While NBC was busy trying to discredit Jewish students who were victims of anti-Semitic attacks and threats caught on camera at Columbia University on Tuesday, ABC’s Good Morning America thought they could get by without admitting there was antisemitism coming from the pro-Hamas crowd. Instead, correspondent Stephanie Ramos simply said Jewish students “don’t feel safe” with no explanation as to why.
Instead of focusing on the anti-Semitic attacks and rhetoric that caused classes at Columbia’s main campus to go virtual for the rest of the year, Ramos huffed about university administrators who allowed an increased police presence on campus and the crackdown on trespassers:
RAMOS: Security heightened at Columbia University where student protesters pitched tents at the center of campus. The encampments still in place this morning. Classes there going virtual Monday.
University president Minouche Shafik authorized the NYPD to make arrests last week.
MIKE GERBER (NYPD deputy commissioner, legal matters): They informed us they had students who were trespassing. They asked us to come on to campus and we did.
RAMOS: Demonstrators demanding institutions divest from companies with ties to Israel.
At those gatherings, far-left, pro-Hamas students chanted anti-Semitic slogans like “Go back to Poland” and held up signs calling for Jewish student counter-protesters to be killed. But instead of showing the ABC audience the far-left’s hatred of Jews, she highlighted one of the students arrested:
RAMOS: Columbia PhD student Linnea Norton tells us she was one of the arrested and just wants her voice to be heard.
LINNEA NORTON: We were all just sitting cross-legged together in a circle and then the NYPD came in and arrested us one by one. Immediately zip-tied us with our hands behind our backs.
Ramos did note that “Many Jewish students telling us they don't feel safe on campus,” and interviewed one who explained: “It's not only mentally exhausting. I found these past few days it's been like physically affecting me. And I got told that an Israeli flag is a Nazi flag.” But that didn’t do justice to show how dangerous the situation actually was.
Over on CBS Mornings, correspondent Meg Oliver showed a video of the “go back to Poland” chant. “Like near Columbia University where some demonstrators chanted anti-Semitic slogans. In one video, a protester can be seen holding a sign near Jewish students that reads ‘Al-Qasam’s [sic] next targets.’ A-Qassam is Hamas’s military arm,” she added.
“Columbia announced that, to ensure safety, most classes on its main campus will be hybrid for the rest of the semester. It has also more than doubled security after a recent series of anti-Semitic incidents,” Oliver reported.
At the end of her report, Ramos concluded by noting that New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft (an alum of Columbia) was “reconsidering his support for the university” without noting it was in regard to the antisemitism.
The transcript is below. Click "expand" to read:
ABC’s Good Morning America
April 23, 2024
7:04:39 a.m. Eastern(…)
STEPHANIE RAMOS: Security heightened at Columbia University where student protesters pitched tents at the center of campus. The encampments still in place this morning. Classes there going virtual Monday.
University president Minouche Shafik authorized the NYPD to make arrests last week.
MIKE GERBER (NYPD deputy commissioner, legal matters): They informed us they had students who were trespassing. They asked us to come on to campus and we did.
RAMOS: Demonstrators demanding institutions divest from companies with ties to Israel.
Columbia PhD student Linnea Norton tells us she was one of the arrested and just wants her voice to be heard.
LINNEA NORTON: We were all just sitting cross legged together in a circle and then the NYPD came in and arrested us one by one. Immediately zip tied us with our hands behind our backs.
RAMOS: Tensions have been mounting at universities since the Israel/Hamas conflict began last October. Many Jewish students telling us they don't feel safe on campus.
How has this hit you, the demonstrations over the last couple of days?
UNNAMED JEWISH STUDENT: It's not only mentally exhausting. I found these past few days it's been like physically affecting me. And I got told that an Israeli flag is a Nazi flag.
(…)