By Steve Pomper
UCLA faculty and staff condoning anti-Israel occupations on campus (Photo: Creative Commons)
As I noted recently in these pages, about the 2020 Saint George Floyd/BLM/Antifa riots, that if the police are not allowed to prevent a takeover and destruction of public or private property and the violence that comes with it, the cops are still able to reclaim “occupied territory” quickly—if finally allowed to do so.
I’m convinced the 2020 takeovers were as widespread as they were because anti-cop Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey refused to allow the capable officers of the MPD to repel the radicals’ seizure and destruction of public property. By doing this, he implicitly sanctioned the insurgents who destroyed an MPD police precinct, setting it ablaze.
Feeble Frey’s inaction propelled the subsequent riots that spread to many of our once great cities—including establishing an anarchy village in Seattle. Before police ended the nearly month-long siege, two young men would be murdered and many more people raped, robbed, and assaulted, as described in an interview in The Hill with then-Police Chief Carmen Best.
This takeover/take-back happened in 2020 in Seattle during then-Mayor “Jenny Durkan’s Summer of Love,” CHOP/CHAZ “street party.” After terrorizing a significant chunk of Capitol Hill, a mixed commercial and residential neighborhood east of downtown, from June 7th until July 1st, when finally allowed, the police chopped down CHOP with one swing of a law and order axe.
Now, in 2024, at Columbia University, we’re seeing similar occupations/reclamations occurring. Cops regaining control of campuses in mere hours, following school and government administrations’ refusing to allow officers to prevent the occupation or to immediately clear the radicals from campus.
How much additional vile, anti-Semitic poison were Jewish students exposed to during the interim that police could have prevented if allowed to? Some of these students had family members who lived in the brutal, anti-Semitic 1930’s-40’s Nazi Germany. Some of those relatives were later murdered during the Holocaust.
“Never again!” is real to them, and it should be to all of us.
Back in Seattle, the University of Washington (UW) administration is allowing an anti-Semitic occupation to occur on school grounds, as reported by The Daily (a UW publication). Today, I heard on Sen. Ted Cruz’s podcast, Verdict, speaking of the University of Washington’s pro-Hamas encampment, Sen. Cruz said, “Look, we saw horrifically at the University of Washington the radicals chanting to Jews go back to the ovens.”
These cruel morons at UW created a shameful but also laughable moment when their call for a pro-Hamas encampment had to be delayed because, according Jason Rantz at MyNorthwest.com, “Activists with the UW Progressive Student Union (UWPSU) announced they are postponing Thursday’s ‘UW Palestine encampment’ because there were too many white students involved. The group received criticism for not including Muslim and Arab students in the organizing. And now you have warring factions of extremists quibbling over who will get credit for demonizing Jews and Israel” .
Well, as if now, it’s still up and running and hatin’ on the Jews.
And, after missing their high school graduations due to the CCP virus pandemic, many students, now at various universities, will also miss their college graduations because of these spoiled brat, elitist bullies who feel they have a right to force their view of the world on everyone.
Similar delays in deploying law enforcement with the eventual police arrests of suspects and reclamation of property held by the illegal occupation was repeated at UCLA, Portland State, and other universities nationwide. Ironically, California Governor Gavin Newsom had the audacity to criticize the California police agencies (i.e., UCLA PD, LAPD, and CHP) for, as the BBC put it, their “delayed response to the violence.”
There is plenty of evidence that shows many university and government leaders would not authorize the police to act. The cops don’t unilaterally decide to go into situations like this. They must be requested by the institution and then deployed by those in charge. In fact, tellingly, in the BBC’s anti-Israel, biased reporting, it appears it wasn’t until Jewish students began fighting back at UCLA, “before officers were called to the campus.”
“Governor Gavin Newsom’s spokesperson said the ‘limited and delayed’ police intervention was ‘unacceptable.’” Oh, give me a break! Newsome has been a ghost during much of this chaos. Fortunately, LAPD Chief Choi took a different approach, thanking the cops.
It’s not magic, folks. Preventing and quelling riots is a part of what cops do. The pro-Hamas radicals disparage the cops, calling them “KKK” and “Pigs” (while calling each other “comrade”), and calling for defunding or dismantling the police. That should surprise no one. Criminals don’t like cops.
The thing is, a lot of the crimes committed—ugly, reprehensible, anti-Semitic offenses against Jewish students, university property damage, and other consequences of appeasement, could have been avoided if officials had requested and deployed law enforcement in a timely manner.
One news report I saw shows what appears to be a “useful” pro-Hamas “idiot” doing a “soccer flop” worthy of an English Premier League footballer, apparently trying to make people believe a cop threw the protester’s revolutionary butt down the steps (although, I must say, it was a solid pratfall—so, credit where it’s due and all that).
We also saw (we’ll leave the “useful” out for this idiot) a young, gangly guy run toward the cops, carrying a makeshift, plastic garbage can “shield.” He makes a pathetic attempt to knock down a Portland officer, which didn’t go well for him. Instead, the officer stood firm, causing the dweeb to buckle after the collision. The cops then quickly arrest the moron.
But there’s some good news courtesy of a recent decision by an Arizona judge. As I wrote in a recent Substack article, “As they need to do more often these days, ‘A judge in Arizona has denied a motion that would have lifted the suspension of twenty students arrested last week amid anti-Israel protests.’ They need to learn there are consequences for their Marxist actions.”
I also wrote, “According to Timothy H.J. Nerozzi at FOX News, police arrested 72 students following their alleged participation in an illegal pro-Hamas encampment. Twenty of the students suspended for violating ASU policy (and the law) filed a motion in court to have their suspensions lifted. They claim, ‘the suspensions violate their First Amendment rights.’
“Really? So, what was the ‘free speech’ for which the university suspended them? Criminal Trespassing. Last I checked, trespassing does not qualify as free speech. And there are consequences to protesters for their actions that go beyond free speech—at least, there should be.
Nerozzi wrote, ‘Students and faculty have demanded the university drop any charges against the protesters with ongoing demonstrations since the arrests.’” Demanded? Who do these people think they are? All students sign contracts agreeing to follow school policies.
Despite what the pro-Hamas demonstrators have to say about cops, even reprising the venerable old “pigs” invective, American law enforcement is very good at what they do—the best in the world. People see just how good American cops are regardless of whether media portray them clearing the illegal encampments as positive or negative because law enforcement does it so efficiently.
That’s because, after an institution’s appeasement fails, and they finally feel forced to deploy law enforcement, the cops always reclaim the property relatively quickly from these ignorant morons who have the nerve to believe they have a right to occupy a campus space or building.
These are morons who actually believe the people against whom they are committing crimes (the universities), should provide them with food and water (and many other items). Or as one young hyperbolic pro-Hamas Marxist claimed, “basic humanitarian aid,” or the student occupiers could “die of… starvation.”
This is also shameful and laughable when they’re the ones who chose to burglarize and vandalize the building, could have left whenever they wanted to, and, as one onlooker commented, there’s a freakin’ hotdog stand across the street! Oh, right. This is just more oppression because there’s not much of a chance the stand sells vegan hotdogs.