US Universities Struggle as Pro-Palestinian Demonstrations Grow - Dozens were arrested Monday at N.Y.U. and Yale, but officials there and at campuses across the country are running out of options to corral protests that are expected to last the rest of the school year.

Universities Struggle as Pro-Palestinian Demonstrations Grow
The New York Times (archive.ph)
By Alan Blinder
2024-04-23 04:48:02GMT


Police arrest protesters outside of New York University on Monday night. Credit...Adam Gray for The New York Times

At New York University, the police swept in to arrest protesting students on Monday night, ending a standoff with the school’s administration.

At Yale, the police placed protesters’ wrists into zip ties on Monday morning and escorted them onto campus shuttles to receive summonses for trespassing.

Columbia kept its classroom doors closed on Monday, moving lectures online and urging students to stay home.

Harvard Yard was shut to the public. Nearby, at campuses like Tufts and Emerson, administrators weighed how to handle encampments that looked much like the one that the police dismantled at Columbia last week — which protesters quickly resurrected. And on the West Coast, a new encampment bubbled at the University of California, Berkeley.

Less than a week after the arrests of more than 100 protesters at Columbia, administrators at some of the country’s most influential universities were struggling, and largely failing, to calm campuses torn by the conflict in Gaza and Israel.


Despite arrests at Columbia last week, protests continued on campus on Monday.Credit...C.S. Muncy for The New York Times

During the turmoil on Monday, which coincided with the start of Passover, protesters called on their universities to become less financially tied to Israel and its arms suppliers. Many Jewish students agonized anew over some protests and chants that veered into antisemitism, and feared again for their safety. Some faculty members denounced clampdowns on peaceful protests and warned that academia’s mission to promote open debate felt imperiled. Alumni and donors raged.

And from Congress, there were calls for the resignation of Columbia’s president, Nemat Shafik, from some of the same lawmakers Dr. Shafik tried to pacify last week with words and tactics that inflamed her own campus.

The menu of options for administrators handling protests seems to be quickly dwindling. It is all but certain that the demonstrations, in some form or another, will last on some campuses until the end of the academic year, and even then, graduation ceremonies may be bitterly contested gatherings.

For now, with the most significant protests confined to a handful of campuses, the administrators’ approaches sometimes seem to shift from hour to hour.

“I know that there is much debate about whether or not we should use the police on campus, and I am happy to engage in those discussions,” Dr. Shafik said in a message to students and employees early Monday, four days after officers dressed in riot gear helped clear part of Columbia’s campus.

“But I do know that better adherence to our rules and effective enforcement mechanisms would obviate the need for relying on anyone else to keep our community safe,” she added. “We should be able to do this ourselves.”

Protesters have demonstrated with varying intensity since the Oct. 7 Hamas attack on Israel. But this particular round of unrest began to gather greater force last Wednesday, after Columbia students erected an encampment, just as Dr. Shafik was preparing to testify before Congress.

At that hearing in Washington, before a Republican-led House committee, she vowed to punish unauthorized protests on the private university’s campus more aggressively, and the next day, she asked the New York Police Department to clear the encampment. In addition to the more than 100 people arrested, Columbia suspended many students. Many Columbia professors, students and alumni voiced fears that the university was stamping out free debate, a cornerstone of the American college experience.

The harsher approach helped lead to more protests outside Columbia’s gates, where Jewish students reported being targeted with antisemitic jeers and described feeling unsafe as they traveled to and from their campus.

The spiraling uproar in Upper Manhattan helped fuel protests on some other campuses.

“We’re all a united front,” said Malak Afaneh, a law student protesting at University of California, Berkeley. “This was inspired by the students at Columbia who, in my opinion, are the heart of the student movement whose bravery and solidarity with Palestine really inspired us all.”

The events at Columbia also rippled to Yale, where students gathered at Beinecke Plaza in New Haven, Conn., for days to demand that the university divest from arms manufacturers.

Yale’s president, Peter Salovey, said Monday that university leaders had spent “many hours” in talks with the protesters, with an offer that included an audience with the trustee who oversees Yale’s Corporation Committee on Investor Responsibility. But university officials had decided late Sunday that the talks were proving unsuccessful, and Dr. Salovey said, they were troubled by reports “that the campus environment had become increasingly difficult.”

The authorities arrested 60 people on Monday morning, including 47 students, Dr. Salovey said. The university said the decision to make arrests was made with “the safety and security of the entire Yale community in mind and to allow access to university facilities by all members of our community.”

In the hours after the arrests, though, hundreds of protesters blocked a crucial intersection in New Haven.


