According to the New York Police Department, a woman beat an Israeli student with a stick outside Columbia University’s main library on Wednesday, amid heightened tensions on the Ivy League campus over the Palestinian terrorist attack against Israel.
A 19-year-old female suspect allegedly assaulted a 24-year-old Israeli School of General Studies student with a stick in front of Columbia University Library on Wednesday, a New York Police Department spokesperson told the Columbia Daily Spectator.
People walk past the Alma Mater statue on the Columbia University campus on July 1, 2013 in New York City. An interest rate hike kicks in today for student loans, an increase for 7 million students. Congress left town at the end of last week failing to prevent rates on new Stafford student loans increasing from 3.4 percent to 6.8 percent. (Photo by Mario Tama/Getty Images)
The suspect was taken into custody and charged with one count of assault, while the Israeli student suffered minor injuries, including a laceration to his hand, the NYPD spokesperson added.
A friend of the Israeli student who was assaulted — also an Israeli General Studies student and spoke to Spectator on the condition of anonymity, citing fears for his safety — said the suspect had approached them earlier in the day when he and other students were in putting up posters with the names and photos of Israelis that Hamas took as hostages.
The friend said that the suspect asked to join them, and told the students she was Jewish. The suspect then stayed with the Israeli students throughout the morning, only to be seen later that evening clad in a bandana covering her face, tearing the flyers off the wall.
The Israeli students approached the suspect, who responded by screaming obscenities and attacking one of them with a stick.
The student who was attacked — who also spoke to Spectator on the condition of anonymity, citing fears for his safety — told the newspaper that he defended himself when the suspect tried to punch him in the face.
After that, the Israeli student said that one of his hands was bruised and his ring finger on the other hand was broken. The group then went to Columbia Public Safety, who called the NYPD.
“This is because me being an Israeli these days. Not me because being myself,” the student told Spectator, adding that he does not plan on returning to campus in the coming days.
“We were all kind of shocked that this stuff can happen on our own campus, which should be a safe haven,” he added. “We don’t know how to handle the situation, let alone that our families and friends are going through the worst nightmare, and we are mentally in the same ship with them. And, now, we have to handle the situation that campus is not a safe place for us anymore.”
Shih-Fu Chang, School of Engineering and Applied Science dean, Lisa Rosen-Metsch, School of General Studies dean, and Josef Sorett, Columbia College dean, sent a statement to undergraduate students on Thursday, Spectator reported.
In their statement, they called the campus atmosphere “extremely charged,” and said that “many are concerned for their personal safety.” The email also cited the incident in front of the library on Wednesday as an example of “intimidation and outright violence.”
“Community members are observing and experiencing disturbing anti-semitic and islamophobic acts… with some students being targeted based on their religious identity or political speech,” they wrote. “Even more, it is paramount — in a moment where it is most difficult to be together across our differences — that we recommit ourselves to doing precisely that.”
The alleged attack against Israeli student transpired in the wake of a deadly terrorist attack by Hamas against Israel last weekend, which left 1,000 Israelis dead, and as Ivy League students issue pro-Palestinian statements, blaming Jews for the massacre against them.
You can follow Alana Mastrangelo on Facebook and Twitter at @ARmastrangelo, and on Instagram.
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