Columbia anti-Israel activists start semester with protest, disrupt Israeli prof’s class
Activists barge in on modern Israeli history lesson, chant for ‘intifada’ outside New York campus gates; counter-protesters hold Israeli flags and chant
Luke Tress is The Times of Israel's New York correspondent.

NEW YORK — Several hundred anti-Israel demonstrators rallied outside the gates of Columbia University in New York City on Tuesday, as student activists vowed to step up their protests with the start of the spring semester.
The renewed protests come as the Trump administration and Republicans in Congress put pressure on universities to rein in threatening rhetoric on campuses.
The protesters gathered on Broadway outside a Columbia entrance in the Morningside Heights neighborhood of Manhattan. They chanted “We will honor all our martyrs,” “Smash the settler Zionist state,” and “Intifada people’s war” to the beat of a snare drum.
On campus, several dozen activists gathered and chanted “Long live the intifada” outside the university’s Butler Library, according to video that students shared with The Times of Israel. The protesters then marched off campus to join the activists on the street, two students said. The campus is only open to students and staff with university identification.
“Columbia you will see, we resist till victory,” the protesters on the street shouted. Most of the protesters’ faces were covered in medical masks or keffiyehs.
A handful of pro-Israel counterprotesters held Israeli flags and chanted, “The people of Israel live” in Hebrew. Other students and faculty looked on as they waited in line in the frigid cold to enter the campus. Police set up a metal barricade separating the line and the activists.
The protesters were led by Columbia University Apartheid Divest, a coalition of student groups led by the campus branches of Students for Justice in Palestine and Jewish Voice for Peace. Both groups were suspended last year for violating university protest policies but continue to operate as part of the broader coalition. Tuesday’s demonstration was backed by the off-campus groups Within Our Lifetime, the Palestinian Youth Movement and National Students for Justice in Palestine.
The groups call for the eradication of Israel and have vowed to continue their activities since the ceasefire agreement this month.
The Columbia students urged classmates to leave class on Tuesday, the first day of classes for the semester.
“Join us to flood Columbia,” the protest coalition said on social media. “There will be no school as usual as long as Columbia is participating in a genocide.”
“Ceasefire is only the beginning,” they said.
New York City protest groups often label their rallies “floods,” a homage to the Hamas term for the October 7, 2023, invasion of Israel, the “Al Aqsa Flood.”
On campus, protesters handed out fliers that said, “The enemy will not see tomorrow,” with images of masked gunmen and an inverted triangle, a Hamas symbol, according to images shared online.

The protest organizers told participants to wear masks and be cautious about using their student IDs to “defend against Columbia’s surveillance.”
“As long as Columbia is responsible for genocide, there will be no school as usual,” the student protesters said in a statement.
Several pro-Israel students counter-protested on the campus, holding an American flag and a red banner that said, “Get support for terrorism off our campus.”
Also Tuesday, several activists disrupted a class on the history of modern Israel taught by an Israeli professor, Avi Shilon. Elisha Baker, a student in the class, said three demonstrators entered the classroom, read a speech and threw anti-Israel fliers that said “Crush Zionism” at the students in the class.
“That is the culture at Columbia University. It is nearly impossible to have a conversation about Zionism unless it is about criticizing Zionism,” Baker told The Times of Israel.
“It’s also ironic because these protesters have been talking about academic freedom for the entire year, but clearly, they don’t care about academic freedom at all because there’s no such thing as the freedom to intimidate and disrupt inside of a classroom,” he said.
The activists’ faces were covered in keffiyehs and it wasn’t clear if they were students, though only those with university IDs can access campus.
The protesters called the class “genocidal propaganda for the apartheid state…from the point of view of the colonizers,” argued with the professor and refused to leave the classroom.
It’s day 1 of Prof. @shilonavi History of Modern Israel @Columbia and masked protestors just barged in to intimidate and disrupt. So much for “academic freedom.”
Welcome to Columbia, 2025! pic.twitter.com/S6GbzKFqut
— Elisha (Lishi) Baker (@LishiBaker) January 21, 2025
Shilon told The Times of Israel that he was teaching about the conflicting Israeli and Palestinian narratives surrounding Israel’s 1948 War of Independence at the time of the disruption.
“I was trying to be unbiased as I’m used to being and then they knock on the door and for me, as an Israeli, they looked like mehablim,” he says, using the Hebrew word for terrorists. “They didn’t look like protesters so I was surprised.”
“I didn’t know how to react because if you would be aggressive they can claim that you pushed them or something, and if you’re going to be more calm they can continue, so I suggested to them to join the class and to learn about the conflict,” he said. “They just shouted ‘genocide,’ ‘criminals,’ and didn’t reply.”
University President Katrina Armstrong condemned the disruption and vowed an investigation.
“No group of students has a right to disrupt another group of students in a Columbia classroom,” Armstrong said in a statement. “We want to be absolutely clear that any act of antisemitism, or other form of discrimination, harassment, or intimidation against members of our community is unacceptable and will not be tolerated.”
Columbia University Apartheid Divest also posted video on Tuesday showing a masked individual vandalizing the area around the campus with red spray paint, writing messages including “Gaza rises Columbia falls” and “fuck Columbia.”
The Columbia students are demanding the university drop all disciplinary measures against student activists.
“Suspension for Gaza is the highest honor,” they said.
The Trump administration and Republicans in Washington have vowed to put pressure on universities. Last year, the Republican-led Congressional Committee on Education and the Workforce grilled Columbia and other top universities over antisemitism.

Senator Ted Cruz, a Texas Republican, told The Free Press this week that he expected a crackdown.
“DOJ is going to go after any university that looks the other way, that tolerates antisemitic threats of violence, intimation and threats directed at Jewish students,” Cruz said. “Columbia is right at the top of the worst offenders and so if they don’t change their conduct dramatically I think you’re going to see the Trump administration cut off their federal funds.”
Federal Title VI protections bar universities that accept federal funding from allowing discrimination based on race or national origin.
Trump signed an executive order on Monday, his first day in office, vowing to protect Americans against non-citizens who “espouse hateful ideology” or “support designated foreign terrorists,” including by evaluating visa programs.
A prominent anti-Israel professor left the university earlier this month after an internal investigation found that she had discriminated against Israeli students.
Protests surrounding the Israel-Hamas conflict plunged Columbia University into turmoil last year, culminating in an unsanctioned protest encampment on campus property, protesters’ forcible takeover of a campus building and dozens of arrests. Israeli and Jewish students have said the protests and rhetoric, including from faculty, created a hostile and unsafe environment for them on campus.
The university administration struggled to tamp down tensions and implemented some counter-measures, including a task force on antisemitism.