UCLA senior exposes anti-Israel protesters: 'Want to see a safe, beautiful campus'
UCLA senior Milagro Jones joined 'America's Newsroom' to discuss his tense interaction with anti-Israel protesters on campus and where he stands on antisemitism on college campuses nationwide.
One University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) student went viral on TikTok after anti-Israel agitators blocked him from walking across campus twice, shortly before law enforcement broke up the encampment leaving the once-beautiful campus ridden with graffiti and trash.
Milagro Jones, a senior at UCLA, joined "America's Newsroom" to discuss the encounter with the pro-Palestinian demonstrators and how he responded to the attempt to thwart him from accessing his campus library.
"I was stopped by masked, anti-Israel protesters who mistook me for someone of Jewish background," Jones told Hemmer and Perino on Friday. "They said I was an Israeli agitator. They physically assaulted me on Friday. The last time that I was on campus, they actually punched my brother in the head. They reached into their hoodie pocket and claimed that they had a weapon."
"I just wanted to free my campus from these people," he continued. "I wanted to give my other students an opportunity to be able to access the campus without segregation, without people telling us that we can't go to the library, and I just want to see a safe, beautiful campus where we can all learn, and we can all come together for positivity, for education."
Jones posted a clip of an exchange with an anti-Israel protester when he tried to breach the encampment to reach the library.
UCLA senior Milagro Jones joined 'America's Newsroom' to discuss his tense interaction with anti-Israel protesters on campus and where he stands on antisemitism on college campuses nationwide. ('America's Newsroom' screengrab)
"You can take your compadres and y'all can get out of here," Jones said to the activist. "I'm a student at the school, okay? That's the library that… I use."
"Would you like to go to the library?" the activist asked.
"Bro, would you like to go to the library?" Jones shot back.
The pair had a terse exchange about the activist wanting to escort Jones, who was with his daughter, to the library on campus.
"Walk yourself to the library, bro. How about that?" Jones eventually said. "See my daughter don't need no one to walk her because I can walk her, and I'm a grown man, so I don't need no one to walk me."
VIDEO SHOWS ANTI-ISRAEL PROTESTERS BLOCK JEWISH STUDENT FROM GETTING TO CLASS; UCLA RESPONDS
Jones also went viral for another video he posted where he accused the "White men," who were anti-Israel activists, of "discrimination."
"Bro, I'm an African American. You are a White man telling me to leave a part of the campus. Do you want me to go to Jasmine Rush and show her a photo of you, the dean of students, and let her know that you was harassing me?" Jones said.
He accused the agitators of harassing him, alleging that the blockage stemmed from "racial discrimination."
The demonstrators tried to block him from passing through campus twice this week before police were eventually able to breach the encampment Thursday morning, break it up and arrest more than 200 people associated with the demonstrations.
Classes were canceled on Wednesday amid security concerns and the university made classes on Thursday and Friday remote as well.
"These violent protesters would not allow us to have freedom on this campus," Jones said. "For now, my classes are canceled today. I'm hoping that sometime next week or very soon we can get back to normalcy on this campus. Really, it's about graduation time for a lot of students, and this is where we take grad photos, too."
"So you can see the graffiti and everything. It's just defaced the campus, damaged property, they left a lot of mess behind, tents and plywood, and all types of things that other people had to clean up," he continued.
Fox News' Hannah Grossman contributed to this report.
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