Reporting in the Washington Post this week revealed that a private group of billionaires and wealthy executives pressured New York City Mayor Eric Adams to use police force to dismantle pro-Palestine protests at Columbia University earlier this month.
The article revealed the existence of a secret WhatsApp chat group where pro-Israel business leaders discussed efforts to manipulate US public opinion on the ongoing Israeli military operation in the Gaza Strip. The influential oligarchs managed to obtain a private Zoom meeting with the NYC mayor in late April, where they urged Adams to dissolve the pro-Palestine encampment at Columbia’s Manhattan campus.
Some of the participants in the discussion appeared to use previous and future financial donations to the mayor as leverage to ensure the crackdown.
Sputnik’s The Critical Hour program featured a panel discussion on the revelations Friday, with Black Alliance for Peace activist Erica Caines and former Green Party vice presidential candidate Ajamu Baraka reflecting on the implications of the startling development.
“What this article is uncovering is that a number of these individuals, such as the former CEO of Starbucks Howard Schultz [and] Dell founder and CEO Michael Dell… were all using the WhatsApp application to pressure the mayor of New York to go in and remove these encampments, because they felt they had to control the narrative,” noted host Wilmer Leon.
Also among the participants of the private chat group were Joshua Kushner, the founder of Thrive Capital and brother of former Donald Trump advisor Jared Kushner, and influential activist investor Bill Ackman. Ackman has become a highly controversial figure in recent months for his attacks on pro-Palestine campus activists; the hedge fund manager pressured Harvard University to publicly release the names of students who had signed an open letter criticizing Israel’s military operation in Gaza, which has killed more than 35,000.
Leon said the incident was “one of the things I think that got President [Claudine] Gay from Harvard fired, that she refused to release the personal information on the students that were protesting.” The host noted that members of the secret WhatsApp group offered to hire private investigators to help the New York City Police Department spy on and discredit pro-Palestine activists at Columbia.
Leon compared the incident to COINTELPRO, an illegal effort by the US Federal Bureau of Intelligence (FBI) to surveil and subvert activist groups in the 1960s. The infamous program led to the FBI’s assassination of civil rights leader Fred Hampton and attempts to discredit Martin Luther King Jr.
Baraka called the cooperation between the New York City mayor and wealthy business leaders “a concrete example of the collaboration between individuals who are now part of the state and who are part of the ruling class, basically providing or giving orders to an elected official – in this case the New York mayor – where they said, basically, ‘you're going to be given the green light to go in and to smash this protest demonstration. We assure you that you have the permission from the college president. And you need to take care of this.’”
“And as a loyal member of the Black mis-leadership class… [Mayor Adams] mobilized police forces and they went in to smash this protest movement,” Baraka explained. “Why Columbia? Why the emphasis on Columbia at first? Because of the fact that you're talking about a $13 billion endowment. And this demand by the students for divestment [from Israel] was seen as a serious challenge to capital, especially if it's to catch hold.”
Pro-Palestine campus protests across the United States have drawn attention to the large endowments of elite universities, which invest funds in a variety of financial interests. Students have called for schools to disclose their investments and divest from companies involved in weapons manufacturing and supporting Israel’s illegal occupation of Palestinian territory.
But the colleges’ reliance on wealthy donors has led some oligarchs to use their financial largesse as a tool of influence – New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft promised to withhold support for Columbia University last month over the school’s initial refusal to disband protest encampments.
Caines said the business leaders’ influence over the New York City mayor illustrated “the collaboration between corporate power and law enforcement.”
“It illustrates how the business elite can manipulate policing to serve their interests,” said the activist. “It's really important because one of the things that we try to emphasize, that we talk to people about, [is] that the police do not protect and serve you. And it's evident in the way that they were at the ready. The readiness of the NYPD to even intervene in a peaceful protest at the behest of a business leader.”
“It also highlights the paramilitary form in policing today,” she added. “We can see that this is what the use of policing has become… This suppression of protest and the arrest of demonstrators at Columbia University only highlights that erosion of civil liberties.”
US police departments have been criticized for their relationship with Israel, with officers often traveling to the country to receive training from Israeli security forces. Observers also question the so-called “Army-to-police pipeline,” with departments increasingly staffed by veterans who critics claim bring a militarized mindset to policing.
Under a controversial program, police departments throughout the United States are provided with surplus military gear which is increasingly used to face off against protesters.
“Police departments have employed their newly acquired military weaponry not only to combat terrorism but also for everyday patrolling,” noted The Atlantic magazine in 2011. “Now, police officers routinely walk the beat armed with assault rifles and garbed in black full-battle uniforms… In recent years, police departments both large and small have acquired bazookas, machine guns, and even armored vehicles (mini-tanks) for use in domestic police work.”