- Mike Wendling & Max Mazza
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A student leader at Columbia University protesting against the war in Gaza has apologized after a video leaked of him saying “Zionists don't deserve to live.”
Kaimani James, 20, said she was “uncharacteristically upset” and “in the heat of the moment I said the wrong thing.”
On Friday, Columbia University announced he had been banned from campus.
The protests began at Columbia University in New York City and have since spread to campuses across the country.
James, who has served as a spokesperson for protesters, posted the comments on Instagram in January. He also said he “please be thankful that I'm not just going out and killing Zionists.”
The comments were made before and after Columbia state officials summoned him to a disciplinary hearing.
“I'm not fighting to injure, I'm not fighting to have winners and losers. I'm not fighting to kill,” he said in the post.
Recently, such comments have been popularized by pro-Israel activists.
On Friday, James apologized in a statement about X, saying it “affirms the sanctity of all life and the liberation movement.”
“Everyone has the right to protect themselves from physical harm.”
“Calls for or statements of violence that target individuals based on religious, ethnic, or national identity are unacceptable and violate university policy,” the university said in a statement.
The White House press secretary released a statement condemning his comments about Zionists.
“These dangerous and horrifying statements are upsetting and should serve as a wake-up call,” White House press secretary Andrew Bates said in a statement.
“It's terrible to defend the murder of Jews.”
Some protests on U.S. campuses have been accused of anti-Semitism, with President Biden condemning “anti-Semitic protests” earlier this week.
Other Jewish students also participated in the demonstrations, and many said they felt unsafe at Columbia and other universities.
On Friday, Columbia University's Senate, made up of faculty and students, passed a resolution admonishing university officials for their response to the protests.
The Senate said calling in city police to clear the encampment was “against the norms and traditions” of the university.
Colombian President Nemat “Minouche” Shafik is under pressure to resign over his handling of the protests.
The latest wave of campus protests began on April 18, when Columbia state authorities called in police to clear a protest encampment, and more than 100 people were arrested.
Activists are calling on universities to “retreat from genocide” and stop donating large sums of money to companies involved in weapons manufacturing and other industries supporting Israel's war in Gaza.
Israel currently faces a lawsuit brought by South Africa at the International Court of Justice accusing it of committing genocide against Palestinians, an accusation Israel rejects as “baseless”.
Some recent developments include:
- Related parties ohio state university He acknowledged there were armed police with scopes monitoring protests in Columbus after a photo of a sniper on a rooftop went viral.A total of 36 protesters, including students and non-students, were arrested Thursday night.
- Criminal charges against protesters arrested were dropped. University of Texas at Austin at the beginning of the week. Travis County Attorney Delia Garza said the case “lacks sufficient probable cause to proceed.”
- Several teachers were arrested at the scene of the chaos. emory university Thursday in Atlanta
- Protest camp is currently underway University of California, Berkeley, University of Michigan, northwestern university Greater Chicago and other areas around the country
The war began on October 7, when Hamas-led armed groups carried out an unprecedented attack on southern Israel, killing about 1,200 people, most of them civilians, and taking the remaining 253 hostages back to Gaza. It started with that.
Since then, more than 34,180 people, mostly children and women, have been killed in Gaza, according to the region's Hamas-run health ministry.
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