Student protests in solidarity with Palestine have continued to ferment in the past few days. Despite swift police action to arrest students involved in the protests, the anti-war movement continued to grow.
Hundreds of students arrested Many U.S. colleges and universities have shown solidarity with the anti-war movement at Columbia
Since the outbreak of a new round of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in October 2023, demonstrations in support of Palestine have taken place on American college campuses.
On April 17, in front of Columbia University's Butler Library in New York City, many students set up tents on the lawn and set up the "Gaza Solidarity Camp" to demand a permanent ceasefire in the Gaza Strip and an end to U.S. military assistance to Israel.
Police arrest protesters camping on the campus of Columbia University in New York, USA, April 18.
On April 18, Principal Shafik sent a letter to the New York City Police Department asking the police to disperse the students who had camped at the school. Police officers with riot gear quickly entered the campus, surrounded the lawn, tied the students with cable ties and put them on buses. On the outside of the lawn, the crowd of onlookers shouted "Shame on you" and "Let them go" at the police.
That night, New York authorities said at a news conference that more than 108 people had been arrested. Representatives of students and faculty at Columbia University also held a press conference to condemn Shafiq's decision to send in the police.
The unarrested demonstrators soon set up a new "Gaza solidarity camp" on the west side of the lawn. Students continued to arrive in solidarity, and the momentum soon returned to the level it was before the arrests. A number of U.S. universities, including Yale University, the University of Texas at Austin, and Emory University, have seen protests in solidarity with Columbia students and support for Palestine.
Student protesters resume anti-war demonstrations at Gaza Solidarity Camp at Columbia University in New York, USA, April 19.
More than 700 people were detained and the anti-war movement spread to 60 universities in the United States
On April 22, police entered Yale University's Connecticut campus and arrested 47 students involved in the demonstration.
On April 24, 118 people were arrested at Emerson College in connection with protests and four police officers were injured.
On the morning of April 24, hundreds of students gathered peacefully in front of the gymnasium at the University of Texas at Austin, chanting "Free Palestine" and waving Palestinian flags. Subsequently, a group of police officers wearing riot gear, as well as mounted police officers on horseback and waving batons, rushed into the protest crowd, and 57 students were arrested. The cameraman of the Fox 7 Austin channel was knocked to the ground and arrested by the police, and another Texas reporter was also knocked down by the police, bleeding profusely.
Police respond to anti-war demonstrations at the University of Texas in Austin, Texas, U.S., April 24.
On the afternoon of April 24, Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives Johnson came to Columbia University to address students. Johnson warned that the National Guard would be dispatched, and "we intend to call President Biden after we leave here, tell him what we saw with our own eyes, and ask him to act." If the situation cannot be brought under control quickly, then the National Guard should be mobilized at an opportune time. ”
According to the Washington Post, as Johnson spoke, there were bursts of boos from student protesters in the audience, chanting pro-Palestinian slogans, including "Free Palestine" and "Stop Genocide." There were also students who shouted at Johnson, "Get out of our campus." Johnson stopped his speech and said angrily, "Enjoy your freedom of speech." ”
On April 25, police used rubber bullets and tear gas to drive away student protesters at Emory University and arrested dozens of students and at least two professors, including a female professor who was pushed to the ground and taken away in handcuffs.
On April 27, police in Boston, Massachusetts, demolished a camp for anti-war protesters at Northeastern University and detained about 100 people.
Since April 18, the anti-war movement has spread to the campuses of about 60 universities in the United States, and more than 700 people have been detained in the anti-war movement, according to the New York Times.
Police arrested protesters trying to camp on the campus of the University of Washington in St. Louis, Missouri, USA, April 27.
At several universities, images of violent altercations between police and protesters, and students and professors being brutally dragged away by police, went viral in mainstream media and social media in the United States. According to Reuters, the actions of the university and the police have further angered American college students.
Mr. Erquhart, a student at the University of Texas, said the police action was an "overreaction" and that the protest "would have remained peaceful" if the police had not intervened forcefully. "I think there will be more demonstrations as a result of these arrests," he told the Associated Press. ”
On April 26, more than 75 students camped out at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in protest and unfurled large banners that read "What have you done to end the genocide?"
The demonstrations also spread to the University of Michigan and the University of Minnesota at St. Paul in the Midwest, and the Humboldt campus of the California Institute of Technology and the University of California, Berkeley on the West Coast.
Students from many countries stand in solidarity with the anti-war movement on American campuses
Beginning on April 21, students at the University of Sydney followed the example of American students by setting up tents on campus lawns, hoisting huge Palestinian flags and displaying banners in support of Palestinian statehood and solidarity with American university students. The University of Sydney has warned staff and students who participated in the protests that they will not hesitate to take "firm and decisive disciplinary action" if anyone is found to have violated the university's policies.
Students display the Palestinian flag at Sciences Po in Paris, France, April 26.
On April 26, dozens of protesters occupied a building in the middle of the campus of Sciences Po in Paris, gathered around the building's windows, chanted slogans and hung placards reading "We are with the Palestinians." One protester said the actions of the school's students were inspired by similar demonstrations at Columbia University and other universities in the United States. Sciences Po closed all university buildings and moved classes online that day.
Sciences Po is one of the world's top universities in the humanities and social sciences, known as the "cradle of French politicians", and has produced six of the eight French presidents, including the current President Emmanuel Macron, since World War II.
On the afternoon of April 26, University of London students rallied in the university's main square and advertised the event: "From Gaza to Colombia to London, we will not rest until our schools are withdrawn." ”
Calls for divestment have had little effect
According to the British newspaper The Guardian, as anti-war demonstrations spread on American campuses, students from various schools kept hearing a demand for the withdrawal of funds from Israel.
Universities rely on endowments to fund projects such as research and scholarships, which are often invested in companies and other types of assets, such as private equity and hedge funds.
The call for divestment is broadly defined as a demand for a university to sell if it has money invested in a business that students believe is complicit in the war.
The protesting students demanding withdrawal from the new Israeli-Palestinian conflict have targeted different targets. Columbia students are required to abstain from direct investment in businesses that have operations in or do business with Israel. These include Amazon and Google, both of which are involved in a $1.2 billion cloud computing contract with the Israeli government, and Microsoft, whose services are used by Israel's Ministry of Defense and civil administration, as well as defense contractors such as Lockheed Martin that profited from the war.
Students at the University of California, Berkeley, as well as New York University, have called for a similar sweeping divestment. Other student groups, such as those at Yale and Cornell universities, have specifically asked the university to abandon its investment in weapons manufacturers.
The so-called divestment movement has a long history among American student activists. In 1965, several student groups staged a sit-in in New York City to demand that Chase stop funding apartheid in South Africa. Throughout the '70s and '80s, many campus movement organizers succeeded in forcing their schools to sever their economic ties with corporations that supported the apartheid regime.
Calls for divestment from Israel have had little effect. While many campus groups have called on schools to adopt a "boycott, divest, sanction" framework, no U.S. university has so far made such a commitment.
(Poster News Editor Jiang Hui Comprehensive Xinhua News Agency, Global Times, Reference News, etc.)