Students protesters occupied an intersection near the campus of Yale University on Monday.Credit...Adrian Martinez Chavez for The New York Times

“We demand that Yale divests!” went one chant.

“Free Palestine!” went another.

Far from being cowed by the police, protesters suggested that the response at Beinecke Plaza had emboldened them.

“It’s pretty appalling that the reaction to students exercising their freedom of speech and engaging in peaceful protest on campus grounds — which is supposed to be our community, our campus — the way that Yale responds is by sending in the cops and having 50 students arrested,” said Chisato Kimura, a law student at Yale.

The scene was less contentious in Massachusetts, where Harvard officials had moved to limit the possibility of protests by closing Harvard Yard, the 25-acre core of the campus in Cambridge, through Friday. Students were warned that they could face university discipline if they, for instance, erected unauthorized tents or blocked building entrances.

On Monday, Harvard’s Palestine Solidarity Committee said on social media that the university had suspended it. National Students for Justice in Palestine, a loose confederation of campus groups, said it believed the decision was “clearly intended to prevent students from replicating the solidarity encampments” emerging across the United States. Harvard said in a statement that it was “committed to applying all policies in a content-neutral manner.”

Elsewhere in the Boston area, protesters had set up encampments at Emerson College, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Tufts University. But those protests, for now, appeared more modest than the ones at Yale and in New York, where demonstrators constructed an encampment outside N.Y.U.’s Stern School of Business.


Protesters outside of New York University, before police arrived.Credit...Adam Gray for The New York Times

“Students, students, hold your ground!” protesters roared. “N.Y.U., back down!”Credit...Adam Gray for The New York Times

N.Y.U. officials tolerated the demonstration for hours but signaled Monday night that their patience was wearing thin. Police officers gathered near the protest site as demonstrators ignored a 4 p.m. deadline to vacate it. As nightfall approached, sirens blared and officers, donning helmets and bearing zip ties, mustered. Prisoner transport vans waited nearby.

“Students, students, hold your ground!” protesters roared. “N.Y.U., back down!”

Soon enough, police officers marched on the demonstration.

“Today’s events did not need to lead to this outcome,” said John Beckman, a university spokesman in a statement. But, he said, some protesters, who may not have been from N.Y.U., breached barriers and refused to leave. Because of safety concerns, the university said it asked for assistance from the police.

At Columbia, Dr. Shafik ordered Monday’s classes moved online “to de-escalate the rancor.”

She did not immediately detail how the university would proceed in the coming days, beyond saying that Columbia officials would be “continuing discussions with the student protesters and identifying actions we can take as a community to enable us to peacefully complete the term.”

Some students and faculty members said support for Dr. Shafik was eroding, with the university senate preparing for the possibility of a vote this week to censure the president. Supporters of the censure complained that Dr. Shafik was sacrificing academic freedom to appease critics.

But Dr. Shafik was castigated on Monday by the very people she was accused of appeasing when at least 10 members of the U.S. House of Representatives demanded her resignation.

“Over the past few days, anarchy has engulfed Columbia University,” Representative Elise Stefanik, Republican of New York and one of Dr. Shafik’s chief interrogators last week, wrote with other lawmakers. “As the leader of this institution, one of your chief objectives, morally and under law, is to ensure students have a safe learning environment. By every measure, you have failed this obligation.”

A university spokesperson said that Dr. Shafik was focused on easing the strife and that she was “working across campus with members of the faculty, administration, and board of trustees, and with state, city, and community leaders, and appreciates their support.”

Amid the acrimony, and with scores of green, blue and yellow tents filling the Columbia encampment, parts of the campus sometimes took on an eerie, surreal quiet on a splendid spring day.


Some faculty members said support for Dr. Shafik was eroding.Credit...CS Muncy for The New York Times

At Columbia, many Jewish students stayed away from campus for Passover.Credit...Bing Guan for The New York Times

The unease was never all that far away, though, even with many Jewish students away from campus for Passover.

“When Jewish students are forced to watch others burning Israeli flags, calling for bombing of Tel Aviv, calling for Oct. 7 to happen over and over again, it creates an unacceptable degree of fear that cannot be tolerated,” Representative Daniel Goldman, Democrat of New York, said outside Columbia’s Robert K. Kraft Center for Jewish Student Life.

By then, in another symbol of the crisis enveloping Columbia, Mr. Kraft, an alumnus and owner of the New England Patriots, had launched his own broadside and suggested he would pause his giving.

“I am no longer confident that Columbia can protect its students and staff,” he wrote in a statement, “and I am not comfortable supporting the university until corrective action is taken.”

