Four Student organizers recount the events of Columbia University’s Gaza Solidarity Encampment, a protest that challenged institutional power, inspired campus activism globally, and eventually faced university crackdown.
By Paras Abbasi
On a cold overcast morning in the spring semester of 2024, dozens of Columbia students silently fanned out across campus. It was about 4 AM, before dawn, on April 17, 2024. Student patrols updated the others about the location of campus security officials on a secret Signal chat. Within minutes, the students set up at least fifty camping tents in the South East Lawn of the main quad of Columbia University.
Students had been protesting against the university since the beginning of the Gaza war in October 2023. Their core demands: that the university divest from Israel and break academic ties with Israeli institutions. Columbia administration responded by limiting movement on campus, restricting public events, and banning Columbia Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) and Jewish Voices for Peace (JVP), student groups that protested the war, for alleged violation of university policies.
Organizers of the encampment never sought permission for what came to be known as “Gaza Solidarity Encampment.” The point, according to organizers, was to disrupt the flow of the university and pressure the administration to give in to student demands.
The biggest banner at the protest encampment facing the Low Library emblazoned, “LIBERATED ZONE,” in bold capital letters, echoing the defiant spirit of the students who, 56 years earlier, had established their own liberated zones on campus during the historic Vietnam anti-war protests at Columbia in 1968.
Students launched the encampment a few hours before then-President Minouche Shafik testified before the Congress on ‘Columbia University’s Response to Antisemitism,’ attracting the attention of dozens of national and international media outlets and journalists. Around 30 hours later, Shafik reversed 56 years of Columbia policy and authorized the New York Police Department to clear the encampment. Police arrested more than 108 students.
Undeterred, students almost simultaneously erected a second encampment on the adjacent lawn, which lasted 13 more days.
The Gaza Solidarity Encampment inspired similar student encampments across campuses in the US and abroad in Canada, the UK and France. But its leaders were unable to negotiate a policy change with the Columbia administration. Encampment leaders tried to raise the pressure and briefly occupied Hamilton Hall. Their symbolic takeover of the Columbia campus ended with mass arrests, cancellation of student commencement and a complete lockdown of campus for the next 17 days.
I met the organizers during the original protests in the spring of 2024. I gathered the oral histories that follow from some of the organizers of the Gaza Solidarity Encampment. They provide a detailed account of how they planned and organized the encampment, attempted to negotiate with Columbia administration, and ultimately, how they weathered the university’s crackdown.
Mohsen Mahdawi
Mohsen is a Palestinian undergraduate student at Columbia and one of the founding members of Columbia University Apartheid Divest (CUAD).
I was an organizer for the movement last year. I envisioned the movement before October 7 took place. And we had our first meeting scheduled October 8 with different groups on this campus.
The encampment was a response to a series of systematic discrimination, incidents that the university has done against us. The university at the beginning refused to acknowledge that there are Palestinians…And then they refused to acknowledge the genocide that was unfolding in Gaza and they continued to acknowledge the Israelis and their pain and October 7 and always gaslighting us as the only problem is anti-Semitism here… So they continued ignoring us. We continued organizing and building up. And we got to a point where we had very good momentum of protests and good support on campus. But it wasn’t enough. And it was not enough for the University obviously that we had four or five hundred students protesting with us, because at some point they tried to control time, place and manner for the protests.
So one day, there was a protest that was called by SJP [Students Justice for Palestine] and JVP [Jewish Voices for Peace]… And that day after the protest, the University decided to suspend SJP and JVP. We were already in conversations and meetings envisioning to build a coalition of student groups. We did get a statement early on on October 9 that we published with 20 organizations that signed on it. So that was the beginning of building this Coalition. But after we built the Coalition, we declared it, we had over 100 organizations joining the Coalition. We continued going stronger and stronger. And every protest became bigger than the one before it.
There was media attention and other things, but we knew this is not gonna be enough.
“The original idea was like, let’s take a building”
I organized a retreat in upstate New York at a cabin. I brought about 12 organizers from the movement together to this retreat during winter break. And that’s where actually the vision started, formulating for what we needed to do–we need to escalate and the plan was to get referendums done at every school and after we have the referendums ready and the university refused to actually divest, we’re gonna pressure them by either by occupying a building, for setting up an encampment or other activities…
So that’s where it started.
I had enough money from the organization Dar [undergraduate Palestinian Student Society] at that time. The Coalition did not actually have a budget or stuff. So I was using that money, and we started putting meetings every week technically, or every other week at the beginning, every Sunday from 1 to 2 pm. And we would meet, and we would start thinking and planning. And the original idea was like, let’s take a building.
But we also had a high level of security around the planning. So we agreed on not involving any phones or watches, iWatches or laptops or computers. And we met in a place, where there is no connection there, everybody leaves everything outside the room, and we go inside, and we talk, and we discuss… So, after probably half a dozen meetings, the research group comes by and they say, we have this idea. This is what happened in 1968.
There was this ‘Liberated Zone’ thing and I’m like, wow, how come we have not thought about the encampment? So, people started thinking bigger and bigger and that’s how we came to agree on the encampment… We planned, probably for about four months. And when the encampment took place, it wasn’t actually supposed to be on that day. It was supposed to be on, I think, the Admitted Students Day which was about a week from that day. But the reason why it took place that day has something to do with internal conflict.
The hearing was an excuse for it.
According to the original plan, we were supposed to have a pressuring card. Pressure in part means you take the ground and then you take a building as well at the same time, you negotiate on the building and keep the ground. But it was not executed that way.
And what happened is, just that there was an encampment there, the police came to arrest people. And this is actually what sparked reaction, a pushback, because the university wanted to show the world and the Congress that we are able to hit with an iron fist and this is something we don’t tolerate on campus.
So when that was taking place and happening, the Palestinian women jumped into the lawn and everybody started jumping there. And that was the last thing that sustained the encampment.
“There were promises”
It was going very well, the negotiation. Probably now, looking back at it, a big problem that we had, we did not have structure for leadership. The whole Coalition was based on a flat structure. So many people were able to come and they claim power and start having much louder and stronger voices. So that’s why when the encampment took place there was not a clear direction from who is going to make the decisions and in fact, Palestinians had very little to do about decision making because others were claiming that they are the comrades and they are the ones who are sacrificing their lives and they’re the ones that should have that power.
