The U.S. ambassador to Israel during the Trump administration lambasted Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., for remaining silent while police stormed Columbia University to remove anti-Israel protesters.
Dozens of helmeted police marched on to Columbia's main campus in the heart of New York City on Tuesday night and began evicting a building that had been barricaded by anti-Israel student protesters.
"Tonight New York City is aflame with antisemitism. @SenSchumer — where the hell are you? This is your city and you are the self-proclaimed guardian of the Jewish people. Crickets …," former Ambassador David Friedman posted Tuesday night on X.
While other lawmakers, such as House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., and GOP members of Congress, visited Columbia this week to condemn the agitators' actions, President Joe Biden and Schumer, the highest-ranking Jewish elected official in the U.S., have remained far away.
Earlier Tuesday, Schumer did comment from the Senate floor on the Columbia situation.
"Smashing windows with hammers and taking over university buildings is not free speech. It is lawlessness. And those who did it should promptly face the consequences that are not merely a slap on the wrist," Schumer said. "Free speech, discussion, and even strong disagreement are fundamental American values, and campuses should be places where those values are cherished.
"Campuses cannot be places of learning and argument and discussion when protests veer into criminality and those who commit such acts are doing nothing to convince others that their cause is just."
Anti-Israel demonstrations began at Columbia after school President Minouche Shafik testified April 17 before the House Education and Workforce Committee during a hearing about antisemitism on campus.
Similar anti-Israel protests have broken out at college campuses around the country.
Most prominent Democrats have refrained from severely criticizing the demonstrations, which have included pro-Hamas signs and chants.
Last week, about 100 pro-Palestinian Jewish protesters were arrested after blocking traffic near the Schumer's Brooklyn home.
At the time, Schumer was in Washington, D.C., preparing for the final vote on a foreign aid package that included $26 billion to Israel.