'Scared to go to class'

Publish date: 2024-07-18

WASHINGTON (TND) — George Washington University students are demanding Washington officials intervene as anti-Israel campus protests continue.

As protests enter a sixth day at George Washington University, students told The National Desk (TND) they want to see the makeshift tent city at their campus promptly removed.

GWU student Ari Patinkin, a Jewish economics major, said the local government has failed to address an escalating problem.

Mayor Bowser, you have effectively failed to protect students both foreign and domestic within your own territory,” Patinkin said. “You have failed to keep your city safe and this is a true message that this current administration is weak.”

As the student president of GWU’s Jewish organization Chabad, Patinkin said he has been approached by many Jewish students expressing fear for their safety and future academic pursuits.

“People are not waving American flags. They’re not singing the Star-Spangled Banner. This is quite frankly an anti-American encampment,” Patinksin said. "This is anti-American, anti-Western.”

In a statement at the start of the demonstrations on Thursday, school officials said they had limited access to the University Yard and surrounding buildings to only those holding ID cards. They also warned students that failure to relocate to nearby Anniversary Park would result in temporary suspension and other consequences.

Bystanders said the encampment shrunk over the weekend, but that changed after protestors were seen removing security barriers early Monday morning.

After the barriers were removed, the Metropolitan Police Department (MPD) confirmed that the encampment had expanded, causing nearby H Street to shut down.

Patinkin said today he counted over seventy tents in what he calls "The Occupation."

It looks like a third-world country out there,” Patinkin said.

“They have taken all the barricades around and have piled them up in the middle. It’s very dramatic looking.”

Kieran Laffey, a GWU freshman political science student, said he is angry Mayor Bowser and MPD have not helped his college enforce the law.

My Jewish friends [are] scared to go to class and go near the protests,” Laffey said. “I am embarrassed to say I attend the same university with many of these terrorist-sympathizing people.”

“[T]he law is being broken. Enforce it,” Laffey added.

GWU international affairs and first-year student Carson Sturgis said he believes most of the occupiers are not fellow students.

“These individuals are wearing marks and keffiyehs because they know they are participating in antisemitism and illegal trespassing activity,” Sturgis said. “These protests and encampments are not in support of Palestine but rather in hatred towards Jews.”

Sturgis claimed that he saw protesters being transported by bus from other nearby schools located in Washington and Maryland to join the encampment.

They showed up in charter buses, parked right in front of the encampment and let out students from other schools,” Sturgis said.

Meanwhile, Patinkin said many GWU students are losing patience with the ongoing occupation.

“It’s getting harder and harder to justify why they are here,” Patinkin said. “It was hard in the first place, but it keeps on becoming a lot more disturbing.”

In a written statement to TND on Tuesday morning, Mayor Bowser said Washington is a place for people to come address their grievances with the government.

We support peaceful protests, and I rely on the Metropolitan Police Department and their experience and expertise to decide what types of interventions are necessary,” Mayor Bowser said.

In response, Patinkin said he believes a lawsuit against Bowser and MPD should be pursued.

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