Photo: AFP
The pro-Palestinian demonstrations continue to pop up at American colleges, most notably at Columbia, where students are negotiating with school officials about dismantling the tent city that now dominates the campus. As students list their demands to put an end to the chaotic scene at the Manhattan Ivy League institution, many people are left scratching their heads and wondering if school officials remember who actually runs the place.
Rob Astorino is among the people questioning the absurdity of the situation. The host of “The Rob Astorino Show,” which can be heard Saturdays at 4 on WOR, dropped in on 710 WOR’s Len Berman and Michael Riedel in the Morning program to ask an even more basic question: do the protestors realize exactly with whom they are siding in the first place?
“Could you imagine the Columbia University president re-negotiating, extending negotiations- are you kidding me?” Astorino told Berman and Larry Mendte, sitting in for Riedel. “First of all, take those damn tents down now- you’ve got to talk like a teacher, ‘Now!’- and get back to your dorms, or get the hell out of here, and, by the way, don’t come back in the fall. I don’t understand what the hell we’re negotiating with these kids for, or- they’re not kids, they’re adults. Let’s just call them adults; they’re eighteen plus. Why are we negotiating with these morons, who don’t even know, half of them, what the hell they’re doing out there.”
Astorino says the encampment is only there because of a growing sense of dereliction of duty among those who are supposed to be in charge. “Part of it is the professional agitators in our country, which is growing by the minute. I think part of it, too, is the ‘Hey there’s something fun to do, let’s go do it.’ This is insane, and this is exactly- so they look back in a couple of years and say, this is great. And every time it happens, nobody gets prosecuted, so there’s no consequences, so why not do this? This is not going to end well if they, quote, ‘negotiate’ and allow these morons to do what they’re going to do. People are going to get hurt. Property is going to get ruined.”
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