NYC Mayor: 'We will not be a city of lawlessness'

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New York City Mayor Eric Adams condemned extremist slogans chanted during ongoing protests at Columbia University over the war between Israel and Hamas, and pledged that “the [New York Police Department] will not hesitate to arrest anyone who is found to be breaking the law.”

“I am horrified and disgusted with the antisemitism being spewed at and around the Columbia University campus,” the Mayor said, citing “the example of a young woman holding a sign with an arrow pointing to Jewish students stating ‘Al-Qasam’s Next Targets,’ or another where a woman is literally yelling ‘We are Hamas,’ or another where groups of students are chanting ‘We don’t want no Zionists here'”.

“I condemn this hate speech in the strongest of terms,” Adams said. “Supporting a terrorist organization that aims is to kill Jews is sickening and despicable.”

Adams noted, however, that “Columbia University is a private institution on private property, which means the NYPD cannot have a presence on campus unless specifically requested by senior university officials.”

“As mayor of the city with the largest Jewish community in the world outside of Israel, the pain these protests are causing Jews across the globe is not lost on me,” Adams said, “especially as we start Passover tomorrow evening.

“I also see and hear the pain of those protesting in support of innocent lives being lost in Gaza,” he concluded.