At the beginning, they [administration] were not necessarily very cooperative and dealing in good faith. But when they saw that turn out of the second encampment, and the level of support, in my understanding —and others would say, that’s not true—they did offer concrete stuff. I have the offers that we received.
It’s not what we wanted exactly. Big part of it was the amnesty and the second one was the divestment because what they [the administration] said, propose the divestment plan with these languages and terms to the divestment committee and we promise to review it and to basically do our best to honor it in the fall semester. So, there were promises. But they also promised certain programs for Palestinian children in Gaza and West Bank, scholarships for Palestinian students. They promised educational programs. They promised a level of protection to students. So there was a good package with a sweetener, not the best. Not even half of what I would want. But there was an opportunity for a strategic achievement and showing victory on the level of the United States in order to come stronger during the fall. As you see, now, the movement has fell apart. And now we’re trying to rebuild the game.
I mean, there was a lot. It was also like they revised it and they gave us even more. It’s the whole thing. And the reinstatement of SJP and JVP. It’s a big offer.
The negotiators did not agree on them and Palestinians were not consulted on them. And the Palestinian professors said, take an offer and declare a win. We had at least one professor who spoke with another professor and the professor said, “declare a win. Take it and come back stronger.”
“Sense of lust, of power and misunderstanding of the positionality from all the powers that surround us”
This [encampment] was mainly student-led. It could have been much better if it was led by both students and professors. It would have been more strategic if there were professors who were actually helping students with regulating their emotions and reassurance and other things.
The feelings that came—you know when you see young people between the age of 19 to 25—seeing this much momentum, there was a sense of lust, of power and misunderstanding of the positionality from all the powers that surround us.
What could have been much better was to have a council of elders, either professors or activists or so on which have been established before. What could have been much better is to have a structure of hierarchy based on elections, a democratic system. And what could have been much better is, if the Palestinians themselves were consulted on what they viewed best.
“It [Hind’s Hall occupation] did destroy the encampment”
Hind’s Hall occupation was the occupation of Hamilton Hall—renamed after six year old Palestinian girl, Hind Rajab, killed by IDF soldiers in January 2024—by Columbia students on April 29 to pressure the university into listening to protestors’ demands after the university announced that negotiations had ended.
I feel that it [Hind’s Hall occupation] wasn’t necessary. It was taken while we had room to basically play other cards. They said they will not shut down the encampment. The Palestinians said, our priority is to keep the encampment because it became a place for education, a place for solidarity, a place for socialization, a place of building culture… So, the person who wanted to do this victorious act of taking Hind’s Hall said, “we’re gonna protect it by putting a picket line around it.” And, what the fuck—a picket line?
So, it did destroy the encampment and it provoked the university and gave the university an excuse to use excessive force. It did create a wave outside of Columbia—it’s historic, you get the cameras, you get a song, you get people talking about it—it was like a memory but so many students are traumatized from it. And the momentum that we were building for and the possibility to achieve something, it was all gone, washed away. This is an action that I am not opposed to when the time is right, but at that time it was not right at all.
“Some students got tired”
There could have been other options, a hundred percent. I think part of it was also, some students got tired, you know? It went for two weeks and they’re like, I’m done with this. Let’s just do something. But before the sweep of Hind’s Hall, there came a lot of people in the middle to finalize any negotiation, to negotiate. And the decision was, we will not negotiate under pressure and I was in favor of that…They’re twisting our arms and putting us on the ground and saying, do you want to take the offer or I’ll beat you up? So I was against it. But prior to it, there were other people who were involving the mayor’s office at that time and others, in order to achieve something and to end it peacefully. And I think if it lasted a little bit longer, there could have been some room but we never know.
I also think that there were issues with taking over the Hall. Breaking glass with a hammer. And putting a chain. Those, not to say that this is a huge issue or it’s a wrong thing, but we know the opponent and we know that they would weaponize anything and we better be way smarter than this. Unfortunately, people who did that, did not think two steps ahead.
First morning of Gaza Solidarity Encampment, 5:30 am, April 17, 2024. Photo by Bhavana Bellamkonda
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Layal Srouji
Layal is a Palestinian undergraduate student at Columbia and an organizing member of Columbia University Apartheid Divest (CUAD).
I had been a part of CUAD since I guess when it started in November. I was involved in the planning up until a certain point and then pulled out because primarily, it was because the meetings were very inconvenient and very long, and personally I just couldn’t take the stress, and the personal grief. And then on top of that, I was doing the Committee work that was also very demanding.
I was not fully back back until the encampment started.
There was a lot of work. A lot of it had to do with the actual coordination of meetings and keeping it in order. And you can have all these things and talk about them and then a lot of that is really easy to let it fall under, wayside because everything is urgent and everything is surveilled. It’s a lot of obstacles getting in the way of point A to point B. So I fell kind of into that work. Also the local press and media was a massive thing, a lot of writing went into that. And a lot of accountability from within.
“We’re here and we’re in numbers”
I think that one [second encampment] was more so not planned… I remember it so well. There was a couple of us, and we were like, should we hop over this second? Oh, do we do it? Do we do it? And then eventually it was just like yes, and a couple people did and then we had the others kind of started ushering everybody else because the crowd was there and it was just a circumstantial moment like everybody is riled up. Everybody’s out here witnessing what happened. This is a rare moment that we don’t have to recruit people to come. They’re already here and they’re already riled up. They already feel angry because there’s other fellow students who just got arrested. And this is our campus and this is our lawn. So, it was very organic.
They refused to let us have tents first, at all, for a long time. And it was cold and it was rainy and I was shocked that people would put their bodies through that…
This was outrageous and people kind of needed to see it. The entire school was there to stay…Like, we’re here and we’re in numbers.
It [the encampment] was really to assert that we are in the center of campus and that we are visible. We’re not going to be ignored. A lot of it was to educate and kinda disrupt the normal flow of school…
The goal was to push back or to cancel the commencement, to possibly [create] as many disruptions as possible… because they are operating as if there is nothing wrong and that they are not complicit and doing any harm. And we have ex-IDF soldiers on our campus who are actively being supported through the administrative programs.
