Pro-Palestinian protests sweep US colleges amid mass walkouts and dozens of arrests
Hundreds of students of the most influential American universities are in a standoff with the administration and security agencies as protests against Israel’s war in Gaza escalated despite mass arrests and disciplinary actions.
The turmoil at the New York University, Yale, and Columbia coincided with the start of the Jewish holiday of Passover on Monday with a rabbi asking Jewish students to avoid campuses till the situation improves.
At the New York University on Monday night, police swept into the campus and made arrests shortly after 8.30pm as the protests burgeoned, with hundreds of people setting up encampments amid warnings from the school. The school asked the students to break up the protests and was forced to call the police after reports of “intimidating chants and several antisemitic incidents”.
At Yale, police arrested about 45 student protesters and charged them with misdemeanor and trespassing. Around 200 pro-Palestine protesters had camped out on Beinecke Plaza on the university’s campus for three days. The protesters called on Yale to end any investments in defense companies that do business with Israel.
The Columbia University administration was forced to move classes online on Monday as hundreds of students set up encampments on the campus since last week. The students have been demanding a ceasefire in Gaza, calling out Joe Biden government’s for support to Israel, and demanding that Columbia divest its financial ties with Israel due to the country’s war in Gaza.
Harvard Yard shut its gates for the public on Monday. It said structures, including tents and tables, were only allowed into the yard with prior permission while security guards checked people for school IDs.
"It’s a really outrageous crackdown by the university to allow the police to arrest students on our own campus," said NYU law student Byul Yoon.
Colleges, including Berkeley, MIT, and other campuses across the country, are on the edge as anger and frustration over Israel’s more than six-month-long action in Gaza have caused a spillover effect in the country, igniting debates and demonstrations since the 7 October Hamas attack on Israel.
The militant group’s members blasted through Israel’s border defenses, rampaged through Israeli communities unchallenged for hours killing around 1,200 people, and took roughly 250 hostages into Gaza.
Since then, Israel has launched a ground operation on the Gaza strip, killing more than 34,000 Palestinians, according to the local health ministry, with two-thirds of the casualties including children and women.
The demonstrations represent a new flashpoint in US universities where protests have continued unabated and were further fired up after administration called the police to crackdown on sit-ins.
Jewish students said they were agonised by chants that “veered into antisemitism” and feared for their safety while some reported harassment and physical assaults.
On Sunday, Elie Buechler, a rabbi for the Orthodox Union’s Jewish Learning Initiative at Columbia, sent a WhatsApp message to nearly 300 Jewish students, urging them they go home until it’s safer for them on campus.
Nicholas Baum, a 19-year-old Jewish freshman who lives in a Jewish theological seminary building two blocks from Columbia’s campus, said protesters over the weekend were "calling for Hamas to blow away Tel Aviv and Israel". He said some of the protesters shouting antisemitic slurs were not students.
"Jews are scared at Columbia. It’s as simple as that," he said. "There’s been so much vilification of Zionism, and it has spilled over into the vilification of Judaism."
President Biden has condemned the "the antisemitic protests" and also "those who don’t understand what’s going on with the Palestinians".
Students gathered in Yale’s Beinecke Plaza have been given the ultimatum to break up the protests until the end of the weekend. Officials said they again warned protesters on Monday morning and told them that they could face arrest and discipline, including suspension, before police moved in.
Yale president Peter Salovey said university officials had spoken to the student protesters multiple times about policies and guidelines, including those regarding speech and allowing access to campus spaces. A large group of demonstrators regathered after Monday’s arrests at Yale and blocked a street near the campus, Officer Christian Bruckhart, a New Haven police spokesperson, said. There were no reports of any violence or injuries.
The latest round of unrest began with students at Columbia erecting an encampment the same day that its president Minouche Shafik faced bruising criticism at a congressional hearing from Republicans who said she hadn’t done enough to fight antisemitism on campus.
It was after two other Ivy League presidents resigned months ago following widely criticized testimony they gave to the same committee.
In her statement, Ms Shafik said the Middle East conflict is terrible and that she understands that many are experiencing deep moral distress.
"But we cannot have one group dictate terms and attempt to disrupt important milestones like graduation to advance their point of view," Ms Shafik wrote.
US House Republicans from New York urged Ms Shafik to resign, saying in a letter Monday that she had failed to provide a safe learning environment in recent days as "anarchy has engulfed the campus".
