Ezra Levant examines Hamas-linked protests at FIT and Columbia, where chants like "Divest from apartheid" and "Cancel the Tel Aviv Global Center" ignore Israel’s equal Arab-Jewish citizenship and Knesset representation. Twin brothers Keelan and Bailey Cornegay describe encampments as disruptive, harming classes and safety for Jewish students, while activists dodge interviews, calling Levant a "Nazi" and citing media-trained spokespeople. Sarna Zilberman, a Jewish-Israeli student, reports aggressive antisemitic rhetoric—"from the river to the sea"—and faculty complicity, despite selective vandalism sparing posters of kidnapped Israelis inside tents. Levant argues these protests reflect organized, woke-driven antisemitism and anti-Western extremism, not genuine student activism, contrasting them with his view of grassroots movements. [Automatically generated summary]
Yesterday, we took so much footage in our visit to Columbia University.
We need a second day to tell you the whole story.
And believe it or not, today we got more footage from another Hamas protest raid in the Fashion Institute of Technology that happened just as we were driving by.
Tonight, we'll show you more of the story of anti-Semitism colonizing Western universities.
Shame on you, you censorious bug.
You know, I suppose when they're not rioting, burning, or assaulting, it's still a lovely place to go to university.
I mean, look at that library.
Have you ever seen a library like that in your life?
Do you think any of the people in this encampment even know who those dead white men are?
Let alone think they could learn from them.
Pearls before swine, they say.
Imagine centuries of learning wasted on these likes.
Unbelievable.
Divest from apartheid.
Cancel the Tel Aviv Global Center.
I've been to Tel Aviv.
I've been to all of Israel and most of Israel.
And I know that it is not apartheid.
In fact, it's the only state in the region where both Jews and Muslims have citizenship.
In fact, there's Arabs in the Knesset and the Supreme Court.
I think that one of the reasons why these folks in this group keep saying, talk to our leader, talk to our spokesman, is because they don't actually know much more than a few chanted lines.
And there's some guy who's been pestering you.
We haven't really been able to get into your character of Miles McKinnis.
You've either been recognized by people who know you from your real life or some other guy.
It's very stressful.
I can't do my guy.
This is maybe why I had to retire Miles is because I keep getting ripped out of the character.
I think you're quite recognized.
Right there.
Yeah.
Well, should we try one more time?
Yeah, I mean, whenever you're engaging with these guys, I can tell that your inner anger, you're not able to suppress it with because you're just so disgusted with what you see.
And so you, instead of keeping in character as Miles, I'm seeing the Gavin McKinnon.
I just hate students so much.
I hate them.
I hate that guy's bare feet.
I hate his kafaya.
I hate their expensive tents.
I'm just seething.
You know, I went to a fine university.
I'm not criticizing him.
I went to a local university called the University of Calgary.
And then I went to University of Alberta.
And they were pretty affordable.
I actually remember what my tuition was at law school.
It was $8,000 a year to go to law school at U of A.
And I got a good education and I met wonderful people.
But being in this, I mean, this is European style.
Like, that library reminds me of, I mean, this isn't quite Oxford, but this is in a league of elite scholarship and academics.
And for these people to use it as a latrine, that's what makes me angry.
I don't hate students.
I hate the woke students that are pissing away this gem, like the fool that threw a pearl back into the ocean.
How are you?
I don't understand what you have to say.
I'm Ezra Levant.
I'm here from Rebel News, and I'm mad about this.
Are you guys students here?
Oh, yeah.
Would you talk on camera?
No.
About what?
About what's going on here, but whatever you want to talk about.
You guys look like brothers.
What's your name?
I'm Keelan Cornegay.
Nice to meet you.
What's your name?
Bailey Cornegay.
You guys are twins, you say?
I can tell you look pretty sporty.
What's your opinion?
I'm from Canada.
I've come down here.
I got some opinions as an outsider.
You guys are students here?
Yes, sir.
Yes, sir.
Where are you from?
Where are you from?
Georgia, Georgia.
I'm guessing.
If Eastern Georgia, you're from Georgia.
