Gaza protests sweep US university campuses despite crackdown, hundreds arrested

Despite police crackdown on protesters at Columbia University and New York University arresting hundreds of protesters on charges of ‘trespasses’ at their own campuses, staging demonstration is spreading on university and college campuses all across the United States demanding immediate ceasefire in Gaza.

The movement, which began at Columbia University in New York last week, is calling on universities to cut financial ties to Israel and divest from companies they say are enabling its brutal war in Gaza.

At least 34,262 Palestinians have been killed in Israeli attacks on the besieged enclave since October 7, when fighters from Hamas attacked southern Israel, killing 1,139 people and taking dozens of people captive, reports Al Jazeera.
The student-led protests have been peaceful and largely respectful, but have been met by heavy-handed action from many universities amid allegations of anti-Semitism.

The biggest rally on Wednesday took place at UT Austin where hundreds of students staged a walkout and marched to the campus’s main lawn, where they planned to set up an encampment. But the university said it would “not tolerate disruptions” and called in local and state police to disperse the crowds.
Hundreds of officers arrived at the scene, some on horseback. Holding batons, they charged at the crowds and forcefully arrested several students.

At least 34 were taken into custody, the Texas Department of Public Safety said.

Jeremi Suri, who is Jewish and a professor of history at UT Austin, told media there was “nothing anti-Semitic” about the protests.

“These students were shouting ‘free Palestine’, that’s all,” he said. “They were saying nothing that was threatening. And as they were standing and shouting, I witnessed the police – the state police, the campus police, the city police – an army of police almost the size as the student group … many were carrying guns, many were carrying rifles, and then, within a few minutes, this group of police stormed into the student crowd and started arresting students.”
At the USC campus in Los Angeles, efforts by students to set up an encampment were also met with force.

Campus security scuffled with students as they took down tents, and dozens of police officers holding batons and wearing helmets later moved in to arrest the protesters as helicopters hovered overhead.

The Los Angeles Police Department said some 93 people were arrested in and around the USC campus.

Jody Armour, a law professor at the university, said officials were using claims of anti-Semitism to try and silence the protests.

“Being opposed to Israel’s slaughter in Gaza that the UN has said may plausibly be genocide, does not mean that you’re anti-Semitic, and we need to stop allowing people to weaponise anti-Semitism against real valid protests.”
On the other side of the country, in Cambridge, Massachusetts, hundreds of students at Harvard University set up their own encampment at Harvard Yard, despite the university closing the space and threatening “disciplinary action” against students for setting up tents without prior permission. The protesting students were calling for the institution to divest from Israel and also lift the suspension of a pro-Palestine group called the Harvard Undergraduate Palestine Solidarity Committee.

Similar scenes played out at Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island.
The New York Times said students there had erected some 40 tents by Wednesday afternoon, despite the university threatening “proceedings” against the students if they did not clear out.

At Columbia University in New York, meanwhile, there was an uneasy truce between students and officials.

The university, which called in police to clear an encampment last week resulting in the arrest of more than 100 students, is currently in talks with the students to dismantle the protest camp and averted another confrontation by extending a deadline for dispersal by another 48 hours.

White House spokeswoman Karine Jean-Pierre, meanwhile, said Biden backed free speech.

“The president believes that free speech, debate and nondiscrimination on college campuses are important,” she told reporters.