This Israeli Student Says Columbia Is UNSAFE for Her Parents

Israeli Master student Elanor R published a piece in forward this week titled I'm an Israeli Columbia student I never thought I'd be afraid to invite my parents to my graduation Columbia University seems to have listened to these concerns and on Monday the university did in fact cancel its main graduation ceremony citing security concerns following the chaotic campus protest Eleanor who also earned her bachelor's degree from Colombia is back in Israel now and joins us to discuss welcome to Rising thank you thank you thank you for having me so you wrote in your piece about feeling um that you were bearing the hostility on campus from the things you saw and heard why don't you share with our viewers um what what those incidents constituted I think what we've heard on campus was um a level of uh the rhetoric that we've heard on campus had to of violence that made us as Israelis feel incredibly unsafe and uncomfortable on campus and obviously academic settings are academic are setting that were meant to be uncomfortable but there is discomfort and there is unsafety and when you have students screaming long leave the long live the intifa or globalize the intifa when Israelis know the antifa to be somewhat violent when you've had um boss bombings and stabbings and Kings and the antifa in Israel and when you hear people uh when you see PL cards with with signs that show unconditional support for Hamas when you see Israelis on campus being called Nazis for speaking Hebrew when you hear chance calling to remove zionists when you hear chance calling we don't want no two states we want all of it all of those are chant that are Beyond uncomfortable they are violent they are calling for the destruction of Israel they're calling for killing Israelis so it wasn't just uncomfortable it was really really hurtful and you just think what comes next after that Ric and from Jewish history we know what comes next just for context for the audience inata means Uprising or struggle in Arabic it is used to describe uh in the Arabic translation of the Holocaust Museum things like the Warsaw Uprising as well you write in your piece that you characterize statements like uh from River to the Sea as uh implying a desire to kill Jewish people what do you say to your Palestinian colleagues former classmates who many of whom have had relatives killed actually from from violence in Gaza that what they're demanding what they're requesting is a right to return and also live alongside Jewish people who have the exclusive right to immigrate to Israel I think that the two are not mutually exclusive I think that when we hear people chanting an Arabic uh from water to water Palestine will be ar Palestine will be Arab we know that it means a destruction of Israel I myself and what I've tried to convey in my peace I believe that the only way for Israelis and Palestinians to leave to live peacefully next to each other is to acknowledge each other's traumas acknowledge each other's pain and take accountability for past violence and Israel has a great deal to do in that regard I think that uh when you say for example intifa is Uprising for sure we know that intifa can take peaceful forms but it can also take violent forms which is why it is a controversial um term to use and when you use it you are diminishing the trauma of Israelis and Palestinians um and I believe that what I will say to my Palestinian peers is that you want to advocate for a leadership that will be able to lead Palestine once a Palestinian State God willing I hope a Palestinian state will come to be but you want to have a leadership that is just and when you are not calling against on college campuses you will not have a leadership for the Palestinian people that can sustain a two-state solution or whatever solution there may be but you want to have a leadership that will not kill gay people that will not kill women that will not oppress women that will not have honor killings you have to have that kind of leadership and if you're just calling for uh if you're not criticizing Kamas for they did on October 7th for what they're doing to their people for how they keeping their people hostage right now then then you're in trouble because there will not be a good Palestine with all due respect my question though was about the right of return do you think that Palestinians should be allowed to return to their homes and what is now Israel that is a really tough question and I don't know that I as a master student in journalism will have the answer answer to that um once we will come to a solution that is for the politicians to decide what it going to look like if there will be a right of return or not I know that currently Jews don't have the right to return to Morocco and Iraq um and if there will be some kind of a swap great but that's not for me as a master student to decide with all due respect do you think the protest on college campuses are doing the Palestinian side any favors based on what you've seen the hostility toward Jewish students such as yourself to the extent that you