Miya Tada

Miya Tada’s Participation in the Pro-Hamas Encampment at Columbia University (Columbia)

Miya Tada participated in the pro-Hamas encampment at Columbia in April 2024. Tada has expressed support for Hamas terrorism and spread hatred of Israel online and in other activism, including on October 8, 2023, one day after Hamas murdered approximately 1,200 Israelis.

On April 19, 2024, Columbia alumna Miya Tada was featured [00:00:01] in a YouTube video participating in the encampment. She can be seen in the video wearing a red-and-white keffiyeh over her shoulders while being interviewed by a film crew.

On April 22, 2024, Tada was featured [slide 1] in an Instagram photo participating in the Columbia encampment. She can be seen in the photo wearing a black-and-white keffiyeh. The post said: “...We need these protests to spread like wildfire...Keep fighting, until Zionism and all fascist ideologies die.”

Zionism is the belief that Jews have the right to self-determination in their own national home, and the right to develop their national culture. Zionism is a core part of the identity of most Jews.

The encampment was also in support of the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) movement.

Columbia is located in New York, New York.

Pro-Hamas Encampment at Columbia University

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.

Background on Pro-Hamas Encampments

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.

Miya Tada’s Support for Hamas Terrorism and Hatred of Israel

On October 7, 2023, the day Hamas terrorists carried out their attack on Israel, Tada posted on X: “...It will ALWAYS be the right of a nationally oppressed people to fight for liberation against imperialism by any means necessary. Long live the righteous struggle of the Palestinian people! .”

On October 7, 2023, Hamas murdered approximately 1,200 Israelis, kidnapped hundreds and wounded thousands. War crimes included mass rape and torture. Israel retaliated with a war called “Swords of Iron.” For more information, see the Canary Mission page on Hamas.

Anti-Israel activists use the phrase “by any means necessary,” as one of multiple euphemisms for terrorist violence, including “resistance.”

Tada embedded in her October 7, 2023 post a Hamas promotional video that depicted Hamas using motorized paragliders to target thousands of Israeli civilians for murder, torture and kidnapping.

The video was posted on X by anti-Israel activist Manolo De Los Santos, founder and executive director of The People’s Forum (TPF). De Los Santos wrote: “Long Live the Palestinian Resistance! This struggle for national liberation in Palestine has entered a decisive new phase against the genocidal occupation of their land & people.”

Among anti-Israel activists, the term “resistance” is a euphemism for terrorism and is used to glorify and encourage anti-Israel and anti-Semitic violence.  

On October 8, 2023, the day after the Hamas terror atrocities against Israelis, Tada attended [00:25:11] a rally in Times Square, New York City, in support of Hamas. The rally was titled: “All Out For Palestine.”

Tada, standing to the left of De Los Santos at the rally, applauded [00:25:11] him after he said [00:24:43]: “If you listen to the media in this country, you will think the war started 48 hours ago. We know this war started 75 years ago. This war started hundreds of years ago when the British, when the Americans, plotted to create Israel with no consultation to [sic] the Palestinian people.”

The modern State of Israel was founded 76 years earlier, in 1948.

Tada nodded and cheered [00:25:19, 00:25:37] when De Los Santos said [00:25:10]: “We urge our comrades in Palestine: Continue to resist. We stand with you by any means necessary. We will use whatever we have in our hands, whether it is a rock or something else. But we will defend the Palestinian people.”

Although romanticized as a form of “popular resistance,” rock throwing remains a deadly form of violence. 

On October 9, 2023, Tada posted on X: “Israel is an illegitimate state that would have been defeated long ago were it not for the billions in US aid. Shame on everyone who condemned the Palestinian resistance as ‘terrorism’!...Liberation must be taken by any means necessary!”

Miya Tada’s Anti-Israel Activism, Work and Education

As of October 2023, Miya Tada was an activist with anti-Israel groups Party for Socialism and Liberation (PSL) and The People’s Forum (TPF).

As of September 2024, Tada’s LinkedIn profile said she was studying for a JD at the City University of New York School of Law (CUNY Law), slated to graduate in 2026.

Also as of September 2024, Tada’s LinkedIn said she graduated from Barnard College (Barnard) with a bachelor’s degree in East Asian studies in 2019. Barnard is part of Columbia.

As of the same date, Tada’s LinkedIn said she was a “Community organizer and law student in New York.”