 

[oh no its pipkun]

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I am flabbergasted by how retarded these people are. Watch this 35 second clip, these people can vote.

its not that retarded. shes from the columbia protest. shes there at nyu because nyu activists put out a call to action for support.

Don't think this has been posted yet about Justine Brooke Murray being followed around by a really fat creepy Michael Tracey near one of these schools.

Sounded like Tracey was wanting to debunk the Jewish woman's claim that people were being antisemitic for blocking people from a campus that didn't go to school there, not realizing just how weird it'd look to be following around a woman like this.

https://twitter.com/mtracey/status/1783994612102705187

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why are you defending a lying jewess?

 

[º¿º™]

Governor Hotwheels declares free speech doesn't exist when it comes to Israel.

https://justicereport.news/2024/04/25/texas-arrests-100-students-and-threatens-expulsion-over-antisemitism/

https://archive.ph/njbsP

Texas arrests 30+ students and threatens expulsion over ‘antisemitism’​

April 25, 2024

Subscribe for as little as $5 to access the audio edition of this article directly on the website.

Austin, Texas – Texas Governor Greg Abbott (R) supported the arrest of dozens of student protestors and issued threats of expulsion from Texan Universities on Wednesday, over what he called acts of “antisemitism.”

The shocking, constitutionally fraught police action would come amid mass arrests and violence at several American colleges, aimed at cracking down on pro-Palestine rhetoric now found coast to coast.

Arrests being made right now & will continue until the crowd disperses.

These protesters belong in jail.

Antisemitism will not be tolerated in Texas. Period.

Students joining in hate-filled, antisemitic protests at any public college or university in Texas should be expelled. https://t.co/XhLlQdvUl0
— Greg Abbott (@GregAbbott_TX) April 24, 2024

“Arrests being made right now & will continue until the crowd disperses,” proclaimed Abbott on X, formerly Twitter. “These protesters belong in jail.”
“Antisemitism will not be tolerated in Texas. Period. Students joining in hate-filled, antisemitic protests at any public college or university in Texas should be expelled,” the post continued.

The post was in reply to a shocking video depicting armored members of the Texas Department of Public Safety (DPS) physically removing throngs of peaceful protestors from an outdoor common area of the University of Texas in Austin. According to reports, the clashes between pro-Palestine demonstrators and police would culminate in over 30 arrests.

Painted as a “tense standoff,” the highly televised event also saw the concerning use of police on horseback, rounding up American citizens for merely expressing political views contrary to the state of Israel. Nationally, over 100 would be arrested.

Texan police manhandle peaceful pro-Palestine demonstrators on Wednesday. In total, over 100 people would be placed in handcuffs over their anti-Zionist rhetoric. Photo: Getty Images

The protest at UT Austin was said to have been organized by the Palestinian Solidarity Committee, which directed students to “occupy” the South Lawn in order to raise awareness of the ongoing Palestinian genocide. In response, the University had sent a letter urging organizers to cancel the event, prior to the hostilities on Wednesday.

“Simply put, the University of Texas at Austin will not allow this campus to be ‘taken’ and protestors to derail our mission in ways that groups affiliated with your national organization have accomplished elsewhere,” the letter read.

Online commentators were quick to point out Governor Abbott’s apparent hypocrisy. In 2019, the long-time supporter of Israel once signed a law designed specifically to “protect free speech on campus.” This stunning policy reversal led many to see Abbott as merely a tool of international Zionism, attacking him for a perceived “America last” position.

I just signed a law protecting free speech on college campuses. #txlege pic.twitter.com/jHIh8431SH
— Greg Abbott (@GregAbbott_TX) June 10, 2019

“Incredibly disturbing footage out of Texas where authorities appear to be barring any pro-Palestinian protest at all in open outdoor areas of campus,” read a post by First Amendment attorney Alex Morey on X/Twitter. “…This appears to be a blatant violation not just of the First Amendment but S.B. 18, which requires these spaces be open to protest.”

“Who can curtail Americans’ speech most aggressively for Israel? Winner gets an all-expense paid trip to the Western Wall and a special commemorative Yarmulke,” said Journalist Michael Tracy, also to X/Twitter.

Support independent journalism! Become a paying subscriber to the Justice Report’s official Substack or Odyseeand gain access to a full range of audio articles.

Others, however, pointed to the grim reality of Abbott’s military-style crackdown on free expression. Political podcaster and anti-Zionist Mike Peinovich said the move was made specifically to arrest and identify pro-Palestine leftists in order to politically gatekeep them from future positions of prestige.

