BUZZ
Group claims only way people will engage with them is if they’re so dressed
A Columbia University faculty member claimed members of a pro-Israel organization dressed in keffiyahs and “waving Palestinian flags” made her feel shaken and “unsafe” after she inquired what they were doing.
According to the Columbia Spectator, early last week several former Israeli Defense Forces members aligned with the group Frontline Advocates set up a table outside the university’s gates with a placard stating “We are IDF. We’ve been in Gaza. Ask us anything.”
Frontline Advocates “collaborates” with Israel’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs on “specific projects,” according to the report.
Its members claimed they dressed as pro-Palestinian activists in order to get people to talk to them; when they have pro-Israel paraphernalia, people ignore them, they say.
The faculty member who requested anonymity out of “fear of retaliation” from Frontline Advocates claimed she asked the “supposed protesters” what they were up to when “they allegedly called over the Israeli soldiers to answer her questions.”
When the faculty member said she did not have any queries, she claimed Frontline Advocates members “began filming her, surrounding her, and peppering her with ‘provocative’ questions about Hezbollah, Gaza, and her origins.”
A man in a ski mask who approached her allegedly said he was there “to protect” Frontline Advocates members. The faculty member described the whole encounter as “unnerving” and “unsafe.”
The disguises were confirmed by former IDF member Adi Karni while speaking with an alleged Columbia journalism graduate student. When the student asked Karni about the “morality” of the deception, he said “I think in the end it’s the other side who’s not listening.”
Jewish “anti-Zionist social media influencer” David Spevak, known on X as “David Says Stuff” (with part of his bio stating “unlearning Jewish indoctrination”) claimed in a video that the Mossad, the Israeli intelligence agency, was involved with Frontline Advocates’ actions at Columbia and elsewhere in the New York City area last week.
“They dressed up as Palestinians yesterday on American soil,” Spevak says in the video. He alleged Frontline members were “trying to incite violence” against their own group.
Since Hamas’ October 2023 attack against Israel which killed the equivalent of almost 50,000 Americans, Columbia has been a flashpoint of pro-Palestinian/anti-Israel activism. In April of 2024 activists took over a campus building, and in May of the following year 78 activists were arrested after “occupying” a library (and injuring two police officers).
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