Violent Anti-Palestinian Student Protests Erupt Across US Universities

A police operation at Columbia University in New York two weeks ago sparked a wave of anti-Palestinian student protests across America. The president of the elite university, Minouche Shafik, then admitted mistakes. She described the operation with more than a hundred people arrested as fruitless and gave the students an ultimatum on Monday: they had to leave their camp on the campus by two o’clock in the afternoon to avoid​​​​ the suspension from classes.

Some of the students left. But another part stormed Hamilton Hall, the university’s historic building, and barricaded themselves inside. The demonstrators named the building with a banner they hung over the entrance in “Hind’s Hall”. – reference to five-year-old Hind Rajab, who was in the car with her family in the Gaza Strip in January, according to the Palestine Red Cross he came under the fire of Israel, and was killed.

Ein Déjà-vu mit 1968

Already In 1968 students occupied Columbia University’s Hamilton Hall and other buildings. Against the background of the Vietnam War and the civil rights movement, they protested against possible links between the university and the Ministry of Defense and against what they saw as a racist construction project at the university. On April 30, the New York police cleared the campus. And 56 years later to the day, Manhattan security forces put an end to the latest riot in Columbia.

Although she regretted the surgery two weeks ago, Shafik called the police again for help. After taking over Hamilton Hall, university management had no other choice, the university president explained. On Tuesday night, law enforcement officers used a ladder to enter the building through a second-floor window. Soon after, the officers removed the first demonstrators with their hands tied.

In addition to the building where people were, the police cleared the protestors’ alleged camp on the university grounds. On Wednesday morning, all that was left on the lawn were the yellow-green impressions of the tents. In all, law enforcement officers at Columbia University and nearby City College arrested nearly 300 people on Tuesday.

Residents of Hamilton Hall now face eviction and criminal prosecution. However, it is still unclear how many of them were students at Columbia University. “Professional activists” unaffiliated with the university took control of the peaceful protests, New York Mayor Eric Adams said Tuesday. The outsiders trained the students in tactics, helped them disable cameras and gain access to the building, the New York Police Department’s deputy counterterrorism commissioner said. However, Adams did not make it clear exactly who these instigators with “bad intentions” were.

To prevent new protests at Columbia University, Shafik has asked the police to maintain a presence on campus until at least the graduation ceremony on May 17. Despite the crackdown with law enforcement in New York, there still doesn’t seem to be a quick end to the sight of student protests in the US.

A wild battle with fireworks and pepper spray

Next to New York was the University of California Los Angeles campus at night on Wednesday another flashpoint. After the university administration declared a pro-Palestinian protest camp illegal, pro-Israel demonstrators attacked the tented camp shortly before midnight with, among other things, fireworks, pepper spray and tennis rackets . A violent confrontation took place between the two contending parties for hours. The police only ended the fighting at three in the morning. Classes were canceled on Wednesday.

Unlike New York, the University of California has so far allowed the pro-Palestinian demonstrators to do as they wish. On Tuesday, however, the Republican-controlled congressional committee announced audition with Gene Block, director of the university’s Los Angeles campus. He must now answer questions in Washington about what he is doing to combat anti-Semitism and fear of Jewish students. Perhaps that is why Block decided to describe the prosecution camp as illegal. There were incidents that frightened “Jewish students in particular,” Block wrote in a statement Tuesday.

Meanwhile, police broke up anti-Palestinian student protests in Wisconsin and Georgia on Wednesday. At a university in Portland, Oregon, demonstrators strengthened their barricades, after checking themselves in at the library on Monday. “We will end ownership of the building when Israel ends Palestinian ownership,” they spray painted red on the wall.

So far, a peaceful resolution to the conflict has only been achieved at Brown University in Rhode Island. There, too, the students demanded that the private university no longer invest its profits in companies that have business ties to the Israeli armed forces. The management of the university said that they are willing to discuss the issue and vote on it in October. The demonstrators then broke camp on Tuesday itself.