Well, give me straight up.
You guys seem like regular guys.
Yeah, I mean, if you ask me, it's not my favorite thing in the world.
You know, I'm not going to say you can't protest, but I think that it's honestly like they're just disrupting so much, to be quite honest.
It's just like finals are all messed up.
Classes are messed up.
We're going virtual, stuff like that.
These things have just like, it just kind of stresses the regular student out, like, especially with like the football on top of it.
We're like going, doing this and that.
And this is all going on.
We have to worry about whether we can get in through this gate, that gate.
We're all closed off.
It's like, it kind of feels like we don't have a, have our own.
It's not our school anymore in a way.
Let me ask you this.
I know that there's protests, but then there's some what I would call anti-Semitic actions.
Are you aware of any Jewish kids or other kids who think, I don't want to even go to school anymore because I feel like it's not my place?
That's what all the professors, like, that's why we're all doing a bunch of virtual stuff now because these Jewish kids are scared.
You know, that's the problem.
That's what I think the big, I think it's all great when people express their, you know, their rights and stuff like that.
But like, I feel like this is just taking it a step forward, just step a little too far.
You know, the anti-Semitic stuff is like just not, it's not cool.
You know, I didn't go to a gorgeous school like this.
I went to a good school.
I'm not putting down my school in any way.
But seeing this beautiful place and just I'm sort of homesick for what I didn't have, you know?
And what's on my mind is these guys getting an amazing opportunity and using it for this instead.
That's what, and I'm not even from here, but I feel that way.
Yeah.
I feel like our dad, our dad also, he's from Africa, immigrated here when he's 17.
And he went to college here and he thinks the same thing.
He thinks it's sort of like it's just a bunch of, I'd say, probably privileged kids that don't really know a whole lot about the situation.
They're just there to fight and be in something, I guess.
And so these kids are just using this money from the school, from banks and from their parents and stuff like that, and kind of just wasting it away and just kind of just using it towards something that just they could do in another way.
We all commit to remain grounded in why we enter this space.
Can journalists go in there?
No.
The students are asking that journalists listen to the press conference over there and there will be an opportunity to ask questions over there from the students who are participating in the encampment.
Now, there's probably like a hundred reporters there.
I don't think it's likely that I'd be able to get my question.
I'm just here to de-escalate.
I don't actually know why you're filming me.
I'm just here to de-escalate and help keep everyone calm.
Your best.
I'm so calm, I'm almost asleep.
Your best opportunity for talking to the students is to go over there.
You can ask questions at the press briefing.
Are you a student here?
You know, I'm surprised to see some Asian kids in there.
And I know that's sort of a stereotype, but I know that a lot of immigrant families who come to America and the first generation works their butt off at maybe a convenience store working 100 hours a week so their kids can get into a great school like Columbia.
Parents scrape together the money than to have their kids piss away their money here.
It's sort of shocking to me.
I don't think I am.
I don't think I'm making it hard for anyone to enter or exit.
You're the only one who's saying that.
I don't know.
I used to think that, you know, that I think that phrase in Chinese is baits wool, if I'm remembering correctly, which is a Chinese term for a term of derision to mock stupid white liberals, woke white liberals who take their own case against themselves.
And I think, though, by looking at the kids inside, it's every demographic background.
It's sort of sad in a way that new immigrant communities are being co-opted by woke anti-Semitism.
I find that a little bit sad.
No, sorry, you're pressed.
You have a microphone.
My microphone.
That guy's a Jew.
Okay, just like that, you gotta go.
We gotta leave.
That's also against our community guidelines.
You gotta go out of here.
You gotta get out of here.
Thanks a lot.
You gotta get out of here.
They won't let me in because I'm a Jew and they won't let you in because you don't let me in because I'm anti-Semitic.
They really have both ends of this thing covered.
Just the world, and we know that we are on the right side of it.
They've been standing strong with their fellow students and are committed to standing in solidarity with the people of Gaza and Palestinians more largely.
I think what the students here are trying to do is remind the world that there's a genocide happening in Gaza.
