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<div class="gmail-hero-wrap gmail-cb-fis gmail-clearfix gmail-hero-1 gmail-no-par gmail-mask-loaded"><div class="gmail-hero"><img width="408" height="214" src="https://i0.wp.com/thegrayzone.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/F1z9Se4WYAI2QcH.jpg?fit=768%2C402&ssl=1" class="gmail-flipboard-image gmail-wp-post-image" alt="" style="margin-right: 0px;"></div></div><div class="gmail-meta-wrap gmail-hero-meta gmail-tipi-s-typo elements-design-1 gmail-clearfix"><div class="gmail-meta"><div class="gmail-title-wrap"><h1 class="entry-title gmail-title gmail-flipboard-title">Columbia crackdown led by university prof doubling as NYPD spook</h1></div><div class="gmail-cb-byline gmail-byline gmail-byline-3"><span class="gmail-byline-part gmail-author"><a href="https://thegrayzone.com/author/wyatt-reed/" title="Posts by Wyatt Reed" class="gmail-author gmail-url gmail-fn" rel="author">Wyatt Reed</a> and <a href="https://thegrayzone.com/author/max-blumenthal/" title="Posts by Max Blumenthal" class="gmail-author gmail-url gmail-fn" rel="author">Max Blumenthal</a></span><span class="gmail-byline-part gmail-separator gmail-separator-date">·</span><span class="gmail-byline-part gmail-cb-date gmail-date">May 2, 2024</span></div></div></div> <div class="gmail-heateorSssClear"></div><h3><strong>Rebecca
Weiner is a Columbia U. professor who also serves as intelligence
director of the NYPD. Mayor Eric Adams credits her with spying on
anti-genocide student protesters and directing the militarized raid that
dislodged them from campus.</strong></h3>
<p><span style="font-weight:400">The violent crackdown carried out on
Columbia University students protesting Israel’s genocidal assault on
the Gaza Strip was led by a member of the school’s own faculty, New York
City Mayor Eric Adams has declared.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight:400">During a <a href="https://www.youtube.com/live/B8YGRzarLjM?si=D_hs2zsj3wxbQkdo">May 1 press conference</a>,
just hours after the New York Police Department arrested nearly 300
people on university grounds, Adams praised adjunct Columbia professor
Rebecca Weiner, who moonlights as the head of the NYPD counter-terrorism
bureau, for giving police the green light to clear out anti-genocide
students by force.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight:400">“She was the one that was monitoring
the situation,” Adams explained, adding that the crackdown was carried
out after “she was able to — her team was able to conduct an
investigation.”</span></p>
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<p><span style="font-weight:400">On April 30, dozens of police in riot
gear descended on Columbia’s Hamilton Hall after students seized the
building earlier in the day, citing a request from the administration.
Several hours later, officers <a href="https://x.com/_elkue/status/1785480912433487999">used a heavily armored NYPD BearCat vehicle</a>
to enter the building through the window on the second floor and
arrested those inside, while another team swept up members of the
encampment outside.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight:400">Starting on April 17, students at
Columbia escalated their ongoing protest against Israel’s genocidal
assault on the besieged Gaza Strip. They encamped on school grounds,
stating their refusal to leave until the university fully divested from
its Israeli-related investments. That protest model has since spread to
over 100 other universities in the US, and even been taken up abroad,
with similar actions occurring at Leeds University in the UK and the
Sorbonne in Paris.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight:400">Just a few hundred meters from the
Gaza protest encampment, Weiner maintained an office at Columbia’s
School of International and Public Affairs (SIPA). Her SIPA </span><a href="https://www.sipa.columbia.edu/communities-connections/faculty/rebecca-weiner"><span style="font-weight:400">bio</span></a><span style="font-weight:400"> describes her as an “</span><span style="font-weight:400">Adjunct
Associate Professor of International and Public Affairs” who
simultaneously serves as the “civilian executive in charge of the New
York City Police Department’s Intelligence & Counterterrorism
Bureau.”</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight:400">In that role, according to SIPA,
Weiner “develops policy and strategic priorities for the Intelligence
& Counterterrorism Bureau and publicly represents the NYPD in
matters involving counterterrorism and intelligence.”</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight:400">The NYPD’s Counterterrorism Bureau
currently maintains an office in Tel Aviv, Israel, where it coordinates
with Israel’s security apparatus and maintains a department liaison.
