Share:
Jafari Sinclaire Allen
Jafari Sinclaire Allen’s Participation in the Pro-Hamas Encampment at Columbia University (Columbia)
Jafari Sinclaire Allen participated in the pro-Hamas encampment at Columbia in April 2024. He has also spread hatred of Israel.
Columbia professor Jafari Sinclaire Allen was featured [00:00:40] in a video published by the New York Times participating in the pro-Hamas encampment at Columbia. Allen can be seen in the video standing behind Mahmood Mamdani while wearing a brown baseball cap, a white surgical mask around his neck and an orange faculty vest.
Numerous Columbia faculty and staff members participated in the encampment wearing bright orange vests with yellow and gray stripes. Taped to each vest was a label that said either “FACULTY” or “STAFF.” They had organized to support the student protestors in various ways. Some made up a “human barricade” to prevent Jewish students from entering [00:03:16] the campus, and some held signs saying: “HANDS OFF OUR STUDENTS" and [00:00:31] “No cops on campus.” Other faculty and staff “lined up in front of the encampment in a show of solidarity with the student body."
There was also a group of Columbia faculty and staff members who wore [00:01:00, 00:02:12] yellow vests with gray stripes during the encampment. On one occasion, they prevented [00:03:06] those they deemed “provocateurs” [00:01:09, 00:01:26] from entering Columbia as well.
On April 30, 2024, Allen posted a photo on Instagram of the New York Police Department (NYPD) on the street outside Columbia and wrote: “utterly unjustifiable.”
On April 30, 2024, participants in Columbia’s second pro-Hamas encampment forced their way into the university’s Hamilton Hall, barricading themselves in the building and taking three Columbia custodians hostage. Protesters also vandalized [00:00:55] and destroyed university property inside the hall. A police raid on Hamilton found knives, gas masks, ropes and literature that read: “...DESTROY zionist business interests everywhere!...DEATH TO AMERICA!...”
On May 1, 2024, Allen posted a personal statement on Instagram following the arrest of protesters at Hamilton Hall one day earlier.
Allen’s statement said [slide 2]: “...I support current students’ demand to stop displacement from Harlem to Palestine. I join them in calling for financial disclosures, and financial divestment from Israel, including Israeli universities, so long as the state continues its brutal occupation, system of apartheid, and ongoing genocide in Gaza…”
On June 1, 2024, Allen posted a photo on Instagram of a tent from a third encampment established on the Columbia lawn on May 31, 2024. A banner on the tent said: “WE’RE BACK B**CHES!”
Allen’s post said: “(the Morningside campus has not seen me, but here it is) The ‘Revolt for Rafah’ encampment, as reported by Columbia Spectator…”
On May 31, 2024, The Columbia Spectator reported that a group of protesters pitched tents during Columbia’s 2024 alumni reunion. The encampment lasted two days before it was dismantled by public safety officers.
Columbia is located in New York, New York.
On April 17, 2024, Columbia students and anti-Israel activists set up a pro-Hamas “Gaza Solidarity Encampment” on the university's main lawn. Many participants were arrested and the encampment featured multiple violent incidents, including taking over a campus building and taking a university worker hostage.
Activists protested Israel’s war against Hamas and demanded that Columbia “divest from companies and institutions that profit from Israeli apartheid, genocide and occupation…”
The action had reportedly been planned for months and was organized by the Columbia University Apartheid Divest (CUAD) coalition. The encampment was also organized by Columbia’s banned pro-Hamas activist group Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) and the university chapter of Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP). Activists reportedly received training from National SJP and other anti-Israel organizations.
Among the encampment leaders was Columbia student Khymani James who had said [00:00:25]: “Zionists…They are nazis!... They’re supporters of genocide! Why would we want people who are supporters of genocide to live?... Be glad, be grateful that I am not just going out and murdering Zionists.” Aidan Parisi, another encampment leader, responded to Columbia’s demand to disband the encampment by declaring online that: “COLUMBIA WILL BURN.”
The encampment was forcibly dismantled at the directive of Columbia’s president and administration. The NYPD [New York Police Department] entered the area, cleared the encampment and arrested more than 100 protestors, approximately 80 of whom were Columbia students. The students were charged with trespassing and suspended from Columbia indefinitely.