“You simply cannot do anything under the duress of a genocide”
The negotiations were very like—it was very lengthy and very detailed. It was very kind of about logistics and terminology, like how to make a concession that was not just something as theoretical, ideological concession, but a tangible thing that we can say that contributes to Falasteen and post it.
There were some people that [said that] you have to do everything and explore every avenue, every option and diplomacy as well. So the people that were doing that were willing to take that on.
There was a lot of range of opinions in handling—do we negotiate, do we not negotiate? Cause maybe you can’t negotiate under threat, like they were threatening [us with the] National Guard at some point, very often and very frequently to make sure that we were never feeling safe. So these were tactics they were using to threaten us without actually doing it in a good faith.
What’s happening in Palestine too is not something that is very different from here. You simply cannot do anything under the duress of a genocide.
There’s a lot of strategic different opinions and people had a lot of opinions. But at the end of the day I think what definitely happened was very rare…And the negotiators only reflected what the majority felt, not their own personalities or agenda. There was a representative kind of presence.
“There was a lot of debate and a lot of voting”
It was so heavy all of the time and so stressful and such little sleep. And then people start breaking off and start operating on their own, and that’s fine. I think that’s absolutely what needs to happen. Not everybody can agree all the time and that’s what is humane about organizing. But where it’s a little concerning is when one person’s actions could hinder or really kind of obstruct whatever progress the other part made, and that’s kind of what ended up happening. And there was a lot of debate and a lot of voting—sure it happened.
It was usually, several factors would play into whatever the negotiations turned into and most of the time those would be six or seven hours, for very, very extended periods. So, whatever was happening was still just constantly in flux. And I think with the town halls what we were hoping to accomplish was to give people a feeling of transparency.
“Is this something that we can escalate?”
That [Hind’s Hall] was one of the things that I was incredibly against. I was very aware about what was central to the leverage. And what was reproducible on other campuses was the encampment—that was central to the student experience and you could not avoid it. I really also felt that it was an accessible space for people to come and learn and be nourished and understand what we’re talking about without so much barrier to entry…
There were some days of just constant, please don’t do this, from myself and, and a lot of other Palestinian students too. We were very split. Do we escalate? Is this what escalation looks like? Is this something that we can escalate?
But I felt very strongly that if that were to happen, which ends [the encampment] that, that is not adequate. It’s absolutely like, you should have taken over every building. Like, there’s no limit of what the school should experience, and disruption, it’s deserved. But that would give the go-ahead for a sweep to happen and once that happens I don’t know what the future looks like.
My thing is the future oriented image of what are we doing that’s going to ensure Palestine stays in our lives and a hundred years into the future, and not just be a rapid, kind of a trend of Free Palestine and that’s it.
“We were given so much support that it was actually a little bit absurd that that was where it was being directed and not towards Gaza”
I think the only frame of reference was what had happened prior on Columbia’s campus with the South Africa protests and Vietnam and all of the history of it was very well researched and that was kind of the blueprint. But it was very immediate what the wave kind of trickled through the media and then on to other campuses. I think there was a lot of communication between us and other campuses, mostly because everybody was facing very similar issues and similar oppression because again, they’re using the same type of [oppression] over and over and sometimes some people have tactics that we didn’t think of and that became very important.
We are one of the most privileged universities in one of the wealthiest cities and we were given so much support that it was actually a little bit absurd that that was where it was being directed and not towards Gaza.
“It’s not a conspiracy that we feel that there’s a skew of media in one direction”
Media was one of the most surveilling presences at the encampment.
…we noticed that it’s not a conspiracy that we feel that there’s a skew of media in one direction. It’s actually the case where they usually have a headline prior to even interviewing or being on-site or seeing what’s happening on the ground. So a lot of the media that was on the encampment, I think, was also just looking for an opportunity to supplement their story or reaffirm their already decided position, and having cameras all the time and having microphones all at time…you know that’s not something that you could comfortably live with.
So, the media training was more so I think for people to understand what the risk was that they were getting into and just be informed prior to going and also the language to be able to vocalize or say what they wanted to say, instead of getting caught off guard and not know[ing] how to react…
I think what we did well was the media. I think the presence of all of these stories on alternative media sources that were non-legacy was what carried the actual story of what was happening at the encampment beyond the voice of legacy media, because usually that is what is overarchingly the tone is. And the difference between now and every other Intifada or every other movement is that people have access to TikTok and Instagram in ways that they didn’t need to be referring to things or believing things on the face value.
“We were reinventing the wheel”
We had very limited support from the faculty. I might not give much credit because I think a lot of my personal shock was that there was a lot of classroom discussion on decolonization and what is apartheid and racial inequality and of course, liberal education which we discuss. But once it happened on the campus in real life in front of their faces and there’s an opportunity to engage with it, it was not practiced…And it was far worse and far more upsetting for the tenured, secure faculty, who were saying that we protect our students, we stand up for our students, but then don’t say that for Palestine, can’t speak on Palestine.
I think maybe consultation with elders—that was something that I think was lacking. I felt I wanted to be speaking to people who had been in the movement for a long time, and just for some kind of guidance or some kind of wisdom to lead us. Because a lot of what was happening was as though we were reinventing the wheel.
“They were really outnumbered”
The then president Shafik authorized the NYPD to enter the Morningside campus on April 30, around 8:20 PM “to clear all individuals from Hamilton Hall and all campus encampments.” More than a 100 individuals were arrested for the occupation of Hamilton Hall and the protests outside of it in one evening.
When the sweeps happened, I was observing. I had left campus and gotten locked out. So I was doing the work of accumulating all the information.
It was so overwhelming and really jarring to see everything happen on my phone because they [students] were really outnumbered… And they [the police] are coming against these smaller feminine bodies. And hijabs on the stairs, and all of these things that were just really difficult to consume all of that information at the same time.
They made a video though—that was the NYPD making themselves look like Avengers, with the music and this production. They were like, “we were here to handle the threat.” And their turnaround time for editing that video and making themselves look like superheroes was absurd. But also, you just hurt several young girls and you’re trying to make it look like it’s heroic absolutely.
