Columbia’s anti-Israel student alliance booted from Instagram

The anti-Israel student coalition at Columbia University was booted from Instagram on Monday, the latest pro-Palestinian activist organization in New York to have a social media account banned.

Columbia University Apartheid Divest, the consortium of dozens of student groups that took a leading role in the encampment protest last spring, was removed from the platform after posting plans on Saturday for a protest that included an image of a figure holding a Molotov cocktail. The account had more than 40,000 followers.

The protest, which was scheduled for Monday, was to focus on Barnard College, the women’s college associated with Columbia. A later announcement from the protesters said the rally was taking place off campus.

“Barnard will be the first domino to fall — an instrumental piece in toppling the entire university,” the post said.

The protest announcement included photos apparently of university trustees, saying they were “enemies,” “murderers,” and “violently genocidal zionists,” and included inverted black triangles on a red background. Red inverted triangles, which Hamas uses to mark its targets in propaganda videos, have been adopted as a protest symbol by anti-Israel activists.

“Trustees are not untouchable, and now we know their names,” the post said.

Barnard restricted access to campus on Monday to those with valid IDs and implemented other security measures “due to active concerns for violence on Barnard’s campus,” university president Laura Ann Rosenbury said in a message to the campus community sent out on Sunday.

“Inflammatory posts with violent imagery and specific calls for action against the Barnard College community have been circulating on social media,” Rosenbury said in the message, which the university shared with the New York Jewish Week. “Any statements that advocate for violence or harm, including the destruction of property, are a direct violation of our code of conduct and are antithetical to the core principles and mission of Barnard.”

Columbia University Apartheid Divest is an alliance of student groups led by the campus chapters of Students for Justice in Palestine and the anti-Zionist Jewish Voice for Peace, which have been banned from campus for violating protest rules.

The encampment, which CUAD co-organized, sparked a nationwide student movement, and at Columbia it culminated in the forcible takeover of a campus building and dozens of arrests. The campus pro-Palestinian protests have drawn extensive scrutiny from members of Congress, who released a 300-page report on Columbia and other universities in November.

The protests have not been as disruptive this year, but the activists’ rhetoric has escalated. In October, CUAD put out a statement openly endorsing violence and armed resistance “by any means necessary.” 

Last week, protesters at Columbia distributed a newsletter on campus called the “Columbia Intifada” that argued against Israel’s right to exist. The Second Intifada was a violent Palestinian uprising against Israel two decades ago that included waves of suicide bombings and killed an estimated 1,000 Israelis. 

Columbia University Apartheid Divest said on Monday that the suspension was “targeted suppression” meant to “erase Palestine and its movement for liberation” in a statement sent out on the Telegram messaging app.

Other anti-Israel groups in the city have been banned from Instagram since the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas invasion of Israel, which launched Israel’s ongoing multi-front war, mass protests and a wave of antisemitic hate crimes in New York. 

Within Our Lifetime, a hardline group that is perhaps the most visible anti-Israel activist organization in the city, was removed from Instagram in February for violating the platform’s “dangerous organizations and individuals policy.” Within Our Lifetime has worked with Columbia student protesters, including on an unsanctioned event last year that featured members of the activist group Samidoun — which the federal government later took action against because it raises money for a Palestinian terror group. 

Columbia’s chapter of Students for Justice in Palestine was banned from Instagram months later, and days after that, the People’s Solidarity Coalition at New York University, an anti-Israel coalition, was suspended.

Meta, the parent company of Instagram, did not respond to a request for comment on Monday.