A prominent Arab peace activist ripped the clueless and “privileged” college kids raising hell across the US in the name of the pro-Palestinian movement — claiming they are propping up the real authoritarian “oppressors.”
“In the West, you are privileged. You can demand even without understanding,” Rawan Osman, who fled her native Syria during the unrest of 2011, raged in an Instagram video this week.
The thousands of students across the nation who blindly followed Columbia University’s lead and erected mini tent cities of their own are supporting Hamas without understanding what the terror group stands for, Osman alleged.
What started as a relatively peaceful trend advocating for a “Free Palestine” escalated this week when protesters smashed their way into the Ivy League’s academic building, resulting in hundreds of arrests.
Osman, founder of Arabs Ask, a platform to dispel antisemitic stereotypes, revealed in a January interview that she evolved from a “Hezbollah admirer who hated Jews” to an “Arab Zionist.”
In 2022, she was part of a “groundbreaking” Muslim and Israeli delegation to Auschwitz.
Sporting a prominent yellow pin that shows solidarity with the Israeli hostages, Osman emphasized that Hamas is a proxy to the Iranian regime that drove her from her native land when she was just a teenager.
She recalled that life was “hell” under Iran’s thumb and its neighboring allies: “Its proxies such as Hamas that you are championing in the streets in the West,” Osman slammed.
“Have you ever wondered why we haven’t seen mass pro-Palestine protests in the Middle East?” Osman solemnly stated, adding her sentiment that college students are “privileged.”
Osman, who was hailed for her “bravery” on social media, added, “Back where I come from, we don’t demand. We are grateful if we find the means to feed our children, to pay the rent, to buy our medication. We are thankful if we’re not arrested, tortured and raped.”
She ended the video rant with a stinging warning to those who purport to care about the oppressed.
“You should know that you’re supporting our oppressors, that you are betraying us, all of us — the Gazans included.”
The video was posted five days before the NYPD stormed Columbia University and the City College of New York, taking 282 protesters into custody and clearing the encampments.
Students at Columbia were the first to erect a tent city on its campus grounds nearly two weeks ago to demand the school divest from Israel and provide full amnesty for those arrested and suspended at the encampment.
The encampment was cleared the following day, but protesters returned within 24 hours — igniting a trend seen across the nation at fellow elite institutions like Harvard University and the University of Southern California.
The peaceful demonstrations quickly escalated in the middle of the night Tuesday when dozens of protesters — identified by the NYPD as “professional outside agitators” — broke into Columbia’s Hamilton Hall and barricaded themselves inside using the school’s furniture.
Hundreds were also arrested at City College of New York — including several who were caught brawling with police officers and bashing them over the heads with water jugs.
Although the Ivy League successfully squashed the movement on its own campus, it only inspired other universities to ramp up their own demonstrations.
Students at Fordham University set up an anti-Israel tent encampment Wednesday, saying they were motivated by the arrests of hundreds of protesters on the Columbia and City University of New York campuses.