Jail support was one of the most emotional times for me because I had just seen all of it happen virtually. But I’m grateful for everybody showing up there and people were there for hours, all along the time and are there to receive each other and give each other love and laughter and whatever they need[ed]… I hate that we need to be radicalized by this kind of thing. Cause I don’t think that’s that probably. But it also was a moment of like–we just experienced this together and that was horrible. We could all agree that that was horrible. Even if we agree on nothing else. And then we care for these people and that’s why we’re gonna sit outside of jail and wait and be sad together because being sad alone is the worst thing ever.
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Mahmoud Khalil
Mahmoud is a Palestinian graduate student at School of International and Public Affairs (SIPA), Co-President of SIPA Palestine Working Group (PWG), member of Columbia University Apartheid Divest (CUAD) and one of the two negotiators who represented the encampment during the negotiations with the Columbia administration.
Even before the protests, Columbia, since I joined—when I joined in January 2023—Columbia was suppressing Palestinians. I was part of the Palestine Working Group and whenever we want[ed] to do an event, Columbia would give us a hard time for our events. So if you want to invite anyone, they would designate it as a special event, which means that it needs 10 business days, blah, blah, blah. So the suppression was there against pro-Palestine or against Palestinian voices on campus.
Now when the protests started, Columbia dealt with it as a disciplinary matter, just like, reputational risk, rather than actually engaging with the students despite so many attempts by the students to talk with the administration. Like I met, for example—because I was co-president of PWG and of the Palestinian Student Union on campus—I would meet with junior administrators who really don’t have any agency. They just, you know, sit with you, tell you, oh, I hear you, not really giving you any solutions. And that kind of attitude continued over the months since the protests. Because for the students, they’re not protesting Columbia itself. Like Columbia was not the enemy. Back then, what they wanted was very clear. They want equal treatment, they want divestment and boycott.
“We decided that we need to do something”
When the students saw that the administration is very one-sided and their statements—I mean, in the first week, the students were bombarded by by pro-Israel statements from the administration, from the deans, from the President and the feeling of injustice made them escalate with their actions. So of course, it started with the protests, yet the university again pushed a narrative that these protests were violent. These protests were anti-Semitic, yet that was nothing close to the reality on the ground. It was the total opposite—that the students actually were very disciplined in terms of not engaging with those instigators who would come and just want to create problems to get their five second video to post on Twitter and say, look, these students are violent or anti-semitic.
But, after two months of protesting, and the administration would only meet the protests with oppression, we decided that we need to do something.
Around the end of November, early December, we created some sort of a separate group to look and plan that thing. And again, until this point literally no one knew what that thing was. Of course a lot of us were inspired by the history of Columbia, the history of the 68 protest, the Columbian occupation of Hamilton and all of that but yet we did not know that well, occupying a building is the right move or not. Are we at that stage now or not?
And the group started discussing and planning what’s next. I was not part of that group. I chose not to be part of it because [I was] overwhelmed with so many things happening, and for the security risks—I am an international student.
And while that group was planning, Columbia continued with their oppression. Now, with more discipline particularly with events, with Resistance 101, how crazy they went about it. It’s just an event, you know, it’s a Zoom event even. So it was clear that Columbia doesn’t understand the language of talking per se.
The students at some point, we submitted the divestment proposals to the Social Responsibility Committee of Columbia. And at the same time we ran so many different referendums across schools just to show the administration that there is actually an overwhelming majority on campus that asks you to divest from apartheid, from genocide, from weapon manufacturers. Because at the end of the day, you are a university with a mission to educate, not to invest. I think in Columbia College, over 80 percent of the students voted for their divestment, and the university, literally, they just turned a blind eye to that and continued their attitude of ignoring the students and continued with disciplining them.
And I think the straw that broke the camel’s back was the hearing. And we knew that the hearing is gonna be so bad and that kind of rushed the timeline for the encampment to be the day of the hearing.
When the encampment started, there were so many unknowns, you know, it’s only like, 70-80 students, who agreed or who took part in it and who agreed to take disciplined risks. But there wasn’t clear timeline for them. Like are we gonna stay there forever? For a day? For two days? Maybe the university will bring the police the next day…
So when we started the encampment, the first thing I did, I emailed the Vice President with the demands. And the demands were very minimal, like not these big demands. Because we were like, this is a small action. And it was planned as a small action. We’re not going to demand everything. Like if we can take one, two things, that would be good.
Yet the demands were totally ignored like—it [divestment] was part of the demands but they totally ignored these demands and kind of dealt with the students with arrogance, like, they don’t want to talk to the students. And then the next day, the police came. Then, that was a moment where I was not at Columbia. I was at work. But I’m in all the chats, and all the encampment leaders were arrested, or the organizers.
I and the others called a press conference. There was so much media attention. And that was the moment that we were like, oh, that’s something big.
Same night the university would call us, “Come to negotiate,” despite the day before, they refused to do that. And in negotiation, the first session of negotiation—it was so bad that we had to negotiate on bringing food and blankets inside. Literally like, there is a siege on the encampment. They were like, you’re not allowed to bring tents, tents is red line. If you bring tents, we’ll bring the police another time.
But then, you know, for me, I was not a decision maker. I would just like, whatever we negotiate, I go back to the group. And on that day it was decided that if we don’t—it was offered by the administration that if we don’t bring tents, we get to meet Shafik the next day. So we went back to the students and told them that and they refused meeting Shafik.
And then a day later, we decided that tents should come back again. And this is where the university kind of was in shock that the students brought tents, more tents. I think at some point there were 120 tents on the lawn. But we had so many sessions of negotiations but mostly you feel that these two admins, Eddie and another administrator, they don’t know what they’re negotiating about. Their only interest is to end the encampment but they don’t know what, who to negotiate with. Like they offer small things but they kind of did not know the magnitude of the movement. And two days, three days into the encampment, we felt that this encampment goes way beyond Columbia and this added so much pressure on us, whether on the negotiation, whether as organizers. Because everyone is looking up at Columbia to see what’s next, what these students gonna do next. And the university, every day, would come with a different deadline: like if you don’t do this, we’ll discipline you…
But there was one point where they threatened with the National Guard. So—which they literally like, the administrator gave me a paper, or actually read the paper to me saying that this is our final offer and if you don’t sign it by 12 AM tonight, the National Guard would come to remove you. And at that point, we’ve told him we’re not going to negotiate if this is how you’re going to negotiate and by the moment we left the room Shafik sent that email of–that 12 AM. deadline—the first one. And we were fine. I went back. I was confident that National Guard will not come. A lot of the people in the encampment were so worried that the National Guard may come. I think thousands of students descended just to see, is the National Guard actually coming? Everyone was waiting for the 12 AM deadline as if something would happen. But the university miscalculated that we would call their bluff. And we said, okay we’re not signing. And two deans then called me, trying to bring us back to the negotiation table saying what if we extended until 8 AM in the morning and I was like, I’m not discussing with you like hours. We’re not doing that anymore, you have to understand that.
