Although the NYPD was finally allowed to do its job at Columbia University, it would be a mistake to believe the disgraceful episode is over.
After all, the pro-Hamas stooges, the complicit faculty and the quisling administrators are still jockeying for power.
With graduation still two weeks away, it’s too early to declare a winner.
Start with the radical students. They set up a camp in the middle of the famous quad and day-after-day chanted slogans that revealed an allegiance to terrorists.
They harassed Jewish students and their commitment to the elimination of Israel marks the resurgence of an ancient hatred in a city that has long been a safe haven for Jews.
What are the students reading in their fetid tents — “Mein Kampf”?
Meanwhile, their demands for ending the rebellion are not likely to change despite the scores of arrests Tuesday night.
Chief among them is that the Ivy League school end all investments in military suppliers and tech companies that do business with Israel’s government.
No more amnesty
Coming from a group called Apartheid Divest, the demand, along with the students’ celebrating terrorists who butcher babies and use rape as a weapon, proves beyond doubt the activists have contracted a serious case of antisemitism.
It also means they’re not very bright. No doubt most of them own Apple products, many of which include components manufactured in Israel.
Shhh — don’t tell them.
Reflecting their collective ignorance, one of the stooges said earlier Tuesday, “We will not stop until every single one of our demands are met, until every single inch of Palestine is free.” Free in this case means free of Jews.
He, or his parents, deserve a tuition refund because he has learned nothing of value and doesn’t realize how sick with hate he is.
But there’s another demand the rabble-rousers were making that now appears to be obsolete: amnesty.
The mass arrests presumably ended that possibility for many, especially those who were illegally barricaded inside Hamilton Hall.
It was a cowardly demand to begin with. The insufferable rebels without a legitimate cause believed they should suffer no consequences for violating college rules and the rights of their fellow students, and for actively supporting the eradication of the Jewish state.
Think about that. They are calling for genocide, making them guilty of the very thing they accuse Israel of committing, while depriving others of their right to an education and a sense of physical safety.
Yet they don’t think they’ve done anything wrong!
Such a stunning combination of ignorance and arrogance is more than enough justification to give them the boot.
And don’t forget the members of the faculty who helped incite this disaster. The indoctrination of students in a mud-bath of hatred against Israel has been a fixture at Columbia for decades, and supposed scholars added to their complicity by surrounding the tent camp as if to protect it from police.
They were happy to preen for the cameras, so the self-incriminating evidence against them is overwhelming, too. Tenured radicals indeed.
All these documented facts mean it shouldn’t be a hard call for Columbia to view all the student demands as absurd and reject them.
The refusal to comply with campus regulations must be punished, with suspensions for some and expulsion for the most serious violators.
Faculty members who aided and abetted the lawlessness must also pay a price.
Calling AG Bragg
And anyone of any rank who broke criminal laws, including the thugs who were arrested after smashing windows to illegally occupy Hamilton Hall, should be prosecuted to the fullest extent possible.
Calling Alvin Bragg. The case against the Columbia offenders is stronger and infinitely more legitimate than the political show trial the Manhattan DA is conducting against Donald Trump.
Let’s see if Bragg can pull himself away from his election interference scam to do the job he was elected to do.
As for Columbia’s leaders, their belated request for police action ends a shameful period of dithering and delay. Instead of providing real security, they ordered all classes to be remote, in part so Jewish students wouldn’t have to face campus harassment and threats.
The president, Minouche Shafik, also became entangled in endless negotiations with the rabble, a sign of weakness that enabled the occupation to go on for two additional weeks and grow more violent.
That delay was her most egregious mistake and represented a failure to provide peace and security for all students.
Although the agitators’ claim that they are entitled to escape any consequences reflects a national culture that extends well beyond the college gates, that can’t be an excuse for Columbia to duck its duty.
Quite the contrary. The necessity to impose tough penalties makes this what the left calls a teachable moment.
The lesson must be that misconduct comes with a price. The more serious the misconduct, the heavier the price.
Leniency is not a virtue when it fosters the belief that laws and rules don’t matter. Yet that is exactly what is happening in New York and across America.
All the more reason why Columbia must set an example that rules matter and there are consequences for breaking them.
Shafik seemed to understand that at the start of the uprising. She gave credible testimony to Congress two weeks ago about dealing with antisemitism, and called in the NYPD to break up the tent camp soon after it formed.
But when even more students came back with more tents, and after the faculty criticized her for calling the cops, Shafik lost her nerve. Until Tuesday, she waved the white flag by keeping the police off-campus.
Rule by committee
Deadlines for removing the tents came and went without noticeable action, though there were reports that some students have quietly been suspended. Those who are seniors presumably won’t be able to graduate.
Given that Shafik is in her first year as president, she is probably not making any decisions alone. Two members of the Board of Trustees joined her for the congressional appearance, likely heading off the problem that ended the presidencies of Claudine Gay at Harvard and Liz Magill at the University of Pennsylvania.
Soon after their disgusting equivocations about antisemitism last December, their boards came under pressure and demanded both women resign.
Shafik was invited to testify alongside them, but begged off by citing a scheduling conflict. That might have saved her from the same fate.
At least temporarily.
Still, she and others at Columbia created a new problem with their negotiations and decisions by committee. Reaching a consensus was time consuming, and the counter offer to invest university funds in Gaza instead of divesting from Israel was silly.
The extended talks added to the impression that the university was simply afraid to enforce its rules.
There’s a word for that — appeasement. It’s mostly reserved for international diplomacy, but it never works in any setting.
It didn’t stop Hitler and it won’t stop the Nazi-wannabes on Columbia’s campus.