“(Jews) want, and in some cases have succeeded, in getting the cops to go in and bust heads. They then want to dox and ruin the future of anyone involved, as well as impose legal costs on the Universities for mental health damage to Jewish students…” read a post to X/Twitter.

They want, and in some cases have succeeded, in getting the cops to go in and bust heads. They then want to dox and ruin the future of anyone involved, as well as impose legal costs on the Universities for mental health damage to Jewish students or something.
— ThunderStruck https://sneed.w.org/images/core/emoji/15.0.3/svg/26a1.svg (@StrukkThunder) April 25, 2024

“Ultimately, their goal is to make pro-Palestine activism so personally and institutionally costly and to create such a stigma associated with it that University communities police themselves for it and the internal cultures shift to make Palestine out of bounds like Nazism is,” read another.

Abbott, the Republican governor who has so far done little to stem the flow of thousands of foreign migrants from entering the United States illegally, has often signaled support for the regime in Tel Aviv. In March, Abbott personally signed Executive Order No. GA-44, a brutal hate speech policy designed to “address(ing) acts of antisemitism in institutions of higher education.”

The law was panned as a blatant “attack” on the First Amendment, made to protect Jews from criticism as the war on Gaza continues into 2024.
Abbott’s decision to send in “shock troops” to disperse peaceful student protestors fell in line with international calls to deal with anti-Zionist rhetoric on American campuses. In a publicized address, Israeli Prime Minister (((Benjamin Netanyahu))) personally called for a heavy-handed crackdown, handwaving protestors as merely “antisemitic mobs” in support of “genocidal terrorists.”

Texas police officers struggle to contain the situation at the University of Texas in Austin on Wednesday. Police would then use shields, horses, and force of arms to disperse an encampment and arrest over thirty demonstrators. Photo: Getty Images

“Antisemitic mobs have taken over leading universities,” said the Israeli leader to an audience on Wednesday. “They call for the annihilation of Israel…They say not only death to Israel, death to the Jews, but death to America.”

“This tells us there is an antisemitic urge that has terrible consequences,” he continued.

Abbott has found allies in many mainstream GOP politicians seeking to court the Israel lobby. On Tuesday, one day before the political repression at U of T, Arkansas Senator Tom Cotton bizarrely referred to pro-Palestine protests at New York’s Columbia University as a “nascent pogrom,” and even urged President Joe Biden to send in the National Guard to suppress criticism of Israel by force.

Republican Governor of Texas, Greg Abbott, is a proud supporter of Israel, whose performative displays often draw negative attention from both sides of the political spectrum. Photo: Greg Abbott X/Twitter.

“The nascent pogroms at Columbia have to stop TODAY, before our Jewish brethren sit for Passover Seder tonight,” said Cotton in a breathless tweet. “If Eric Adams won’t send the NYPD and Kathy Hochul won’t send the National Guard, Joe Biden has a duty to take charge and break up these mobs.”

Cotton previously drew controversy for his rabidly pro-Zionist rhetoric when he urged American drivers to “take matters into their own hands” when dealing with pro-Palestine protestors who block traffic. The tweet, which earned millions of views on social media, appeared to call for vigilante justice against Israel’s critics, up to and including throwing them from bridges.

Meanwhile, support for Israel continues to decline rapidly as it increasingly stands face-to-face with the consequences of its own horrific actions in the region. In early March, Israeli warplanes bombed a home in the southern Gazan city of Rafah, killing over 14, many of them children. So far, more than 30,320 Palestinians have been killed, with an additional 71,533 wounded since the events of October 7th.

Have a story? Please forward any tips or leads to the editors at justicereporttips@proton.me

 

[The Last Stand]

The United States is finally paying the piper for being involved with Eastern geopolitics. The establishment is warring with itself between identify politics conflicting with their God-given right of freedom of speech by picking sides of a centuries long conflict for religious reasons. The pragmatic solution for this would've been to be hands-off to focus on ongoing issues happening HERE.

 

[Non-breath oblige]

https://nypost.com/2024/04/26/us-news/university-of-washington-students-postpone-anti-israel-encampment-over-lack-of-diversity/

https://archive.ph/eyPf4

University of Washington anti-Israel encampment postponed over lack of diversity​

Spoiler

A planned anti-Israel encampment at the University of Washington was scrapped at the last minute because of a lack of diversity — following fierce backlash for not involving any Muslim, Palestinian or Arab students.

“After long discussions, we have had to make the hard decision to postpone our action for several days,” the school’s Progressive Student Union announced Thursday, the day its “UW Palestine Encampment” was supposed to take over a quad at 8 a.m.