And then they were like, okay, let’s have a timeline of 48 hours. Actually, I told them 48 hours. I will never negotiate on the time, like 5 hours, 12 hours. I was like that’s kind of what we have. Do you want it or not?
Then they called me after and they were like, okay, we will do it. So then, you know, the President sends an email at 4 AM in the morning saying that we have 48 hours now.
“They were just buying time”
Since the beginning they [administration] were just either buying time until they figured out something going to like—something happens. But at no stage, it was a good faith negotiation from their side because some days they would offer us something, but the next day they would take it back. And it happened three times. Like they would give you something, then the next day, today, it’s off the table. So it was clear, they were just buying time. And for us also, we’re buying time. So it was kind of when you both know that you’re just here for the sake of being here… But we actually, we compromised. We knew that they did not want to say we divested from Israel itself you know, so we kind of met them halfway at some point, but it was clear that in the university’s point of view, they did not want to budge to the students. No matter how they do things, it’s not that oh, we listened to the students.
You knew that those people were not really the decision makers. They would go back and come with different things. And we continued these things sometimes for five, six hours, just open, trying to meet in the middle. We would shout at them a lot.
So there was a point where they gave us their final offer, another final offer, which was equally terrible [compared] to others. And they said, if we don’t agree to it by 10 AM, then they would send discipline notices to everyone in the encampment. 2 PM I think…
And then also we refused and we left the table and then we announced that we’re not returning to the negotiation if the university would continue with its threats because literally the only thing they understand is just to threaten you so you can compromise. And once they did that, I actually told them in the room, if that’s your final offer and if you’re threatening with discipline, then the university will burn. Like, if I go back to the students and tell them that this is what you said, then they would do something that you don’t like.
And this is what actually happened. When I went back, the students knew that they would be disciplined either way.
Since the beginning of negotiations I told the organizers to continue organiz[ing] your way, don’t look at the negotiations, plan as if there’s nothing happening, and plan something in case things go south, like you can do it. And I think that’s when some students were planning the Hind’s Hall takeover. But I did not know what kind of plan. I just told them, plan whatever you want. Don’t tell me, I will handle it in the negotiation room.
It was so clear that the university doesn’t want to give anything, to negotiate—literally they were giving us scholarship funds here, but they did not want to commit to divestment or boycott, which was a red line for us. Like we told them literally, if you discipline every single one of us, if you don’t give us anything and you just give us the divestment, that’s enough for us.
So basically, you have the students, they had their plan to take Hamilton. And they did take it on that night. From my side there was no communication with the university whatsoever. We were done with that. But an hour before the police came, the university called us, and were like, oh, we have an offer for you.
And they said that well, if you agree—they were like, oh the police is coming in but we’re giving you one last opportunity if you want to take the deal and dismantle the encampment. And we’re like, okay, but what about Hind’s Hall? And they are like, not in the deal. So we’re like, okay, if we take the deal, the police would still come in?
They were like, yeah. And then we even offered later, 30 minutes later, what if those inside Hind’s Hall leave before the police came in? Like no need for the police to come in, and they did not answer.
And we have it in writing, we literally told them that. And that was like, it was an improvisation from me. Like even if they said yes, that students who took Hamilton Hall would have had to agree too. I was just trying to find a way not to bring the police on campus. The university found it as an opportunity to bring the police…Because they lost, kind of their credibility to bring police on the encampment. They had no point in bringing the police on the encampment. But once Hind’s Hall happened, they were like, oh, this is the gray opportunity for us to bring the police and no matter what we talk, they just wanted to bring the police. And this is again kind of the police mindset that administration works by. Because looking at the administration, you have Cas Holloway who used to be the Deputy Mayor, in-charge of NYPD or like working closely with NYPD. You have all these—reputation or PR of Obama, the one who was doing PR for Obama in the White House. You have all these people that are handling literally a state. It’s not a university where you’re supposed to teach students and have this academic life.
There were a lot of small points [offers] that we could take. They partially offered financial transparency for direct investments. But they did not offer it for indirect investments. And they tried at some point to have like, one for one, if we give you this, what do you give us?
And we refused it. We told him, we want a full package. If you give us the divestment, okay then, we can dismantle the encampment but we know you wouldn’t do that. If you want to do that, let’s do it. So yeah, these small bits but again, for the students, these were all hush money…
“The media wanted to focus on the student movement…but not what the protest is about”
I think it [media] definitely played positive in terms of showing the encampment, showing the student movement. But it was very negative in a way that we wanted to shed the light on the war on Gaza and what’s happening in Palestine. Like there are actually people getting killed while we are camping here. It is very convenient, whether it’s police threats, it is what it is. We are alive. So that was very disheartening, or actually hurting us, the media wanted to focus on the student movement, on the protests, but not what the protest is about.
“The vast majority of faculty were very silent”
Faculty support was very disappointing, like extremely disappointing. There were definitely some faculty who were amazing with us, who would put their lives on the line for the students, but the vast majority of faculty were very silent. And this was very surprising because these are your students who are getting beaten. This is about your freedom, academic freedom, it’s about your freedom of speech. Also a lot of faculty cared more about freedom of speech, about police brutalization than Palestine and this is also I know, I understand that maybe Palestine is not a cause for many of these faculty, but the amount of faculty who just cared more about police presence, or about bringing the police, what about academic freedom?
But in so many instances, the faculty proved to be, you don’t want to say like cowards but in some ways, yes, didn’t show up to the moment or to their students and kind of, that leaves you around like, what they’re actually teaching is mere theory and it’s just like they’re teaching it for the sake of teaching. It is not that they actually believe in it.
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Dalia Darazim
Dalia is a Palestinian undergraduate student at Columbia and a member of Columbia University Apartheid Divest (CUAD).
