(IntegrityTimes.com) – College campuses in America have erupted with anti-Israel protests since the October 7 attack on Israel by the terrorist group Hamas and the military response by Israeli forces that subsequently ensued.
Several protest groups have escalated their protests to include illegal occupation of campus buildings or outdoor spaces. Students have made demands and harassed Jewish students and faculty. Universities have varied in response, with some attempting to meet activist demands, some expelling students, and some arranging for police to remove encampments and temporarily arrest participants.
The assumption that many have been making is that these are organic student protests, but recent arrests at Columbia University and City College of New York show that is not the whole truth. At a press conference on Wednesday May 1 with Mayor Eric Adams it was revealed that of the 282 protesters who were arrested, 134 were not affiliated with either school. Adams described them with the term “outside agitators” and mentioned noticeable change in tactics by protestors.
The change in tactics is easily explained by the presence of lifelong protest coordinators like 63-year-old Lisa Fithian who had been at the forefront of the escalations at Columbia. Fithian has been training and organizing protests for decades. She is a known as a “confirmed professional agitator” by law enforcement. The wife of Sami Al-Arian, a former professor at University of South Florida who pleaded guilty in 2005 helping the terrorist group Palestinian Islamic Jihad, was also pictured at the Columbia University’s encampment. He was deported in 2015 after serving time.
It is not surprising that supporters of Palestinian activism or just disruptive activism in general are finding their way these campus protests, but they can no longer be dismissed as just students. Some may be connected or funded by foreign powers and terrorist groups. American youth are given much leeway by a culture that prizes free speech and liberty. However, that does not extend to unknown organizations, either domestic or abroad, holding the nation’s universities hostage in an effort to circumvent the American democratic process.
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