If you didn’t realize that the folks who run Columbia think the same as the ones running Biden foreign policy, consider their shared, feckless faith in “de-escalation” and finger-waving.
Just as with President Biden’s well-worn don’t’s to America’s enemies, Columbia prez Minouche Shafik has issued a bevy of toothless warnings to the students occupying the campus quad — and now Hamilton Hall.
Shafik at first showed backbone by calling the NYPD to clear the “Gaza Solidarity Encampment” on April 18 and suspending a dozen or so students, but then her fortitude faltered.
Columbia reversed most of the suspensions, let protesters build an even larger second encampment less than 24 hours later and told students that it wouldn’t evict them again, nor call in the cops.
The message: We’re so sorry we punished you for violating school policy; please please please play nice.
Then followed a week of “dialogue” and a series of ever-postponed deadlines, until Shafik on Monday told protesters to clear off the main lawn by 2 p.m. or face repercussions.
Naturally, they stayed put — and lo, no physical repercussions ensued.
Instead, Columbia began doling out suspensions (it says), but not actually hauling any students off the campus they no longer had any right to be on at all, let along in illegal tents.
And so the protesters escalated: Early Tuesday, a group broke into Hamilton Hall by smashing through the windows and hung a flag reading “intifada” from the roof.
The students feel free to cross Shafik’s lines in increasingly belligerent ways because she’s let them, again and again.
Remind you of anyone?
Biden has spent more than three years “de-escalating” with Iran: dropping Trump-era sanctions, paying huge bribes for hostage releases, begging Tehran to re-enter the Obama nuclear deal . . .
And Tehran has watched as Biden played Russia’s threat to Ukraine with that same “escalation phobia”: In advance, only threatening Moscow with sanctions rather than rushing arms to Kyiv, then refusing to send the invaded nation the airpower and major weapons systems it most needs — while lecturing it against any attacks on the territory of the aggressor.
Iran drew the logical conclusion that it’d be safe to give Hamas the thumb’s-up for the Oct. 7 terror attacks on Israel, and indeed Biden has ever since refused to face the ample evidence that Iran’s fingerprints were all over those atrocities — despite the American citizens killed and taken hostage that day.
When Iran ordered its proxies across the Mideast to start attacking US bases, Biden took weeks to respond — and then, only against the proxies; meanwhile he handed Tehran yet more sanctions relief.
And when Iran started telegraphing its recent strike on Israel, the prez lamely warned the mullahs not to attack Israel with another pathetic don’t.
The next day, Iran launched a barrage of 300 missile and drone strikes.
Our president had US forces help defend Israel, but he did nothing to make Iran pay — indeed, counseled Israel against responding, seeing that as “escalation” rather than an absolutely necessary.
We expect that Shafik will eventually do something to take back her campus, or be forced out of office by an embarrassed board that’s now hearing the fury of Democratic congressmen.
Unfortunately, Biden will keep on “de-escalating” in America’s name at least through next January; we’re trying not to contemplate how much the nation’s enemies will escalate before he’s gone.