Crackdown on Campuses is Tragic, U.S. Pursuing Disastrous Policy of Complicity in Israel's Genocide in Gaza: SACHS
Columbia professor calls police response of protest on campus a "horrifying" and completely "unjustifiable" crackdown on free speech
Jeffery Sachs, the Columbia economist, said in an interview published Wednesday that he is completely opposed to the police crackdown on protests opposed to the U.S. support of Israel’s genocide in Gaza.
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He told Judge Andrew Napolitiano’s “Judging Freedom” podcast that he agrees with the protesters because they are standing up against Israel’s brutality in Gaza.
“They should be free to do so,” he said, noting that he believes they’re on the right side of history and morality.
“The administration does not want this speech. This is a national syndrome. Columbia is right in the cauldron,” he said.
“The basic problem is simple and that is that the U.S. government pursuing a disastrous policy of complicity in a completely brutal and I would say genocidal approach of Israel and young people are against it and our students are against it and they're speaking out and we are becoming more and more repressive in our national demeanor,” he said.
Columbia was cleared out by the NYPD last night and a violent confrontation occurred at UCLA when “counterprotesters wearing black outfits and white masks, arrived on campus and tried to tear down the barricades surrounding the encampment,” The Los Angeles Times reported.
The Los Angeles chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, CAIR, said the attack was carried out by a “mob of pro-Israel extremists,” the paper said.
UCLA Chancellor Gene Block said earlier that incidents on campus have put many “especially our Jewish students,” in a state of anxiety and fear, the paper said.
Sherene Razack, a professor at the school, told the paper, “It is quite shocking and demoralizing that the chancellor notes only the antisemitism faced by Jewish students when in fact there has been a significant number of incidents of racism and violence against Palestinians, Muslims and in fact anyone considered a supporter of Palestinian rights.”