“We want to make sure this encampment is a better reflection of the UW community, and having even greater unity with Muslim, Palestinian, and Arab students,” said the group.

University administrators informed Jewish leaders that the school had no plans to stop the encampment unless “the event escalates and threatens life safety,” according to 770 KTTH.

However, the initial announcement of the encampment sparked anger at those not involved.

“Please listen to the Palestinian, Arab and Muslim students criticizing this event and cancel it,” one person commented to the initial post.

“Y’all have zero community support in this bc of your inability to center Palestinians and Arabs and this is so poorly planned,” someone else stated.

“Why was [StudentsUnited for Palestinian Equality and Return] not consulted?” another person asked.

“Why is there no Arab or Muslim leadership? This is the only page I have seen this posted, which leads me to believe that no other orgs endorse this action. This is dangerous and weird to be honest.”

Despite the embarrassing backlash, the Progressive Student Union promised to press ahead.

“Make no mistake, WE WILL HAVE A UW ENCAMPMENT!” the group wrote, teasing an update by late Friday.

Anti-Israel protests have ratcheted up on college campuses across the nation over the past week after students at Columbia University set up a tent city that’s engulfed the New York City school in division and controversy.

Demonstrations have been an ongoing presence across the Big Apple since Israel launched its military campaign in Gaza following Hamas’ deadly attack on Oct. 7.

Students at NYU also set up an encampment, which was torn down this week at the direction of school leaders.

University of Southern California students also attempted to set up an encampment Wednesday, which resulted in the arrest of 93 student protesters.

That same day, hundreds of local and state Texas police officers clashed with protesters at the University of Texas at Austin.

Officers made 34 arrests at the behest of the university and Texas Gov. Gregg Abbott, according to the state Department of Public Safety.

my sides

 

[Glowing In The Streets]

University of Washington anti-Israel encampment postponed over lack of diversity​

It's going to be Occupy Wallstreet 2.0 Yiddish boogaloo isn't it?

 

[Ishtar]

Apart of me is hoping the protests spread and destroy Biden’s re election prospects. But from the look of it, it’s mostly going to White and Jewish college students.

I can’t really see this escalating more than it already has. American troops aren’t being sent to Gaza. All Biden and the Democrats have to do is wait out this unrest.

 

[tehpope]

https://www.theepochtimes.com/us/nearly-half-of-those-arrested-at-ut-austin-pro-palestinian-protest-had-no-links-to-school-5638333

https://archive.is/doKO8

Nearly half of the pro-Palestinian protesters arrested earlier this week at The University of Texas at Austin were not affiliated with the university.

Law enforcement officials arrested 57 protesters during Wednesday’s event organized by the Palestine Solidarity Committee after participants refused to disperse despite demands from authorities and the university. Of those arrested, 26 were neither students nor faculty of the university, according to officials at UT-Austin.

Hundreds of students walked out of class Wednesday in support of Palestinians in Gaza in the midst of the Israel-Hamas war. The war broke out after Palestinian terror group Hamas launched a brutal attack on Israel on Oct. 7, which left 1,200 Israelis dead. Hamas is believed to still be holding 129 hostages from Israel.


The organizers wrote on Instagram that they aimed to follow “in the footsteps of our comrades at Columbia SJP, Rutgers-New Brunswick, Yale, and countless others,” with SJP referring to Students for Justice in Palestine.

The anti-Israel student group demanded that the university “divest from death.”

“Consistent with this broader movement that is impacting so many, problematic aspects of the planned protest were modeled after a national organization’s protest playbook,” UT–Austin President Jay Hartzell said in a campuswide message Thursday evening. “And notably, 26 of the 55 individuals arrested yesterday had no UT affiliation.”

Local news outlet KTBC-TV reported that one of its photojournalists was among those arrested during the clash between police and protesters. He was booked into the Travis County jail on a criminal trespassing charge.

By Thursday evening, all of those arrested had been released. The Travis County prosecutor said it had dropped all criminal trespassing charges, citing “deficiencies” in charging documents. Criminal trespassing is considered a misdemeanor in the state of Texas.

According to the Texas Tribune, the Texas Department of Public Safety has opened a criminal investigation into the arrest of the photojournalist.
The UT–Austin chapter of the American Association of University of Professors denounced Mr. Hartzell for allowing authorities to be deployed on campus during the class walkout.
“We, faculty of UT Austin, condemn President Jay Hartzell and our administrative leaders’ decision to invite city police as well as state troopers from across the state—on horses, motorcycles, and bicycles, in riot gear and armed with batons, pepper spray, tear gas and guns to our campus today in response to a planned peaceful event by our students,” read the statement posted on X on Wednesday night.