Our politicians, our president even seems to continue to try to take attention away from that and attention away from his act of complicity in arming Israel and engaging in this genocide.
And the fact that these students have gotten their attention, I think, is incredibly impressive and hopefully will pressure them to put their attention back to the people of Gaza.
Are you guys willing to talk to us on camera?
No, thank you.
Come.
The answer is over there.
Thank you.
Pardon me?
The answer is no.
No, thank you.
Can I ask why?
Nope, no, thank you.
I mean, you're protesters, so I presume you have a message to elaborate.
No, thank you.
We don't want to speak with the press.
Is that because you don't really know why you're here?
No, thank you.
We don't know.
We're in the middle of a conversation.
Thank you.
Just clean up.
How long have you guys been hanging out here?
No, thank you.
We don't want to speak with the press.
You know what?
That's enough.
We said no.
Just keep going.
We're having a personal conversation.
Have I triggered you?
No, thank you.
We don't want to speak with the press.
Okay, that's enough.
All right.
Well, I'm having some trouble talking to the Palestinian activists.
There's absolutely no trouble talking.
We have media trained personnel right there.
You're perfectly licensed to go over there and talk to them.
Some of these people here are not media trained.
Yeah, and I've heard that.
I don't know what media training has to do with just saying what they believe in their heart.
These people have been well versed on what we believe in our hearts, and they're relaying it right there.
I don't know why you're not going over there and listening.
I can take you over here.
We have a tent encampment here.
It's sort of like Chaz.
Remember Chaz?
Chop?
Yeah, the Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone in Seattle.
Yeah.
It was called Chaz until people started making fun of us because of Chas Bono.
So we changed it to CHOP.
But this doesn't have a name yet.
A lot of people are calling it Tent Town.
And it's just a way to oppose the transatlantic slave trade and colonialism.
And obviously to oppose the genocide going on in Israel right now.
So we have all the community guidelines written out there.
Who wrote those guidelines?
We all came up with it together.
Would you have like a vote or something?
Yeah, we don't wear shoes.
Shoes are not a big deal for us.
You'll notice we have very high-quality tents.
Where did those come from?
Who paid for the tents?
Our parents, mostly.
But it rains here.
As you can see, we practice what's called back security, where you can oppose someone using their back.
And yeah, we have seminars in there.
We have bongo drums.
We have security, two layers of security.
Women first, then men.
Yep.
And yeah, so it's even if you tried bum rushing the show, we wouldn't let you in.
And a lot of it is just hanging around.
We've been trying to put some tarps on a tent here using tape, and it's not going well because none of us have actually had a job before, so we don't know how to do stuff.
Or outdoorsy people.
Not really.
I mean, you'll notice a lot of these tents are brand new, so it's the first time they've been used.
But we're learning as we go.
What does demilitarize education mean?
See, this is where media training comes in handy.
So to demilitarize education means to have a pedagogy that teaches that war is wrong.
A lot of the history, a lot of the pedagogy at this school will promote colonialism, and we talk about it through the prism of genocide.
So World War I was genocide.
World War II was genocide.
Vietnam was genocide of the Vietnamese people.
Israel is a giant genocide.
You're talking about the obvious stuff like history and politics, but what about math or physics?
How do you demilitarize?
How do you queer mathematics?
How do you queer physics?
You make it available to other people.
If you look at the Fields medals, not one homosexual has ever run the Fields medal in mathematics.
Why is that?
Because of homosexuality.
Sure?
Probably.
You wouldn't know.
I bet not.
I've seen the pictures of them.
They don't look good.
Their whole movie about touring or something?
Yeah, that was bullshit.
That's part of the thing we want to do to demilitarize.
Try to get through there.
You won't have hope in hell.
No, they're highly trained.
Yeah.
That's why we do that.
That's why we have security here.
Normally protesters want to talk to people.
Why do you think everyone here is so shy?
Because we don't want to give Nazis a platform.
So we have media-trained people that, again, are over there.
You can work with them, and it's fine.
But I think, you know, if you want to have any questions, it's all right there.
Financial divestment, academic boycott.
So we don't let any Israelis in the school, I guess.