Last year was my first year at Columbia. I think it was hard for me. And honestly, growing up in South Georgia, I didn’t have any sort of Palestinian or Arab or Muslim Community, but I also wasn’t exposed to any sort of Jewish Community. So I was honestly quite sheltered from Zionism and just how ugly it was in the US I obviously have experienced Zionism at its core when I visited Palestine or the recollections of my parents’ experiences, but in terms of sort of having to feel like my identity was under such scrutiny and under such exhibit, I had never felt that before until coming to Columbia. And I also think I definitely fell victim to the sort of naive undergrad who comes to Columbia, because of the Middle Eastern Department, because of the legacy of Edward Said, and all of these things…
Like I remember my first class the day after October 7th was Intro to Genocide Studies coincidentally, and I remember my professor left the last 15 minutes of class to talk about what happened, and I was the only person in a room of like 45-50 people to say what needed to be said that October 7th didn’t happen in a vacuum, that 76 years of occupation preceded this; 20 years of siege on Gaza, and I was just met with such crazy criticism, like I left that class crying and then the emails started coming. Palestine was just not mentioned at all.
And I cried a lot in the month of October. I wanted to transfer—I was having a horrible time and I had a couple of friends who I at least would go to protests with and I would regularly. But I think there was really like—I felt like there was really no way into the organizing scene.
And then in the second semester, I became really close friends with somebody who was in SJP and she was just like, would you like to join? And I joined actually one week before the encampment.
So I joined the SJP specifically, which does function somewhat separately of CUAD but we’re all in Coalition together.
“A lot of people think that CUAD was this fleshed out, crazy, organization”
I didn’t even know it was happening. And then the night before, two of my friends who were both going to be inside the encampment were basically like, we need somebody to take over Instagram while we’re in the encampment. So that sort of fell on me. And that was weirdly my huge introduction, like full immersion into CUAD, into SJP.
I think encampment, I think that a lot of people think that CUAD was this fleshed out, crazy, organization, but most of the leadership now joined, during the encampment…
I would go inside and take pictures and things but I didn’t camp inside the encampment. And so, I was gonna go to class. Like it was one random Tuesday Wednesday whatever day it was. I was like, oh they’re not coming now and then they came. And that was crazy and I think half of the CUAD and SJP who weren’t getting arrested went to jail support and then the other half of us were like, we need to start another encampment. So I remember it was me, Sueda, and then a group of other Palestinian women and organizers were like, okay, we’re jumping, we’re jumping the fence. And I remember Sueda, just like, grabbed me, I literally met Sueda two days ago and she just grabbed my hand and she was like, help me, we need to start another one.
And so a group of us just started jumping and then we got a chair I remember to help people jump over.
And I remember we were doing the first announcement, I think it was crazy to see how many people in that split second were able to make that decision. Like the police had not even fully left campus and they were just able to take that risk. And I think we owe that to the group, the first group of people in the encampment who took the step, committed, put their bodies on the line and their livelihoods on the line to basically radicalize people and have this effect.
“We just have to make it through this night”
I remember we were telling everybody, we made the first announcement that you should write the National Lawyers Guild number on your arm. I remember, we passed around the jail support form as well…
And I think for the first night we were genuinely just like, we just have to make it through this night. I remember by 9 PM, the first round of arrestees started coming back while simultaneously the first round of mass suspensions were happening as well. I remember some of my friends who literally got out and they had like 15 minutes after getting violently arrested to just pack up all their stuff and find somewhere to go. And I feel like in a weird way, there’s like a weird separation in that, like, the people who made this first risk, had to just like fall back and stay at home, whereas this new group of us were now trying to honor their risk.
And I think it was particularly beautiful because a lot of the people who were in the original encampment had been organizing with each other for months and they knew that they were taking the risk and they knew what it was going to look like afterwards. Whereas, I think for a lot of us, this was our first time organizing, and the way that it was created so organically was just so, so inspiring. I remember Tarp-Nation was created very, very quickly; all the foods were coming in and then people just were like, okay well, we need people to sort through this, and a group of people just made that their job.
And I remember people were literally sleeping underneath the tarps like, people were sleeping just on a bunch of duvets cause I don’t think we had enough tents yet.
Next night, a lot of the arrestees started coming back, they made it back into the encampment but then there was a group of them who like—there’s a certain point where they were banned I can’t really remember. I know it’s specifically the Barnard kids.
“Self-elected leadership that was trying to do with day-in-and-day-out-things”
And we started having, I mean—there was basically a self-elected group of 50 of us at max. I think probably 30 of us would have e-line meetings, like Emergency Line meetings every single day for hours where we basically would receive updates on the negotiations, where we would basically plan for a further escalation or plan for sustaining ourselves.
It was during this time when I met Jafra which is the Palestinian committee in CUAD. And so we would have our own meetings every day and then we’d also have the e-line meeting every day and that was honestly the first time I had been exposed to other Palestinian organizers on campus.
I think honestly, more about the structure of the encampment, about updates from negotiations, how beneficial we thought the negotiations were being, if we wanted to plan for another escalation, how we were sneaking people in, things like that. It was honestly, a lot of it was talks of another escalation, and then a lot of it was getting feedback from negotiation. Like this is a group of 60 people, 50 people, half of which never organized with each other before; these are a mix of people from the Union, SJP people, CUAD, like, JVP, just a mix of so many people. I remember at one point, the Tarp-Nation basically became their own committee during the encampment and would also send a delegate to the e-line meeting.
I’m meeting like very, very strangely, organic, just like self-elected leadership that was trying to do with day-in-and-day-out-things. I know that the press got to be like a huge thing and they were honestly vultures, I can’t even think about it anymore. Cause I remember Sharif…he’s like a Masters in Film, he basically media-trained so many people. And I remember one Jafra meeting we had was that as Palestinians we should all get media trained so we can center ourselves to press.
There were so many protests happening outside the gates as well. I think about it a lot, the way that the entire city mobilized for us. And I think we as Columbia students had a privilege of being such a spectacle when CUNY was doing the same exact things, CCNY was doing the same exact things but we just had so much extra support which I think is what led to it last like 15 days, 14 days and doesn’t even feel real.