Policy Violation​

Ahead of Wednesday’s demonstration, university officials warned the organizers that the event violated school policy and would not be allowed to take place in an effort to prevent the “pattern” that has occurred across the nation in recent weeks, leading to hundreds of arrests.
“The University’s decision to not allow yesterday’s event to go as planned was made because we had credible indications that the event’s organizers, whether national or local, were trying to follow the pattern we see elsewhere, using the apparatus of free speech and expression to severely disrupt a campus for a long period,” Mr. Hartzell continued.

Palestine Solidarity Committee (PSC) is a student organization with chapters at colleges and universities across the country.

The group’s website states that it is “dedicated to telling the story of the Palestinian struggle for justice and self-determination on the university campus and in the wider Austin community. We work to promote education, discourse, activism, and awareness of the Palestinian story through lectures by academics and political activists, movie screenings, and events and displays on the UT West Mall.”
The UT–Austin group, which holds biweekly meetings on campus, states under Article 1 of its bylaws that it will comply with school policies.

“This organization is a recognized student organization at The University of Texas at Austin and shall comply with all campus policies as set forth in the Institutional Rules on Student Services and Activities and Information on Students’ Rights and Responsibilities,” it says.

UT Suspends Organization​

The university suspended the student group from campus after another walkout on Thursday, which was organized in part by the faculty group that condemned the university for enforcing its rules.

Police were present during Thursday’s peaceful event.

“Students and faculty affirmed their commitment to continue struggling for the liberation of Palestine, to demand their university divest, and demand the resignation of President Jay Hartzell for greenlighting the militarized brutality enforced on students,” PSC wrote on Instagram.

PSC has held more than a dozen pro-Palestinian events since October.

“I’m thankful we live in a country where free expression is a fiercely protected Constitutional right,” Mr. Hartzell said in his campuswide message on Thursday. “I’m grateful that our campus has seen 13 pro-Palestinian events take place during the past several months largely without incident—plus another one today. I am grateful that everyone is safe after yesterday, we continue to hold in-person classes, and that today’s events followed our long-standing campus standards for allowed demonstrations.”

Brian Davis, a spokesperson for the university, confirmed on Friday that the student group had been suspended from campus in the wake of this week’s events. The length of the suspension is not immediately clear. Mr. Davis said that the Dean of Students office would make that determination.

It is unknown whether any students have been reprimanded for the events that occurred earlier this week. That information is protected by federal privacy laws.

“I encourage us all to continue to communicate and work together, and to help our students finish this school year in positive, safe and celebratory ways,” Mr. Hartzell said.

 

[clipartfan92]

Police clear 100 protesters from pro-Palestinian encampment at Northeastern University
Boston Globe (archive.ph)
By Alexa Coultoff, Lila Hempel-Edgers, Daniel Kool, Nick Stoico and Sean Cotter
2024-04-27 19:59:56GMT

Spoiler

A student protester is arrested at a pro-Palestinian protest encampment in Centennial Common on Northeastern University's campus on Friday, April 26, 2024. Andrew Burke-Stevenson for The Boston Globe

In the second dramatic sweep of a college campus in Boston this week, police cleared a pro-Palestinian encampment at Northeastern University early Saturday, detaining around 100 people.

But the police operation gave way to a roiling debate over the origin of an antisemitic statement that was shouted among the gathering, which included at least two counterdemonstrators holding a flag of Israel, before officers moved in and dismantled the encampment.

In a statement released at 8:30 a.m. Saturday, Northeastern said that “professional organizers with no affiliation” to the university had co-opted the demonstration. Northeastern also said “virulent antisemitic slurs, including ‘Kill the Jews’” were heard.

Student groups involved in the encampment and a peace activist organization said one of the counterprotesters who was not involved in the demonstration had shouted “Kill the Jews,” and that Northeastern had incorrectly blamed the pro-Palestinian demonstrators for the statement to justify the police action.

Massachusetts Peace Action shared a video clip that shows two men holding an Israeli flag as a gathering of pro-Palestinian demonstrators organized chants.

The video shared by the peace organization appears to show one of the unidentified men holding the Israeli flag, yell, “Kill the Jews, anybody on board?”

Spoiler: Archive

Several of the demonstrators responded by booing and yelling, “No.”

The peace group said in a statement that the counterprotester’s actions were “an apparent attempt to get the crowd to repeat the antisemitic remark.”

