Anti-Israel vandals deface Cornell University on first day of classes

Anti-Israel vandals defaced a building at Cornell University on the first day of classes Monday — smashing the glass of a doorway and scrawling hateful messages like “Blood is on your hands.”

“We had to accept that the only way to make ourselves heard is by targeting the only thing the university administration truly cares about: property,” the vandals said in an anonymous statement to the Cornell Daily Sun, the student newspaper that broke the story.

The vandals struck sometime overnight or in the early morning, shattering the glass at an entrance to Cornell’s Day Hall and spray-painting messages including “Israel bombs and Cornell pays.”

“With the start of this new academic year, the Cornell administration is trying desperately to upkeep a facade of normalcy knowing that, since last semester, they have been working tirelessly to uphold Cornell’s function as a fascist, classist, imperial machine,” the activists said.

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Joel M. Malina, vice president for university relations, said those responsible would be “subject to suspension and criminal charges.”

“We are appalled by the graffiti spray painted, and glass shattered overnight along the front entrance of Day Hall,” Malina said in a statement. “Acts of violence, extended occupation of buildings, or property damage (including graffiti) will not be tolerated and will prompt an immediate response from public safety.”

Cornell Law professor William A. Jacobson said the crimes sent a message at the start of the semester.

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“Given the weak response at Cornell last academic year to intimidation tactics by anti-Israel activists, it is no surprise that they have upped the aggressiveness by opening the semester with vandalism and destruction of property,” said Jacobson, founder of EqualProtect.org. “This is a bad omen.”

The incident came on the same day Gov. Kathy Hochul was set to hold a virtual meeting with college and university presidents across New York to discuss campus safety as officials fear a repeat of recent semesters when lawless protests and chaos reigned at higher-learning institutions.

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The often flat-footed responses by schools has fueled accusations that leaders allowed antisemitism to fester and campus demonstrations to descend into violence — with several high-profile administrators stepping down in the face of the scrutiny.

Cornell’s leafy Ithaca campus has seen two semesters of continuing demonstrations in the wake of the Gaza conflict, sparked by Hamas’ attack on Israel in October.

Last fall, Cornell student Patrick Dai, 22, posted antisemitic murder threats on the university’s website and bizarrely claimed he only did it to “garner sympathy” for Jewish people and draw attention to Hamas atrocities. He was sentenced to 21 months for the crime.

Former Cornell president Martha Pollack announced her resignation last May amid the ongoing tumult, which included a history professor who described Hamas’ Oct. 7 terrorist attack on Israel as “exhilarating” and “energizing.”

But one New York college official, who requested anonymity, said the continuing campus unrest should not be a surprise given the ongoing Hamas-Israel war in Gaza.

“There is no cease-fire. There is a war going on,” said the source, likening the persistent protests to demonstrations against the Vietnam War in the 1960s and early 1970s.

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