Don't invest in Israel.
And then stop displacing Palestinians on campus.
And no police on campus.
And end the silence, but from media-trained people.
Why No Israelis?00:07:12
Seems pretty obvious to me.
Well, we're in the center of the university.
And as you saw, the university has resumed, although I think a lot of it is done virtually.
You saw those two twin brothers in the football program here who were upset by the disruption.
That said, there are a lot of students here.
If I had to estimate the number of people in the autonomous zone, I'd probably say it's only a couple hundred.
It feels like it's professionally organized.
Obviously, the tents are paid for by a third party.
You can see so many of them are new and expensive and of the same kinds.
They have, quote, media spokesmen, which is not a normal thing for a grassroots, organic protest movement.
This is a controlled, orchestrated movement.
It has a bit of an Antifa vibe to it.
I'm sure there's a lot of overlap.
I'm sure it's different at night When we've seen just shocking footage of fires and physical assaults and the targeting of Jews, I don't know if those Jews will be coming back.
If I was visibly Jewish, that is, if I had, you know, were a yarmaka or other indicia that I was Jewish, I don't know how comfortable I'd be walking by this pit of anti-Semites.
I think the number one thing that still is striking to me is how this center of absolute wealth and privilege, the most privileged 0.01% of society who are given the opportunity to come to this university prefer to sit in squalor in an anti-Semitic encampment.
And anti-Semitic is just part of it.
I mean, anti-Western, anti-liberal.
There's a real difference between being liberal and being progressive, isn't there?
I don't know.
I suppose in some sense, I thought I would have a chance to interact.
But that was my mistake in assuming this was a genuine grassroots protest.
This is a highly organized, financed, orchestrated, public event.
And the fact that the university has not simply cleared these folks out after days and days suggests that they have plenty of support, both in the faculty and in the administration.
Can I ask you a question?
Do your parents know you're here?
Do your parents know you're here?
I wonder if the parents know they're here.
You know, almost all of them cover their face.
And of course, there's a political overlap between people who were terrified by COVID, thought wearing a mask was a sign of their moral righteousness, and thought, in fact, it was a partisan statement against right-wing skeptics or dissidents.
So for sure, a lot of people here would probably be wearing that mask anyways.
But I think it's for a more practical purpose.
I think these people here have decided to cast their lot with racists and anarchists and anti-Semites.
And they probably don't want their face shown because, you know, this is an elite university.
And, you know, some of these kids will wind up being, you know, unemployable sociologists or whatever.
But this is a place that surely is recruited by consulting firms like McKinsey, by senior law firms.
And if your mama and daddy paid $100,000 Canadian a year to get you in this university and you decided to go on a lark with a bunch of neo-Nazis, you know, condemning Jews to death verbally, I don't think you would want your face to be seen by prospective employers either.
I think that's what the masks are about.
Can you please tell us your name?
Yes, Sarna Zilberman.
And are you a student here at Columbia?
I'm a student Trans-Colombia.
I'm a third year GS student.
It is the School of General Studies.
And are you Jewish?
I'm Jewish.
I'm also Israeli.
And what has it been like on campus in recent days and weeks?
It has been very challenging with everything happening.
We had days in which we did not feel safe to come to campus.
I do not feel safe for a while now to come to classes.
What happens in classes?
So far, nothing had happened, but honestly, a lot of my fellow students are here in the camp.
And what do people say or do that makes you uncomfortable?
Very aggressive messages, very extreme messages, if it is from the river to the sea, if it is to globalize the Anti-fada, antifada.
As an Israeli student, this is part of my history.
This is something that I understand the meaning of it.
It means a pogrom, it means a violent riot.
And who would say these things?
Fellow students and people who have been able to come into campus, who are not students, and people from the administration, and even professors.
Now, I find that some of these protesters don't know anything.
They're just repeating mantras that they're not well informed and they're just following a mob.
Is that inaccurate or is it a mix?
Are there some like I imagine there are some experts, but I feel like a lot of these students don't know what they're doing, but they're caught up in a movement.
Am I wrong?
