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full screen New York police officers at Columbia University on the ground to break up a n pro-Palestinian protest camp outside Columbia University in New York. Image from April 30, 2024. Photo: New York Police/AP/TT
A group of wealthy businessmen have in a private chat group pressured the mayor of New York to send police to disperse Gaza protesters at Columbia University, writes The Washington Post.
After the terrorist attack by Hamas on October 7, the entrepreneurs started a chat group on Whatsapp, which included New York Mayor Eric Adams, among others. The aim was to shape public opinion in the US about the war in Gaza, the newspaper writes.
In messages, the newspaper has been able to see how participants in the chat have made political donations to the mayor. In the same chat, it has also been discussed how to put pressure on the university’s chancellor because they wanted the mayor to be allowed to send police to the university campus to disperse pro-Palestinian demonstrations.
“Open to ideas”
One person in the chat group told the newspaper that he donated $2,100, the maximum legal limit, to Adams that month.
“He’s open to any ideas we have,” one chat member wrote the day after the group had a video call with the mayor at the end of April, writes the Washington Post.
Eric Adams was prepared to send police to demonstrations right from the start. He sent police to Columbia’s campus to disperse pro-Palestinian protesters as early as April 18, at the university’s request—about a day after the protesters set up their Gaza solidarity camp. Police arrested more than 100 protesters.
Chat closed
The mayor has subsequently claimed that the student activists were influenced by “outside influences” and that police intervention was needed to prevent “kids from being radicalized”.
At the beginning of May, seven months after the chat was started, it was shut down because several of those who started the chat were no longer actively participating.