didn't think your your parents should even come to campus no I don't think that and that is what I try to convey also in my piece I think that again if you're not chanting against Hamas if you are not creating dialogue with Israeli students I mean Israelis are here Israel are here to stay Palestinians are here to stay if you want to facilitate facilitate a dialogue great you are doing favor to both Israelis and Palestinians if you're not trying to facilitate a dialogue you're hurting the cause for everyone to live live peacefully in this land no one is going anywhere neither the Palestinians nor the Israelis right now what's happening is a tragedy it's a tragedy because everyone is trying to kill each other because no one in the world really tried to to come to an agreement between the two sides and there's so many people to blame for that I won't even try to get into that history it's so complicated but I think that the hostility that we're seeing on college campuses across the world right now is not helping anyone well in 2018 uh Palestinians put on the great Marge of return where they peacefully marched uh to try to get an end to the blockade and to the Siege on Gaza as a consequence Israel shot 36,000 uh is Palestinians over the course of the 18 months or so that that March took place killing uh over 200 people and Ming uh thousands and thousands more uh by shooting them targeting them in the legs uh that is one example of a peaceful effort from Palestine that was met with violence from Israel Israel of course has killed upwards of 4 34,000 people in Gaza over the course of of the last seven months that has also ramped up the killings of Palestinians in the West Bank so what do you say to people who who respond to you saying well of course Israelis feel unsafe if you're cheering in support of Gaza are Palestinians or other Arabs on campus should they also feel unsafe given the presence of Israelis given that their state has in fact killed tens of thousands of people over the course of the last seven months well I think that deciding for me that I am my state I I did not make those choices well that's that's not exactly the question right you said that the fact of people supporting Gaza made you feel unsafe so what should people who do support Gaza feel about people who support is said at all I'm sorry no that is not what I said at all I never said people supporting Gaza makes me unsafe no no I never said that people supporting Gaza makes me unsafe I think gazans have the right to have their voices heard on college campus say absolutely I'm saying that unconditional support of Hamas is making me feel unsafe and who's doing that I don't want I don't appreciate my words being Twisted this way who is UN unconditionally supporting Hamas on Colombia campus when I'm saying when for example we see a a sign that says if and I mentioned it in my piece when you see a sign that says if you are in solidarity with our corpses but not our Rockets you're a hypocrite that is a call to support Hamas is it a call to support Hamas or might it be screaming in when you're screaming in Arabic from water to water Palestine will be Arab that is a genocidal call against Israel do you speak Arabic do you speak Arabic speak enough to understand that statement because are you aware that there have been a number of stories where people have pushed back against the incorrect translations of Arabic chance that have been said on College understand Arabic enough to know that statement yes it's close enough and we have seen people with signs say you know talking about um the elkam Brigade saying their next one saw that one example uh the leadership uh including a leader from the University of Michigan calling on zionists to be killed and worse um there are I I have seen uh support for Hamas I don't think it characterizes um all or a majority of the protests that we're seeing um those sentiments clear do exist among some of the protesters and some of their leadership do you think it's right that the university should have cancelled the graduation for all students because you feel that your family would be unsafe I'm not I I don't envy the people in the University they were they fac they faced a lot of very very tough decisions over the course of the last few months uh especially the last couple weeks um if they feel like they can't secure the commencement well enough to not have people act violently if that's what they saw right then it's their decision I'm not here to pass judgment on that decision thank you so much for joining us today thank yeah thanks for being with us we really appreciate it thank you so much [Music] oh

Channel: The Hill

Views: 33,881

Keywords: Rising, Progressive, Progressive Politics, Democrats, Democratic Party, Republicans, GOP, Republican Party, Trita Parsi, Quincy Institute, RAFAH, Israel, Gaza, Hamas, Ceasefire, Bibi Netanyahu, Biden, Protests, College Protests, Universities, Disciplinary Action, Encampment, MIT, Harvard, Columbia, Garber, Demonstrations, College Commencement, Graduation

Id: GYyluqYaOPk

Length: 11min 30sec (690 seconds)

Published: Tue May 07 2024