“We have now manufactured consent, escalate”
There was one day in specific, where mass arbitrary suspensions happened, a lot of which were Palestinians who honestly had nothing to do with the encampment. I know one person in particular literally had already gone home for the year and he was just suspended, and he was Palestinian. And so, I think that was sort of the tipping point of, we have now manufactured consent, escalate.
…they had explicitly said that they will not divest, they were escalating in the negotiations, like empty threats of the National Guard, large mass arbitrary suspensions that were reversed, literally reversed in 24 hours because they had no merit.
And so at this point I just kind of felt that we had like manufactured consent for an escalation because… there was basically an impasse in negotiations like they flat out said that we will not divest from Israel, and wouldn’t meet any of our demands besides the financial transparency. I know they also offered like crazy things that we weren’t even asking for. I remember they offered us basically scholarship funds for people in Gaza and the Palestinian territories, which is like, what is the point of even offering the scholarships if you’re still funding our genocide?
There was no formal vote, and to this day, low-key caused a lot of fracturing, like did we actually consent to the escalation, the building occupation happening?
Also Jafra as the Palestinian student committee had basically, like—we don’t have any sort of veto power but we’re just sort of—I guess our green light is obviously very important as the Palestinian Committee. That doesn’t necessarily mean we have a veto power or anything.
So, there are Palestinian students who just joined, like myself—I was not even in Jafra beforehand—but who would go to Jafra Committee’s meetings just because they’re Palestinians and they get a say. I feel like this later caused a lot of tension because just being Palestinian is not enough and you also need to be an organizer. And so I think the big deliberation is, there was sort of a point where Jafta as a whole, almost unanimously did not want to do it, the building occupation. Whereas there was a camp of people who really really strongly wanted to and were like, this was basically the plan the whole time. And so just a lot of internal disputes were happening because I think some people felt like, why were we putting our all into sustaining this encampment if it was just disposable acts like the building occupation cause we knew the second we did the building occupation that the second encampment is done, it’s gone.
We never had it in our hands to make the university capitulate to this degree. I knew that continuing the encampment until the end of the year was not going to be sustainable. And so I personally was like, for the building occupation, I also was under the impression that whatever next step that we are gonna take, I was not gonna disavow if it is a step forward for the liberation of Palestine and for divestment. And I made the personal decision to just support it in any way, whether that would be like, we’re taking the third lawn or we’re taking a building, I was just going to do whatever I could.
There was a group of people who basically set up a false third encampment, I think on math lawn or something I can’t remember, like a distraction…
Like, we separated ourselves into green, yellow, and red roles. We basically were trial running. Everybody had a platoon leader. I was a platoon leader for a yellow red group.
I think the green roles were like food supply runners and social media people. But I think, fast forward, the fallacy I think we all recognize now is, once you take an action, there is no such thing as a green role. They literally shut down campus. If you were on the campus you had a chance of arrest which is a red role.
“I think that liberation just felt so near and so in reach that I was just like I don’t care”
And so we started a picket around the second encampment, as the building was being occupied and as a false encampment was being set up, as simultaneous distractions and then inevitably if you were yellow, red, like my platoon, you were meant to move your people in front of the building, and to picket in front of the building. And so, at that point, I was barricaded in front of the building and I think that was also a very split second decision that I made because my platoon wasn’t necessarily supposed to be barricaded in front.
We were sat and arms were linked in front of the building. And so the building was now successfully occupied. I remember I had so much strength from the girl who was next to me—we were in Palestine-Israel, Joseph Massad’s class, during this time—that’s the only reason I knew her. We weren’t close but she’s just who ended up being next to me and she was like, are you staying? And I was like, I don’t know, are you staying? She’s like, I’m staying, so I’m like okay, I’ll stay. We are now really good friends.
I remember feeling like, I think that liberation just felt so near and so in reach that I was just like I don’t care, like, whatever decision that I make tonight, I don’t care.
I remember at this time, a picture of me barricaded in front was in The New York Times. And I have very distinct green cargo pants that I was wearing. And so my family group chat was like going crazy.
We stayed there until 7 A.M, till light literally started coming up. And then a platoon finally came to relieve me. And then I think for the first time, because I felt we had done it, just like the adrenaline had died, and I went to my room and I was just knocked out until literally 5 PM and I then wake up in a state of pure panic because I realized that campus had been shut down. My parents were like, we’re buying you a ticket home now, you’re done.
I basically live in John Jay… So basically, by the time I had woken up, the police were already on campus. And so I basically was like, I don’t see the point in me, committing to taking an arrest. So I think I just sort of committed to recording everything and so I was still typing and updating SJP Instagram during this time, which was crazy.
And I remember she [Sueda] was so—to this day, I get so much strength from her, but she was just such a beacon of strength and I remember she basically was saying that the police coming here means that we have won. We are so powerful that they needed to enact so much—like the state violence on us to make us lose and we’re still not losing.
I think at that point, I remember I gave my friend Bassel and my friend Mae a hug because I saw that they were—we all saw that they were coming.
And then I remember just being like floored. I had never seen so many police officers charging at us with so much violence like that in my life. And I was just trying to record what I could and I remember there’s a picture of me seeing Sueda yelling at the police officers in front of us like in tears, being like, who do you protect? Who do you serve? This is crazy.
I think especially as a Palestinian, it just felt like such a reopened wound, cause we’re continuously making community and building community for it to be robbed and just cleansed, I think watching that happen was so sad.
And I think it was just so much doom, just watching them charge at us, just so mentally…bracing yourself for what you’re about to face. And then I remember at this time, me, Sueda and Lexi were like—there was a bag of phones, apparently of the people inside, that was still in the second encampment. And we are getting spammed like if you can get it, go. But then, the police had pushed everybody into a corner. Like there was no way forward, like the ratio—it felt like a hundred to one at all times and we were just being pushed backwards.
And so at that point I got separated from them because I turned around and they both were gone and I was then still inside the campus right outside of John Jay gates and then I realized that I had lost them. And then there were literally 10, 15, 20, police officers in front of me. And I was trying to go back the other way and I was like, no, I’ve left my friends. I need to go back, I live in John Jay and they’re just like, no. And I kept trying to push forward. And then I was just picked up from under my arms and put, basically thrown onto the street.