Two other organizations, Jewish Voice for Peace Boston and If Not Now Boston, also denounced Northeastern for making “false claims” that the pro-Palestinian demonstrators were “infiltrated by professional organizers” who used “virulent antisemitic slurs.”

Shortly after 11 a.m., Northeastern issued another statement addressing the remark. The statement didn’t address who was responsible for shouting the phrase and cited The Boston Globe as reporting that a person yelled the remark on campus.

“The fact that the phrase ‘Kill the Jews’ was shouted on our campus is not in dispute. The Boston Globe, a trusted news organization, reported it as fact. There is also substantial video evidence,” Northeastern spokesperson Renata Nyul said in the late morning statement. “Any suggestion that repulsive antisemitic comments are sometimes acceptable depending on the context is reprehensible. That language has no place on any university campus.”

Officers from the campus police department and State Police began clearing the encampment Saturday morning and began making arrests at 7 a.m. Boston Police were also on hand. They removed the demonstrators in about two hours.

The police raid took place two days after authorities broke up a similar encampment at Emerson that resulted in 118 arrests and drew criticism for what some saw as heavy-handed police tactics. The Northeastern operation did not appear to feature the same type of physical confrontations between police and protesters.

State Police said in a statement that Northeastern made the call Saturday morning to clear the protest and had asked them for assistance. Spokesperson David Procopio said troopers responded to a campus police request for assistance and “assisted in removing protesters who refused to leave.”

Those who are booked could face charges of trespassing and disorderly conduct. They were being taken to the Suffolk County House of Correction to be booked and processed, Procopio said, adding that about 102 people were detained in total.


Police officers stand in a ring around Centennial Common at a pro-Palestinian protest encampment in Centennial Common on Northeastern University's campus on Friday, April 26, 2024. Andrew Burke-Stevenson for The Boston Globe

Northeastern activist group Huskies for a Free Palestine disputed the statements that the demonstrators had been yelling antisemitic slurs. In a statement, the group said counterprotesters yelled the phrase to mock them.

“After deploying campus police, city police, and state police on peaceful activist students, Northeastern Administration published an entirely false and fabricated narrative that members of our encampment engaged in hate speech early this morning,” the student group said in a statement after the arrests.

“The conduct of Northeastern administration has been deplorable as they continue to defame their students and take away from the main cause of Huskies for a Free Palestine: to divest from Israeli Apartheid and call for an immediate and permanent ceasefire.”

The statement said the group was not “‘infiltrated’ in any way, shape or form by ‘professional protestors’, no one hired, it was comprised primarily of students.”

The encampment at Northeastern is one of several that demonstrators set up at universities in the Boston area this week, part of a national wave of protests at college campuses as students call on administrators to condemn the climbing death toll in Gaza and divest from financial ties to Israel.

Mayor Michelle Wu and Police Commissioner Michael Cox made the decision that police would clear the Emerson encampment after police and city officials warned protesters that it created a safety hazard because it blocked a public way leading to a state transportation building. Video from protesters and onlookers showed officers tussling with screaming protesters, prompting criticism of police tactics.

Encampments remain at Harvard, MIT, and Tufts.

The Northeastern demonstrators, who set up the site Thursday, quickly faced opposition from administrators, who said protesters were violating the student code of conduct.

As they began clearing the camp Saturday morning, about a dozen Northeastern and State Police walked in a single file line from Shillman Hall, lining up around the other side of the circular pathway.

“Time to go home, guys,” one officer said. The students responded that it was their lawn. “Private property,” the officer said. “It’s time to go home.”

The crowd had grown to about 200 demonstrators at its peak late Friday night. Earlier in the day, the university cut off power to the common, where there are outlets that demonstrators were using to charge mobile devices as well as water heaters, speakers, and other items. Two academic buildings near the common were also closed with their doors locked.

Michael Armini, Northeastern’s senior vice president of external affairs, said university officials had “tried to talk to students several times” but were not successful.


A police officer moves chairs away from a pro-Palestinian protest encampment in Centennial Common on Northeastern University's campus on Friday, April 26, 2024. Andrew Burke-Stevenson for The Boston Globe

But the hostility continued to rise. At one point, a person called out, “Kill the Jews,” while others yelled, “No right to exist,” at the two counterprotesters holding the Israeli flag. Campus police later escorted the men away from the encampment.

About 5:35 a.m. Saturday, police at Northeastern ushered about two dozen protesters down Leon Street, where they stood and continued to chant and film from a distance.

Ruben Galindo, Northeastern’s deputy chief of police, walked around the encampment with a loudspeaker to warn demonstrators to leave the area. He told students they could leave with no disciplinary action, but none obliged. Instead, chants grew louder still.

