Why are college students protesting nationwide? Campus demonstrations explained

UPDATE: Live updates: Protesters, Rutgers negotiate

College students all across the country have been organizing demonstrations within their university campus protesting Israel's attacks on Gaza, and demanding their school's divestment from companies linked to Israel's military campaign.

These protests have reached New Jersey and New York as students from Columbia, Princeton, Rutgers, Fordham and New York University have staged demonstrations including sit-ins, building takeovers and encampments.

The crowds at these protests have been increasing all week as a Princeton student activist says their encampment reached up to between 300 and 400 people. Hundreds participated in the Rutgers-New Brunswick encampment on Tuesday and Wednesday.

These protests have been met with the arrests of hundreds of pro-Palestinian demonstrators with almost 300 arrests made at Columbia University and 13 in Princeton on Tuesday. Protestors at Columbia University occupied Hamilton Hall before the New York Police Department stormed into the building making a multitude of arrests.

Why they are protesting

Many of these activists and student organizations are calling for a cease-fire in Gaza. Israel continues the war in Gaza resulting in more than 34,000 dead, 70% of them women and children, according to U.N. Women, a United Nations organization. The Israeli military bombardment came as a response to the Hamas attacks of Oct. 7, which left more than 1,200 dead, and hundreds of hostages taken, but protests are making the case that the counterattacks are reaching disproportionate and inhumane levels.

Students are not only advocating for a cease-fire, but they are also calling for universities to stop funding companies that profit from or engage in Israel’s ongoing military campaign and occupation.

Student organizations, such as Students for Justice in Palestine at Rutgers-New Brunswick (SJP Rutgers-NB), are calling for their university to end their partnership with Tel Aviv University in Israel. The group that held the encampment on campus held a poster outside of Murray Hall that said, "Tel Aviv University holds the bodies of 73 Palestinians hostage. Investment innovates death."

Other posters from the Rutgers encampment include one that reads: "I pray for the child of Palestine to wake up to the sounds of birds and not bombs."

Along with a cease-fire and divestment from Israeli universities and companies that support the Israeli military, many student protests are calling for what they call "Palestinian liberation" and end to Israeli occupation. Similar to protests that occurred in Teaneck in March, students are calling for an end to Israeli settlements in the West Bank, in which international organizations have deemed illegal.

Students at the Princeton encampment chanted: “Up, up with liberation, down, down with occupation.” A post on SJP Rutgers-NB Instagram shows an activist who attended the university say: "I want to convince people that Palestinians do not deserve genocide or settler colonialism."

Some faculty members have supported these student protests. Many Columbia University professors have condemned the university for getting the police involved on Tuesday night in getting ride of the student encampments.

Pro-Palestinian student protests and demonstrations are set to continue this week throughout the country and in New Jersey as conflict still wages in the Middle East.

Are the protests anti-Semitic?

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said last week that "anti-Semitic mobs" are taking over universities.

"What's happening in America's college campuses is horrific," he said. "It's unconscionable. It has to be stopped. It has to be condemned and condemned unequivocally."

Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump said on Wednesday it "was a beautiful thing to watch" New York police officers raiding a Columbia University building occupied by pro-Palestinian students, and called on officials to crack down on campus protests across the United States.

"New York was under siege last night," Trump told supporters at a campaign rally in Wisconsin, praising the police arrests or protesters at Columbia and City College of New York who he referred to as "raging lunatics and Hamas sympathizers."

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) said Tuesday: "Free speech, discussion, and even strong disagreement are fundamental American values, and campuses should be places where those values are cherished. Campuses cannot be places of learning and argument and discussion when protests veer into criminality...

"It is also unacceptable when Jewish students are targeted for being Jewish – when protests exhibit verbal abuse, systemic intimidation, or glorification of the murderous and hateful Hamas or the violence of October 7th. ... that is anti-Semitism. It is loathsome. It is unacceptable."

White House spokesman John Kirby said the White House was watching the escalating protests on U.S. campuses carefully.

"The president believes that forcibly taking over a building on campus is absolutely the wrong approach. That is not an example of peaceful protests," Kirby said Tuesday.

Kirby underscored the government's support for free speech rights and the right to protest, but said it was critical to ensure those protests remained peaceful and did not pose a threat to other students.

Reuters contributed to this report.

This article originally appeared on NorthJersey.com: Why are college students protesting? Explaining Israel-Gaza protests