And then because I was in full block, like in a kuffiyeh, in sunglasses, in a mask and I was like okay, maybe if I pretend—just be like a girl who was trying to get back on the campus. So I took it all off, and then I found an NYPD officer before they had barricaded the street. I was like, I was off-campus, I live in John Jay—which I do, and I had my ID to say that—and this just exposed how stupid they are because he literally walked me all the way back to the main gate, and was like, I really don’t know if you could get back on and then I basically said the same thing to I guess his higher up and he was like civilians will be let back in soon, which is crazy.
And so basically at this point again, I’m thrown out of campus with nobody that I knew and I think I also just felt extreme helplessness. I just felt a lot of guilt. I was like I should have at least just taken arrest, I felt so helpless. I was like there’s nothing I can do at this point in time. I don’t even have my phone.
After I don’t even know how long, I see Sueda and Lexi coming back out and they had apparently been caught inevitably too when they tried to get the stuff and just thrown out and so I run into them. That also felt such a huge moment of relief.
And then Sueda took me to Mahmoud’s apartment and we were all there and recharging. And then we had prepared to go to jail support. And I think that’s when I just felt really unreal. Because I didn’t even know how brutal it was until I saw all the videos. One of my friends was one of the people who was infamously pushed down the stairs, which by the way, he wasn’t even arrested because of how brutal they were. That’s another thing that happened is there was two lines of people, and the second line of people were let go, they were detained and then let go because of how violent the first line of defense had taken arrest.
I made it back onto campus by myself at 8 AM, and I just literally felt sick to my stomach. I just felt so bleak and empty. It literally felt like we were in a military zone. Like I remember I took an Uber and the Uber had to drop me on like two Avenues and multiple blocks ahead of campus and then I had to find an NYPD officer to open different barricades let me back into campus and then I get to my dorm, as John Jay which is still being manned by the NYPD, and I literally felt sick.
“We are being Oslo’d”
I think that it [negotiations] genuinely was, pass time. I think that it was to stall us and to try to appease us. We had shut down the university and that is so dangerous to them and they were doing everything that they could to get things back to business as usual. I think that they were betting on us like accepting capitulations and accepting a bullshit deal. I think what has honestly salvaged us is that we refused to take anything in short of divestment.
I think the argument that kept coming up is, there is a camp of organizers who genuinely believed in the negotiations. And there was a camp of us who felt that we were—this is a really funny way to put it, but that we are being Oslo’d. Like literally just the same tools of diplomacy and the tools of the oppressor, and are meant to just appease us, were being used against us and they were counting on us taking it and we refused. So I really don’t think from the get-go they were ever negotiating in good faith.
I think that at the end of the day, Columbia University is not an educational institution, it’s very much a business and it’s making its money, making billions off of this genocide and they’re not gonna compromise that. I genuinely think that they were just trying to see how much we were able to compromise.
“We literally created an alternative university in the university”
I honestly think our negotiators did a really amazing job of being so peaceful. And the fact that they wouldn’t take anything short of divestment, I do think there were times when there were smaller calls [offers] and even then they would come back to all of the Emergency Line again and we would just discuss it.
I think that honestly the biggest feat of this whole thing or the biggest triumph was not even that we accomplished a big escalation of taking the building, but the fact that we literally created an alternative university in the university and shut the university down for weeks.
Like it was clear that it was no longer a threat to the university, and it was costing them less to just allow us to continue than for us to escalate and I think that’s why we thought that we needed to escalate.
And I don’t think that we should regret that in any way.
And I think that it was a huge triumph for the students. And also just to show tactically the power that we have, about a group of literally 30, 40, 50 students literally took over a building.
“I think we left a lot of people behind in the process”
I think that something we could have done differently and I think now principally, we’ve changed is how we dealt with the press. Because I think at a certain point we were so worried about the optics game when it’s like, our oppressors are literally never gonna see us in a positive light and we’re always going to be the villain to them. So why were we trying at all to even appease them? And I do think in a way we were in such a place of privilege to have these huge media outlets that want to cover our story. But I think we left a lot of people behind in the process. And I think we also compromised a lot of our values when we would prioritize optics and taking press and framing things a certain way, I sort of got to a point where I was like—I think that at this point in the genocide, having been a year of the genocide that I don’t think the people who see us this way even if we appeal to their senses are gonna ever change that. I don’t think it’s worth compromising ourselves and our principles to try to get this sort of middle ground camp of people on our side. And I also think that we honestly perpetuate more harm by trying to be—at least speaking for myself as a Palestinian—like a good Palestinian or like a less radical or a more palatable Palestinian because we are not up for consumption by the press. We don’t need to be palatable and I don’t think our real resistance that’s on the ground, is not palatable. And I don’t think that we should have to cater to the palatability of mainstream media because I don’t think they’re ever gonna paint us in a good light… I was never ever once asked, not by Washington Post, not by CNN, not by Reuters, not by any of these people how I feel as a Palestinian knowing that my tuition dollars are being spent to murder my own family members.
I think at this point Columbia has already shown its face whether or not we were painted in an evil light, it will never be able to rid itself of the stains of brutally televising the mass arrest of hundreds of students. And more importantly though, the stain of the images, the literal hellfire that is coming out of Gaza and they know that they’re funding this and they’ll never be able to, from April on, be able to rid themselves of the connection, the constant invisible string between the horrors that are coming out in Gaza and Columbia university’s complicity in it.
“I had to ask myself, why don’t we as Palestinians get to be offensive?”
There was a point during the encampment where I was genuinely against the building occupation, because I was like, this is gonna make us look like we’re so offensive.
But I think that I had to ask myself, why don’t we as Palestinians get to be offensive? We’ve been defensive for 76 years. So why don’t we get to be offensive? And I think that’s something that I had to unlearn. So, I pose the question to these people who are hesitant: what is it that we’re saying that makes you uncomfortable and how and what about that is worse? What are colonizers doing to us?
Especially, I think the encampment—a downside is that it allowed a lot of people who are not aligned with us politically and do not have the same political red lines as us to feel that they’re a part of this movement for Palestinian liberation without actually knowing what that entails and knowing what the red lines are, and that we uphold the Thawabit, that we respect the resistance, that we believe in all of these things. And I think that is a downside that came out of how accessible the encampment was.
So I would question these people. Like who exactly were you standing with? How exactly did you view yourself as sitting with Palestinians before and what about what we’re saying makes you question why you stand with Palestinians?