The home occupied by the interim president of Columbia University was attacked this week as protests against the arrest of apparent terrorist sympathizer Mahmoud Khalil rage on.
Around 12:50 a.m. on Friday, public safety officers discovered that the building where interim President Katrina Armstrong lives had been vandalized with red paint. The message “FREE THEM ALL” had also been scrawled in spray-paint on the facade.
The group Columbia University Apartheid Divest, led by Khalil, posted photos of the vandalism to X Friday morning.
“The Columbia President’s mansion has been redecorated,” the group joked in the message before adding three Palestinian flag emojis.
The group then accused Columbia officials, likely including Armstrong, of “complicity in genocide.” “The people will not stand for @Columbia’s shameless complicity in genocide! The University’s repression has only bred more resistance, lighting a flame it can’t control,” the message continued.
Whether Armstrong was home at the time of the attack is unclear. NYPD did arrive to investigate the incident, but no arrests were made.
‘Katrina Armstrong you will not be allowed peace.’
The attack on Armstrong’s home comes just days after Khalil, a Syrian national with Palestinian heritage, was arrested by ICE for allegedly spearheading violent, anti-Semitic protests on campus. He faces deportation as a result, though the possibility has been suspended as he appeals his detention in a federal facility in Louisiana.
Khalil’s attorneys have denied that he is a Hamas sympathizer.
As Khalil has a green card and a wife who is an American citizen, he has been viewed by some as the victim of overreach by the Trump administration and its crackdown on violent protesters in American universities.
However, Khalil and CUAD have a long track record of calling for the destruction of America and Israel, as Capital Research Center investigative researcher Ryan Mauro recently demonstrated. The group even brought members of Samidoun — aka the Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network, which has been designated as a terrorist entity by both the U.S. and Canadian governments — to Columbia to indoctrinate students.
As Blaze Media co-founder Glenn Beck argued, however, Khalil is a “guest” in America, and his green card is “privilege,” not a “birthright.” That privilege “comes with terms and conditions. If you break the rules, you’re out,” Beck said.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio apparently agrees. “No one has a right to a student visa. No one has a right to a green card, by the way,” Rubio stated unequivocally.
Meanwhile, ICE also entered two dorm rooms at Columbia University Thursday night, apparently with lawful warrants in hand. Agents left without detaining anyone or making any arrests, however, the New York Daily News reported.
President Armstrong professed to be “heartbroken” over the presence of the ICE agents but claimed there was little the university could do.
“The University has a clear protocol in place,” Armstrong wrote in an email. “Consistent with this protocol, our longstanding practice, and the practices of cities and institutions throughout the country, the University requires that law enforcement have a judicial warrant to enter non-public University areas, including residential University buildings. Tonight, that threshold was met.”
Armstrong’s hand-wringing has not won her any favor with the pro-Hamas crowd.
“Katrina Armstrong you will not be allowed peace as you sic NYPD officers and ICE agents on your own students for opposing the genocide of the Palestinian people,” CUAD wrote on Friday.
Protests against Khalil’s arrest have sprung up all over New York City this week, including at Trump Tower. Nearly 100 people were taken into custody on Thursday after a mob stormed into a dining area there, according to the New York Post.
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Mahmoud khalil, Columbia university, Columbia university apartheid divest, Katrina armstrong, Palestine, Hamas, Terrorism, Green card, Politics
