Columbia University President Minouche Shafik should resign her position, as it is a "disgrace" that she allowed anti-Israel protests to continue at the Ivy League school, leaving Jewish students threatened, Rep. Mike Lawler told Newsmax on Saturday.
"There's nothing to negotiate here," the New York Republican, who visited the Columbia campus with House Speaker Mike Johnson earlier this week, told Newsmax's "Wake Up America."
"We made that very clear to President Shafik when we met with her. I said to her face that if this was any other group, you and I both know you would crack down on it immediately."
But, he said he told Shafik that "because it's Jewish students and because it's under the guise of the conflict between Israel and Palestine, you have no problem with it, and if you're not going to deal with this, you know you need to go."
Lawler said Saturday that the protesters heckled, booed, and cursed at the lawmakers while they were at the university and were chanting anti-Israel slogans.
"It's just emblematic of the problems on these universities," he said. "This is the participation-trophy generation and they've finally made it to college. They've never been told no, and there's never been consequences for their actions, and that's part of the problem here."
Further, Shafik thinks she can negotiate with the protesters, said Lawler, but "these people are identifying themselves as Hamas. Hamas is a terrorist organization. There is nothing to negotiate here."
He added that it's clear that many of the protesters "don't have the first foggiest clue why they're protesting."
"Many of them are paid agitators funded by groups that are funded by George Soros and other left-wing organizations," said Lawler. "This is meant to undermine and destabilize the United States, Israel, and the free world, and it's a problem."
Hamas, not Israel, is the "oppressor of the Palestinian people," he added.
"It's Hamas, a terrorist organization, that uses innocent Palestinians as human shields," said Lawler. "They set up camp in hospitals and schools, using them to try and protect themselves. As I said in my speech, I want the Palestinian people to be free. But it is not Israel that is the oppressor."
Israel, meanwhile, "is the only multicultural and multiracial, multi-ethnic, multi-religious democracy in the Middle East," said Lawler. "Many of these people who are protesting, should they go to Gaza, would not find a very welcoming situation on the ground for themselves."
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Sandy Fitzgerald ✉
Sandy Fitzgerald has more than three decades in journalism and serves as a general assignment writer for Newsmax covering news, media, and politics.
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