A few hours after Columbia students broke into, entered, and vandalized buildings on multiple college campuses including Columbia University, the College Democrats of America sent out a press release endorsing the protests.
They characterized them as "peaceful" and "heroic."
Heroic. Protests where the leaders are calling for the murder of all "Zionists." Protests where "Glory to Our Martyrs" signs hang?
College Democrats come out with support for anti-Israel protests -- even *after* the activists' takeover of Columbia University's Hamilton Hall: https://t.co/r0VXyeVOKW
— Josh Kraushaar (@JoshKraushaar) April 30, 2024
The College Democrats are an official student arm of the Democrat National Committee, so this is no insignificant offshoot of a radical activist group. It is the Democrat Party, at least an official unit of it. Even The New York Times has emphasized the connection between the statement and the violence we have seen overnight.
It's so glaringly obvious that it is impossible to ignore. The official student caucus of the Democrat National Committee is calling these antisemitic thugs "heroic."
College Democrats of America, the student organization of the Democratic Party, endorsed pro-Palestinian campus protests on Tuesday and called on President Biden to support a permanent cease-fire in Gaza.
In a statement approved by the organization’s executive board by a vote of 8 to 2, the College Democrats praised student protesters for having “the moral clarity to see this war for what it is: destructive, genocidal and unjust,” and condemned college administrators for suspending and calling in the police to arrest them.
The statement came after two tumultuous weeks in which pro-Palestinian protests spread to campuses across the country in the wake of a police crackdown at Columbia University. Students who oppose Israel’s actions in Gaza since Hamas’s Oct. 7 attack have set up encampments and, in many cases, kept them going after participants were suspended or arrested.
Overnight from Monday into Tuesday, protesters at Columbia took over a building on campus. Protesters have escalated similarly at two other colleges, Portland State University and California State Polytechnic University, Humboldt.
As much as the College Democrats keep repeating the word "peaceful" in their statement, the underlying events are anything but. The students who led the charge into Columbia's buildings recently called for the murder of all Zionists and held innocent maintenance workers hostage throughout the night.
Oh look who was leading this effort.
— AG (@AGHamilton29) April 30, 2024
Khymani “all Zionists should die” James. Someone allegedly banned from campus, but Columbia isn’t enforcing their rules.
pic.twitter.com/L9FXY0JEeS
This is what peaceful protests look like. According to the College Democrats, at least.
It was a striking rebuke from an organization that has historically worked in tandem with the Democratic Party and whoever leads it.
“As College Democrats, we are committed to the re-election of President Biden and Democrats across down-ballot races in every corner of our nation,” the statement said. “However, as representatives of youth across the country, we reserve the right to criticize our own party when it fails to represent youth voices.”
It continued: “As young voters, we are well aware that come November, our votes will determine who wins the White House. The White House has taken the mistaken route of a bear-hug strategy for Netanyahu and a cold-shoulder strategy for its own base and all Americans who want to see an end to this war.”
I am not familiar with the corporate structure of the DNC, and apparently, the College Democrats have their own board, which voted to release this statement. No doubt, the adults at the DNC were displeased both with the statement and the implied threat to the president's reelection.
I have yet to see any rebuke of the statement, though. What is the DNC going to do? Cut themselves off at the knees by rejecting their College Democrat volunteers?
Not everybody at the College Democrats was thrilled with the statement- almost everybody, though. 80% of the Board voted for it.
The statement had supermajority support from the College Democrats’ 10-member executive board, but two members voted against it.
Joshua Martin, the organization’s political affairs director and a junior at the University of Houston, was one of them. He said that he was unhappy the statement had not condemned Hamas, and that it was inappropriate for it to compare the current protests — which he sees as in large part antisemitic — to the civil rights movement.
“By releasing the statement, you’re effectively saying to the Jewish students within the College Democrats of America that we frankly do not care what you say, and we’re just going to do whatever we please to complete a narrative,” Mr. Martin, 21, said, adding that he did not support putting conditions on aid to Israel and considered Hamas “the full root of the issue.”
Condemning Hamas was a bridge too far, apparently. After all, so many College Democrats are currently chanting about how much they love Hamas, and the Board appears to agree. The College Democrats do condemn antisemitism, they say, but they sure seem happy to ally with open antisemites.
The Democrat Party has an antisemitism problem, and no amount of mumbling "MAGA" can hide it. President Biden is out campaigning with AOC and telling people to listen to her, and she, in turn, is literally standing side-by-side with Hamas supporters.
While speaking at Biden's Earth Day event just now, AOC praised the pro Hamas protests at Columbia and Yale
— Greg Price (@greg_price11) April 22, 2024
Biden then opened his speech by saying "I learned a long time ago to listen to that lady." pic.twitter.com/j2IUiyXXjR
AOC, too, believes that these protests are peaceful.
Uh-huh.
Antisemitism is at the core of all these protests, which is not to say that all protesters are antisemitic. Many are simply idiots, or people LARPing (Live Action Role Playing) as revolutionaries. They get a thrill, especially when violence is in the air. They would be as happy to be nasty and violent to anyone else, but these protests gave them a convenient target.
But the core of the message is anti-Jew. It is so blindingly obvious that it barely needs saying.
When your heroes are murderers, you glorify "martyrs" and call for the elimination of Israel--t's all about the Jews.
Those are the people the College Democrats admire and stand with.
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