By Jack Morphet and Kate Sheehy
A clueless Columbia University protester who once worked for a lefty consulting firm hired by Bill de Blasio demanded Tuesday that the school help get “basic humanitarian aid” such as food and water to the anti-Israel rioters illegally occupying a campus building.
“Like, could people please have a glass of water?’’ the young woman told reporters outside Hamilton Hall, which a defiant mob of pro-terror protesters violently stormed early Tuesday and took over.
“Do you want students to die of dehydration and starvation or get severely ill even if they disagree with you? If the answer is no, then you should allow basic, I mean, it’s crazy to say because we’re on an Ivy League campus, but this is like basic humanitarian aid we’re asking for,’’ the protester said, according to footage posted to X.
An incredulous reporter replied, “It seems like you’re sort of saying, ‘We want to be revolutionaries, we want to take over this building, now would you please bring us some food and water.’’’
The protester — who studies Marxist principles at Columbia — replied, “Nobody’s asking them to bring anything.
“We’re asking them to not violently stop us from bringing in basic humanitarian aid.’’
Asked if the university had tried to stop supplies from being brought to the illegal occupiers, the protester admitted she actually didn’t know.
“We are looking for a commitment from them that they will not stop it,’’ the woman said.
“I do not know to what extent it has been attempted. But we’re looking for a commitment.’’
Before the exchange with the reporter, she had said the students occupying Hamilton Hall were “asking for a commitment from Columbia for food and water to be brought in” to “ensure the safety of their own students.”
A video of people passing food to women inside a gate around Columbia was posted to X on Tuesday.
The Columbia protester refused to provide her name since she said other demonstrators who spoke to the press have received threats.
But The Post was able to identify her as a doctoral student and instructor at the Ivy League school whose studies focus on applying a “Marxian lens” to romantic literature.
Prior to joining Columbia, she worked as a political strategist for several “leftist and progressive causes,” including for the consulting firm BerlinRosen — which was tapped by de Blasio for his 2013 mayoral campaign.
The Democrat often used the firm’s co-founder, Jonathan Rosen, as a private adviser while he was NYC mayor and used other employees of the public relations firm to ghostwrite press release quotes and letters to the editor.
Government watchdog groups had slammed the private-public partnership, noting that Rosen got key access as well as potential favors and profit through his close relationship with the mayor.
An organizer of the university’s weekslong anti-Israel encampment also whined Tuesday about the campus lockdown — claiming it was “making life incredibly difficult’’ for students.
Sueda Polat, a grad student at the prestigious Manhattan school, seemed oblivious to the fact that rioters from the tent city illegally erected on Columbia’s campus caused the major education disruption by hijacking Hamilton Hall.
She boasted that the building occupiers were not leaving “anytime soon’’ — and that they were being protected by members of the faculty helping to encircle the site.
Polat scoffed that the most severe school repercussion to date — threats of possible expulsion for participating students — would only cause protesters to dig their heels in more.
“Today they locked down the university in an unprecedented way, making life incredibly difficult for the thousands of students who need access to this campus on a daily basis,’’ Polat said of the school.
“There are students here doing their thesis defenses, there’s members of staff who have research work,” she added.
“By closing the university, they have stopped the function of the university, whereas the student protests have never done that,’’ Polat claimed — even as many students have described severe hardship in continuing their studies and even getting food on campus because of the chaos.
The protest leader blamed the mob’s takeover of the historic building on “an autonomous group of students” angry that “obstinance’’ and “arrogance’’ by Columbia stopped negotiations between the school and demonstrators.
One of the protesters’ main demands is for Columbia to divest from companies involved with Israel, which declared war on Hamas in Gaza after the Palestinian terror group’s massacre in Israel on Oct. 7.
“The university shouldn’t be surprised there is an escalation in protest behavior on this campus,’’ Polat said. “[School administrators] kept us occupied for 11 to 12 days when we were negotiating with them, sometimes for 10 hours a day, and consequently got no results from those negotiations.
“The more the university acts like an authoritarian police state by setting up checkpoints, even at the library, the more students will be willing to resist,’’ she said.
Polat would not say how many people have barricaded themselves inside the hall but crowed, “There are hundreds of students protecting the encampment, protecting their right to protest, and they’re not willing to leave anytime soon.1360
“There are members of the faculty around the encampment,’’ she added.
“It would be incredibly shortsighted of the university to expel a huge number of its students, especially considering how much consensus this matter has on campus,’’ the protest leader insisted.
“I strongly believe it would galvanize the rest of the campus community.”
