Pupil-led protests towards Israel’s conflict on Gaza have intensified throughout the US, as Home Speaker Mike Johnson recommended the Nationwide Guard be introduced in and police in riot gear arrested dozens of younger folks on the College of Texas at Austin (UT Austin) and the College of Southern California (USC).
The arrests on Wednesday in cities of Austin and Los Angeles got here as college students at Harvard College and Brown College on the east coast additionally defied threats of motion and arrange encampments in solidarity with Palestinians in Gaza.
The motion, which started at Columbia College in New York final week, is looking on universities reduce monetary ties to Israel and divest from firms they are saying are enabling its brutal conflict in Gaza. Not less than 34,262 Palestinians have been killed in Israeli assaults on the besieged enclave since October 7, when fighters from Hamas attacked southern Israel, killing 1,139 folks and taking dozens of individuals captive.
The coed protests towards the conflict have been peaceable and largely respectful, however have been met by heavy-handed motion from many universities amid allegations of anti-Semitism.
The largest protest on Wednesday happened at UT Austin the place a whole lot of scholars staged a walkout and marched to the campus’s predominant garden, the place they deliberate to arrange an encampment. However the college mentioned it will “not tolerate disruptions” and known as in native and state police to disperse the crowds.
A whole lot of officers arrived on the scene, some on horseback. Holding batons, they charged on the crowds and forcefully arrested a number of college students.
The Texas Division of Public Security mentioned not less than 34 folks have been taken into custody.
Greg Abbott, the Republican governor of Texas, mentioned the protesters “belong in jail” including that any college students becoming a member of in what he known as “hate-filled, anti-Semitic protests” must be expelled.
Jeremi Suri, who’s Jewish and a professor of historical past at UT Austin, instructed Al Jazeera there was “nothing anti-Semitic” concerning the protests.
“These college students have been shouting ‘free Palestine’, that’s all,” he mentioned. “They have been saying nothing that was threatening. And as they have been standing and shouting, I witnessed the police – the state police, the campus police, town police – a military of police nearly the scale as the coed group … many have been carrying weapons, many have been carrying rifles, after which, inside a couple of minutes, this group of police stormed into the coed crowd and began arresting college students.”
On the USC campus in Los Angeles, efforts by college students to arrange an encampment have been additionally met with drive.
Dozens of law enforcement officials holding batons and carrying helmets moved in to arrest the scholars as helicopters hovered overhead and campus safety officers took down tents. The transfer got here after USC Provost Andrew Guzman, despatched a campus-wide electronic mail, saying protesters had “threatened the security of our places of work and campus group”.
Al Jazeera’s Rob Reynolds, reporting from the college, nonetheless, mentioned that “this protest towards the conflict on Gaza, was solely peaceable”.
“We didn’t see any confrontations or harassment among the many college students,” he mentioned.
Reynolds mentioned the protesting college students later staged a sit-in with their arms linked however didn’t resist arrest.
“One after the other, protesting college students are being handcuffed with zip ties and led away by Los Angeles law enforcement officials, underneath arrest and brought away to a car on the campus. They didn’t resist arrest and we didn’t see any violence on the a part of the police,” he added.
The Los Angeles Police Division mentioned some 93 folks have been arrested in and across the USC’s campus.
Jody Armour, a legislation professor on the college, mentioned officers have been utilizing claims of anti-Semitism to try to silence the protests.
“We’ve numerous Jewish, and Muslim, and Palestinian, and Catholic like I’m, Protestants too, intergenerational, coming collectively. Everyone ought to hate anti-Semitism and struggle anti-Semitism, however being against Israel’s slaughter in Gaza that the UN has mentioned might plausibly be genocide, doesn’t imply that you simply’re anti-Semitic, and we have to cease permitting folks to weaponise anti-Semitism towards actual legitimate protests.”
‘Freedom of speech’
On the opposite aspect of the nation, in Cambridge, Massachusetts, a whole lot of scholars at Harvard College arrange their very own encampment at Harvard Yard, regardless of the college closing the area and threatening “disciplinary motion” towards college students for organising tents with out prior permission. The scholars known as for the establishment to divest from Israel and elevate the suspension of a pro-Palestine pupil group known as the Harvard Undergraduate Palestine Solidarity Committee.
Comparable scenes performed out at Brown College in Windfall, Rhode Island.
The New York Occasions mentioned college students there had erected some 40 tents by Wednesday afternoon, regardless of the college threatening “proceedings” towards the scholars if they didn’t filter out.
At Columbia College in New York, in the meantime, there was an uneasy truce between college students and officers.
The college, which known as in police to clear an encampment final week ensuing within the arrest of greater than 100 college students, averted one other confrontation by extending a deadline for dispersal by one other 48 hours amid negotiations.
Johnson, the Republican speaker of the US Home, additionally visited the campus to help Jewish college students amid considerations of anti-Semitism, and known as on Columbia President Nemat Shafik to resign “if she can’t convey order to this chaos”. Johnson, who addressed the media on the library steps close to the encampment, mentioned that “if this isn’t contained rapidly and if these threats and intimidation aren’t stopped, there may be an acceptable time for the Nationwide Guard”.
He mentioned he supposed to demand US President Joe Biden “take motion”, and warned that the demonstrations “place a goal on the backs of Jewish college students in the US”.
Protesters close by appeared to pay little consideration.
“We remorse that there’s no consideration on this peaceable motion and politicians are diverting consideration from the true points,” mentioned Mahmoud Khalil, a Palestinian pupil at Columbia who was a part of the negotiations with the college’s administration concerning the protests though he was not staying on the camp. “That is tutorial freedom, that is freedom of speech.”
White Home spokeswoman Karine Jean-Pierre, in the meantime, mentioned Biden backed free speech.
“The president believes that free speech, debate and nondiscrimination on faculty campuses are essential,” she instructed reporters.