The next day, activists created a new encampment. When divestment negotiations with Columbia failed, protesters illegally forced their way into the university’s Hamilton Hall on April 30, 2024. They smashed [00:00:55] through a glass-paneled door, broke security cameras, threw university property out of the windows and unfurled [00:00:01] a banner in the building’s wall that read: “INTIFADA,” a term in Arabic for uprising or insurrection that carries the connotation of violence.
While barricading themselves in the building, agitators kept three Columbia custodians hostage and stopped them from leaving. When the NYPD raided and dismantled the encampment a second time, they arrested more than 100 students, nearly half of whom were reportedly not affiliated with Columbia.
NYPD shared on Twitter photos of objects the police found in Hamilton Hall. These included knives, hammers, gas masks, ropes and a pamphlet that read [video 1]: “...DISRUPT/RECLAIM/DESTROY zionist business interests everywhere! DEATH TO ISRAELI REAL STATE! DEATH TO AMERICA!...LONG LIVE THE INTIFADA!”
Just outside the encampment area, Jewish students were called [slide 2]: “Uncultured a** b**ches!” and were told to “Go back to Europe!” Activists also said [slide 3] to them: “Yahoodim [Jews], yahoodi [Jew], f**k you!” and “Stop killing children!” as they walked from campus to their dorm rooms.
Also just outside the encampment area, anti-Israel activists chanted [slide 5]: “Ya Hamas, ya habib, odrob, odrob Tel Aviv! [Oh Hamas, oh loved one, strike, strike Tel Aviv!]”, a chant that celebrates Hamas rocket attacks against Israel.
An activist just outside the encampment area held [photo 4] a sign that said, referring to the Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades, Hamas’s military wing: “AL-QASAM’S NEXT TARGETS.” Her sign contained an arrow pointing to a pro-Israel crowd.
On May 31, 2024, Columbia SJP announced that its activists had set up a third encampment at the university. At the encampment, protesters reportedly displayed on a big screen a video that portrayed Hamas as a peace-seeking organization and made a sign that contained an inverted red triangle, a symbol in support of Hamas.
The Columbia encampment reportedly inspired a wave of protest encampments across North American campuses, where pro-Israel students were blocked or restricted from campus facilities. Jewish students were reportedly harassed in several other ways.
The encampment was one of over 140 pro-Hamas and anti-Israel college encampments set up in North America, and over 20 more globally, in the spring of 2024. The first began on April 17, 2024, at Columbia University. The encampments were unofficially known as the “student intifada,” borrowing a term associated with terrorist violence.
Protesters harassed Jewish students, blocked Jews from campus facilities and shouted anti-Semitic slogans. They occupied campus grounds, in many cases illegally, caused property damage, violently took over buildings, celebrated terrorism and promoted the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) movement.
Activists set up encampments to oppose Israel’s right to wage war against the Hamas terror group following October 7, 2023, when Hamas murdered approximately 1,200 people, including 32 American and 8 Canadian citizens. Hamas also kidnapped 252 people, including 11 Americans and the bodies of 2 murdered Canadians. As of May 26, 2024, 125 hostages remained in Hamas captivity.
For more information on the October 7, 2023 terror attacks, see the Canary Mission page on Hamas.
On April 28, 2024, FreedomNews TV uploaded a video to YouTube featuring [00:01:06] Allen linking arms with protesters outside New York University. The video was titled: “NYU Protesters STAND OFF with NYC Police as they Re-Establish Encampment.”
Allen joined [00:01:06] other protesters as they chanted: “From the River to the Sea, Palestine will be free!”
“From the River to the Sea, Palestine will be Free,” is a chant used [00:02:52] to call for the elimination of the State of Israel.
Allen is a supporter of the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) movement.
As of November 2024, Allen was listed as a professor in the Department of African American and African Diaspora Studies (AAADS) at Columbia and was the director of the Institute for Research in African American Studies (IRAAS).
As of the same date, Allen’s LinkedIn profile said he received a PhD in social-cultural anthropology from Columbia in 2004.
As of November 2024, Allen’s LinkedIn said he was located in New York, New York.