Am I giving them too much credit?
I think that a good amount of the people here have been misled and they receive misinformations and that is what leads them to believe what they believe and they are extremely hemdium and they do not realize the bigger picture and how much it does impact everyone around them.
Now I see the posters of the kidnapped Israelis and I see an Israeli flag and an American flag.
It's startling to see the juxtaposition of that with the anti-Israel encampment there.
Did you just put these up or do these stay unvandalized?
Because I would imagine with those people there and with the way you've described things, these would be ripped down in an hour if they weren't guarded.
You give a lot of credit if you think that it would have happened in an hour.
Usually it's in a matter of a few minutes and I'm talking from experience.
First of all, they've been put here yesterday afternoon by my friends.
They stayed here because there are a lot of traumaists around that are recording everything and I believe that they just don't want to be seen as doing that.
Anti-Israel Juxtaposition00:03:35
But out of campus, they do it immediately.
And what's the Jewish population of Colombia?
Is it 5% or 10%?
Like I would guess that in your heart of New York, it's an excellent school.
Are there a lot of Jews here?
We are a very close community.
We very much care about each other, but we're not a majority.
I would guess that we're less than 5%.
Well, we're walking away from the unhygienic shanty town, and it wasn't what I thought.
I thought my chief emotion would be anger and those associated emotions, but it's actually contempt.
Contempt for how gross they are, how docile they are, how inauthentic it is, how none of them have the courage or knowledge to speak.
They all have their spokesman, how they're pissing away a $100,000 Canadian year education.
I leave here with contempt.
I leave here with a dead brother.
Miles McInnes, I think is retired.
Those were all way more absurd than Miles was.
So I can't do that character anymore.
You're right.
He's been dwarfed.
I remember when you did Miles McInnes with us five, six years ago, it was so funny because it was an exaggeration, and there's a lot of comedy in absurd exaggeration.
Now you are the most normal person there.
Miles would be like a cool, tough, smart guy in that crowd.
Like it's not funny because it's just who they are now.
Whereas five years ago, it was a mockery of who they were.
That's amazing that the left has become a character of itself.
And it's taken seriously by so many, though.
And by the way, one of the ladies who was blocking us from entry there, she said to someone else that she's a professor here.
She's not a student here.
She's a professor being an enforcer.
Oh, really?
Yeah, the lady with the shorter lady with the blue face mask.
Ah, yeah, they're just such spoiled, weak, and personality-less people.
No one had any kind of gumption or character.
The highlight of my visit here, besides seeing you again, was those twin brothers on the football team.
Maybe I didn't want to take up too much of their time, but you could tell that they were visible minorities.
They said their dad came from Africa as an immigrant, that Columbia was his ticket to opportunity, and that they felt an obligation to him to follow in his footsteps.
That's what I heard them say.
And they gave me some hope that not everyone is in this madhouse is insane.
But I wouldn't want to send my kids here.
Those two that you interviewed were at the very most 1% of the student body here.
I mean, I saw you go up to maybe 100 different people and ask for an interview, and they would even say no, like as you pulled up your microphone.
Cowards.
Well, not just cowards, but absolutely ignorant, cult-like.
On our way in, we saw people saying free, free, free Palestine, free, free Palestine.
Like it's a mantra.
Like it's a mantra.
It's a cult-like mantra.
It's a hypnotic trance because they don't have a lot of content because they actually don't know.
They couldn't find Gaza on a map.
They couldn't find Israel on a map.
They couldn't find Ukraine on a map.
And some of them wouldn't even find America on a map.
And they're so ignorant other than this is tear things down.
That's why the Marxists, the communists were outside.
Free, Free Palestine00:00:44
They want to tear things down.
And when you were at a beautiful place, like what's the, you can see on the library of Columbia University, MDC, that's 1754.
I think that's what that says.
MDCC LIB 1754.
For 250 years, King's College, founded in the province of New York by royal charter in the reign of George II, perpetuated as Columbia College by the people of the state of New York when they became free and independent, maintained and cherished from generation to generation for the advancement of the public good and the glory of Almighty God.