who they intended to keep “safe.”
Around 1:30 p.m., an IOF-associated counter-protester attacked a Palestinian student and issued a death threat. Instead of responding to this serious attack, which they witnessed, public safety officials surrounded and initiated a physical altercation with the Palestinian student, accused him falsely of pushing them, and allowed the assailant to disappear.
Around 2:00 p.m., two students sprayed an odorous chemical at CUAD protestors.
When the protest ended around 3:00 p.m., the smell remained strong and was clearly noticeable on protest signs, students’ hair, clothing, backpacks, and jackets. Following student and community attempts to find the deployers of the chemical agent, known as “Skunk,” we identified them as two former IOF Officers who are current Columbia School of General Studies (GS) students. While these two students seriously endangered the campus community, they are but two members of a larger imperial project. Their actions are a result of Columbia’s complicity in the ongoing genocide in Gaza and refusal to protect its Palestinian and Palestine-supporting students.
Since Friday, students impacted by the Skunk spray have reported abdominal pain, nausea, vomiting, shortness of breath, and excessive coughing, with four students ending up in the emergency room. Over the past 24 hours, at least nine impacted students have been sent to the hospital for electrocardiograms (EKGs), chest X-rays, and respiratory and digestive system stabilization. Their medical reports upon discharge all state “exposure to chemical agent.” Despite these frightening physical symptoms, we are extremely grateful and privileged to have access to healthcare when those in Gaza do not. The Israeli blockade restricts medical care Gazans are entitled to receive under international law, and since October 7, the Israeli occupation has bombed all thirty-six hospitals in Gaza. This has forced doctors to perform C-sections and amputations without basic anesthesia. We must highlight that Israel attacks the people of Gaza daily with bombs, white phosphorus, and bullets. In the West Bank, the IOF deploys Skunk spray not only against individuals protesting but against entire Palestinian homes as a method of collective punishment. We cannot pull our eyes from the genocide in Gaza and Israel’s settler-colonial regime.
And yet, after almost 110 days of slaughter and systemic destruction in Gaza, the Columbia administration has not mentioned the ongoing genocide of Palestinians and actively silences its students who do. This entire situation is yet another example of the toxic and unsafe environment Columbia has fostered for the students organizing for Palestine, the vast majority of whom are students of color. Instead of supporting those impacted by the attack of a chemical agent, Interim Provost Dennis Mitchell continues to send emails regarding rules of conduct for protestors. Since Friday, concerns have been minimized and students begging for advice were met with silence. Only tonight, as we drafted this statement, did Mitchell mention “a deeply troubling incident” that “required students to seek medical treatment” with no further details. Columbia’s Palestinian, Arab, Muslim, Black, and brown students are heavily policed and surveilled for simply calling on the university to recognize the ongoing genocide in Gaza and to divest from Israel. Conversely, zionist students and professors are able to actively threaten, endanger, and attack students of color and anti-zionist Jewish students with absolutely no recourse from the university. This is appalling. The university’s negligence and willful disregard of the suffering of its students of color will only embolden more attacks of this nature by ignorant and hateful individuals whose rights are more protected than our own.
Columbia’s School of General Studies (GS) militarizes our campus by hosting over two hundred IOF-affiliated students. Dean Lisa Rosen-Mitsch founded and leads the GS program that actively recruits soldiers from the IOF and considers their “military service” as a merit. This program is but one aspect of the university’s clear financial, political, and institutional incentives to avoid international accountability for the Skunk attack and their own complicity in the globalized oppression of Palestinians. This attack is a question of foreign policy, international law, and student safety. It is blatantly evident that the settler-colonial Israeli war machine holds greater control over Columbia than its own administration. The university is required to protect all its students, not only those who are white, wealthy, and supporters of Israel. There is long-standing documentation of a pattern of threats and violence by IOF members on campus towards students of color. The students who used a chemical weapon against their classmates felt emboldened by the tolerant atmosphere at Columbia towards zionist university community members who threaten and harm pro-Palestine students. Columbia harms all students by allowing trained members of the Israeli military to continue their immoral, oppressive, and racist agenda with no consequences. When will this institution act? Three Palestinian students were shot in Burlington in November. Columbia is well aware of the risks Palestinian and Palestine-supporting students face yet continues to endanger our lives. The university bears full responsibility for all violence against the pro-Palestine movement on campus. Despite the clear dangers we face at Columbia, CUAD remains committed to Palestinian liberation.
“They tried to bury us. They didn’t know we were seeds.”
Well-written article, very troubling read.