Weiner appears to serve as a bridge between the Bureau’s offices in
Israel and New York.</span></p>
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<p><span style="font-weight:400">A 2011 AP </span><a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/id/wbna44255142"><span style="font-weight:400">investigation</span></a><span style="font-weight:400"> revealed that a </span><span style="font-weight:400">so-called
“Demographics Unit” operated secretly within the NYPD’s
Counterterrorism and Intelligence Bureau. This shadowy outfit spied on
Muslims around the New York City area, and even on students </span><a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/news/nypd-under-fire-for-monitoring-muslim-students/"><span style="font-weight:400">at campuses outside the state</span></a><span style="font-weight:400">
who were involved in Palestine solidarity activism. The unit was
developed in tandem with the CIA, which has refused to name the former
Middle East station chief it posted in the senior ranks of the NYPD’s
intelligence division. </span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight:400">The “Demographics Unit” appears to
have been inspired by Israeli intelligence as well. As a former police
official told the AP, the unit attempted to “map the city’s human
terrain” through a program “modeled in part on how Israeli authorities
operate in the West Bank.”</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight:400">A lawyer by training, Weiner </span><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/08/13/nyregion/rebecca-weiner-nypd-intelligence-unit.html"><span style="font-weight:400">oversaw negotiations</span></a><span style="font-weight:400"> between the NYPD and lawyers for local Muslims who had their civil liberties violated by its “Demographics Unit.” </span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight:400">Weiner is the granddaughter of </span><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/1984/05/15/obituaries/stanislaw-ulam-theorist-on-hydrogen-bomb.html"><span style="font-weight:400">Stanislaw Ulam</span></a><span style="font-weight:400">, the Polish Jewish mathematician who helped conceive the hydrogen bomb as part of the Manhattan Project. “</span><span style="font-weight:400">I’m very proud of that legacy,” Weiner </span><a href="https://autos.yahoo.com/nypd-intelligence-chief-rebecca-weiner-225300474.html"><span style="font-weight:400">said</span></a><span style="font-weight:400"> of her grandfather’s work upon being appointed as NYPD intelligence chief.</span></p>
<h3>NYPD/Columbia’s Weiner: militarized raid was response to student “rhetoric associated with terrorism,” Tiktok posts</h3>
<p><span style="font-weight:400">During the NYPD’s triumphant May 1
post-raid press conference, Weiner blamed “outside agitators” for
triggering the military-style police crackdown at Columbia. However, she
refused to name the outsiders </span><span style="font-weight:400">supposedly on the scene. </span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight:400">According to Weiner, the police
response was not necessitated by any criminal behavior, but by the
radical language and symbols of the students. “This is not about
students expressing ideas,” she claimed. The real problem, Weiner
maintained, was the alleged “change in tactics” by protesters, which she
said represented “a normalization and mainstreaming of rhetoric
associated with terrorism.”</span></p>
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<p></p>
<p><span style="font-weight:400">Proof of this dynamic, Weiner
suggested, could be seen in what she claimed was the “common” trend of
wearing of “headbands associated with foreign terrorist organizations”
on college campuses; the “reissuing of Osama Bin Laden’s 2002 letter to
America” on TikTok; and a brief visit to Columbia by </span><span style="font-weight:400">Nahla Al-Arian</span><span style="font-weight:400">, who Weiner incorrectly described as “the wife of somebody who had been convicted for material support to terrorism.”</span></p><p></p>
<p><span style="font-weight:400">“That’s not somebody who I would want
necessarily influencing my child if I were a parent of somebody at
Columbia,” Weiner commented.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight:400">Nahla’s husband, Palestinian academic </span><span style="font-weight:400">Sami
Al-Arian, had been indicted on flimsy terrorism charges in 2003, but a
jury refused to convict him. Nevertheless, her brief stop at the
Columbia encampment — where she says she did not even interact with any
demonstrators — was cited by Adams during</span><span style="font-weight:400"> three separate media engagements to <a href="https://apnews.com/article/columbia-protests-eric-adams-outsiders-5319fdf36599295a3840d77c69458b57">justify</a> the police repression.</span></p>
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<p><span style="font-weight:400">Throughout the press conference,
Mayor Adams repeatedly cast the city’s crackdown on student speech as
the only possible solution to ongoing campus encampments, citing
undefined threats to the minds of impressionable youth.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight:400">“There is a movement to radicalize
young people, and I’m not gonna wait until it’s done and all of a sudden
acknowledge the existence of it,” Adams proclaimed.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight:400">“Young people are being influenced by
those who are professionals at radicalizing our children,” he insisted,
without specifying. “And I’m not gonna allow that to happen as the
mayor of the city of New York.”</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight:400">After angrily proclaiming that </span><span style="font-weight:400">his
“uncle died defending this country,” Adams declared: “It’s despicable
that schools will allow another country’s flag to fly in our country.”</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight:400">However, as an enthusiastic
participant in New York City’s annual Celebrate Israel parade, Adams is
no stranger to waving another country’s flag. </span></p>
<img class="gmail-wp-image-98507 gmail-size-large" src="https://i0.wp.com/thegrayzone.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/52950672464_5a147c496b_k.jpg?resize=1024%2C683&ssl=1" alt="" width="408" height="272" style="margin-right: 25px;">New York City Mayor Eric Adams waves Israel’s flag during the Celebrate Israel parade on June 4, 2023
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