'Burn Tel Aviv to the ground:' Calls for violence continue at Columbia

Jewish students were told by anti-Israel protesters to "go back to Europe."

 Demonstrators sit in an encampment as they protest in solidarity with Pro-Palestinian organizers on the Columbia University campus, amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and Hamas, in New York City, US. April 19, 2024. (photo credit: CAITLIN OCHS/REUTERS)
Demonstrators sit in an encampment as they protest in solidarity with Pro-Palestinian organizers on the Columbia University campus, amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and Hamas, in New York City, US. April 19, 2024.
(photo credit: CAITLIN OCHS/REUTERS)

Calls for violence and terrorism at the Columbia University encampment protests continued to surface on Sunday in footage published by pro-Israel and pro-Palestinian activists.

“[Izz ad-Din] Al-Qassam [Brigades], make us proud, take another soldier out,” anti-Israel demonstrators chanted on Friday night in a video published on social media by pro-Palestinian activist ThizzL. “We say justice, you say how? Burn Tel Aviv to the ground. Go Hamas, we love you. We support your rockets too.”

On Wednesday, in another video published by ThizzL, activists called for Hamas's military wing to "kill another soldier now."

 Demonstrators holding a banner protest in solidarity with Pro-Palestinian organizers as they block a street, amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and Hamas, in New York City, US. April 18, 2024. (credit: CAITLIN OCHS/REUTERS)
Demonstrators holding a banner protest in solidarity with Pro-Palestinian organizers as they block a street, amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and Hamas, in New York City, US. April 18, 2024. (credit: CAITLIN OCHS/REUTERS)

During a speech live streamed by the Palestine Solidarity Working Group on Saturday night, a protest leader said in a speech, "Let it be known that it was the Al-Aqsa Flood that put the global intifada back on the table again. And it is the sacrificial spirit of the Palestinian freedom fighters that will guide every struggle on every corner of the earth to victory."

"Remember that militancy breeds Resistance," said the speaker. "Thousands upon thousands of students around the world have been moved to rebel because of your militancy."

Anti-Israel activists say Jewish students are Hamas's 'next targets'

The Jews of New York Instagram account shared on Sunday a video showing a woman in a keffiyeh with a sign that said "Al-Qassam's next targets," with an arrow pointing to counter-protesters waving Israeli and American flags.

Chabad Columbia shared Instagram stories of the same counter-protest late Saturday night, saying that they can no longer be quiet about what was going on at the campus.

"Uncultured a** b****es," the anti-Israel activists heckled. "Go back to Europe. You have no culture. All you do is colonize."

In another Instagram video, in which a poster of Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine secretary-general Ahmad Sa'adat can be seen in the background, anti-Israel activists sang, "Oh Hamas, our beloved, strike, strike Tel Aviv."

As the counter-protesters returned to their dormitories, Students Supporting Israel Columbia video showed that they were taunted with calls of "Jews" and told to "go back to Poland."

One Jewish counter-protester tried to stop the activists from setting an Israeli flag on fire, according to SSI. In another video, a Jewish student was splashed with water.

Within Our Lifetime leader Nerdeen Kiswani, after her wedding, managed to enter the campus despite it being allegedly locked down. Kiswani led the crowd in a chant in a video published by Students for Justice in Palestine Columbia, saying "There is only one solution, Intifada revolution."

In a video published by Palestinian Youth Movement NYC, they chanted, "Zionism will fall, brick by brick, wall by wall, Israel will fall" and called "US imperialists, number one terrorists."

Uptown 4 Palestine published videos of activists proclaiming in Arabic that "From the water to the water (a reference to the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea), Palestine is Arab." (The chant is an alternate version of the chant "From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free")