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The ‘Micro-Intifada’: American Protesters Are Being Trained in ‘Militancy’

Guides created by radical groups are teaching pro-Palestinian students to use violence on campus.

Students participating in the Gaza Solidarity Encampments at universities across the country are being taught to become militants, according to nine manuals obtained by The Free Press.

Many of the manuals, which are being shared via phone group chats with students across the country, encourage “militancy” and instruct protesters to break laws, seize buildings, vandalize them, and then use tactics to evade police detection and arrest. One guide, called “De-arrest Primer,” teaches protesters to physically resist arrest or, in some cases, assault police officers or throw projectiles at them to protect fellow “comrades” from arrest. “Each de-arrest,” the guide states, “is a micro-intifada which can spread and inspire others until we may finally shake off this noxious ruling order all together.”

Another manual, called the “The Do-It-Yourself Occupation Guide,” contains detailed diagrams on how to break into buildings using tools like crowbars, clamps, metal cables, chains, bolt cutters, and a miniature saw known as an angle grinder

The ‘Micro-Intifada’: How U.S. Campus Protesters Are Being Trained in ‘Militancy’
Instructions from “The Do-It-Yourself Occupation Guide,” which was shared 24 hours after Columbia protesters broke into Hamilton Hall.

Instructions show how to barricade doors with “heavy furniture,” create a “shield” against police using trash cans, ropes, sheets of cardboard, or a “corrugated metal banner,” and to pick locks using a “technique” developed by “firemen and criminals.” “If these less-destructive methods don’t work,” the guide states, “more aggressive options are abundant,” such as using a crowbar to “open a window.” 

The ‘Micro-Intifada’: How U.S. Campus Protesters Are Being Trained in ‘Militancy’
Teachings from “The Do-It-Yourself Occupation Guide,” which was written by organizers of the Occupy Wall Street movement, but updated in 2024 “in light of a nationwide resurgence of student occupations.”

Many of these techniques were employed by Columbia students on Tuesday night when they stormed Hamilton Hall, an administrative building at the heart of the university. Protesters smashed through the windows of the hall’s main door with hammers and used metal chains to lock them shut. After cops arrested 119 people on the Ivy League campus, they discovered multiple glass doors had been broken and barricaded using chairs, refrigerators, and vending machines, according to NYPD’s Deputy Commissioner Tarik Sheppard. 

Three of the guides encourage college protesters to erase the distinction “between students and non-students.” Of the 282 people arrested on Tuesday night between Columbia and the City College of New York, 48 percent were not affiliated with either university, according to the NYPD. 

“There is a movement to radicalize young people,” NYC mayor Eric Adams said at a press conference Wednesday. “This is a global problem. And young people are being influenced by those who are professionals at radicalizing our children, and I’m not going to allow that to happen as the mayor of the city of New York.” 

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