“When the officers approach you, don’t resist,” Galindo told the demonstrators.

At 5:45 a.m., a large, black moving truck pulled up next to the encampment’s border. Police and workers lifted metal blockades from inside, dragging them around the encampment to block people from entering.

One protester began shouting at the workers putting together the barricade fence.

“You’re helping these police?” he called, holding his phone up to record video.

“We’re just doing our job, brother,” a man holding a barricade said.

Officers established barricades on either side of the encampment, blocking students off from the outside. One side of the barricades reached from Shillman Hall to Ryder Hall, the other between Ryder and Holmes halls.

By 5:55 a.m., the encampment was fully blocked off. At 6:08 a.m., police began dragging away Adirondack chairs and tossing tents aside, as the protesters still inside continued their chants. Other demonstrators sat on the ground with their arms linked.

One officer picked up a small Palestinian flag and walked to the perimeter of Centennial Common, where demonstrators stood outside the barriers. “Do you want this?” he said, offering the flag to the student. She took and it began waving it along to the chant, “Gaza sees you.”

Meanwhile, a group of students gathered outside the barriers, screaming at officers and repeating chants being shouted from within the encampment. An officer motioned for backup, telling other officers to “cover” gaps between barriers and the encampment.

Two students within the encampment used homemade seat cushions, built from pool noodles and Styrofoam, as shields. Around 6:15 a.m., students in the encampment rose from a sitting position and stood, with their arms linked, chanting at the police.

Police approached the wall of protestors around 6:35 a.m. They appeared to speak with organizers, gesturing and pointing toward the outside of the barricades.

Before police reached campus, droves of State Police cruisers and unmarked vehicles filed into a parking lot behind the Ruggles MBTA station, a short distance from the common. Officers could be seen embracing and shaking hands, as others began to take equipment out of the vehicles.

The arrests began shortly after 7 a.m. as police placed some demonstrators’ hands in zip ties and led them to Shillman Hall. The protesters were then taken from Shillman and placed into transport vans parked in an alley around 7:25 a.m., drawing cheers from a nearby crowd of more than a dozen onlookers standing behind a barricade.

“These are nonviolent students,” one protester said to police from across the barricade.

On the common, students linked arms around the perimeter of the encampment, while an organizer stood in the center and spoke into a megaphone. “Please do not actively resist arrest, I know you want to, I want to as well. Do not engage, it’s not worth it,” the organizer said.

Some protesters tried to block police vehicles.


Police remove two pro-Israel counter-protesters from a pro-Palestinian protest encampment in Centennial Common on Northeastern University's campus on Friday, April 26, 2024. The counter-protesters later returned. Andrew Burke-Stevenson for The Boston Globe

Encampments have sprung up at dozens of campuses nationwide since New York City police made more than 100 arrests as they attempted to break up a camp at Columbia University last week.

More than 34,300 people in Gaza have died, mostly women and children, according to the Gaza Health Ministry, since Israel invaded the territory following Hamas’s Oct. 7 attack on Israel that killed more than 1,200 people, mostly civilians.

Anti-war protesters dig in as some schools close encampments after reports of antisemitic activity
Associated Press (archive.ph)
By James Pollard and Michael Casey
2024-04-27 20:26:36GMT

Spoiler

NEW YORK (AP) — As students protesting the Israel-Hamas war at college campuses across U.S. dug in Saturday and vowed to keep their demonstrations going, some universities moved to shut down encampments after reports of antisemitic activity among the protesters.

With the death toll mounting in the war in Gaza, protesters nationwide are demanding that schools cut financial ties to Israel and divest from companies they say are enabling the conflict. Some Jewish students say the protests have veered into antisemitism and made them afraid to set foot on campus.

Early Saturday, police in riot gear cleared an encampment on the campus of Northeastern University in Boston. Massachusetts State Police said about 102 protesters were arrested and will be charged with trespassing and disorderly conduct. Protesters said they were given about 15 minutes to disperse before being arrested.

As workers pulled down tents and bagged up the debris from the encampment, several dozen people across from the encampment chanted, “Let the Kids Go,” and slogans against the war in Gaza. They also booed as police cars passed and taunted the officers who stood guard over the encampment.

The school said in a statement that the demonstration, which began two days ago, had become “infiltrated by professional organizers” with no affiliation to the school and antisemitic slurs, including “kill the Jews,” had been used.

“We cannot tolerate this kind of hate on our campus,” the statement posted on the social media platform X said.

The Huskies for a Free Palestine student group disputed the university’s account, saying in a statement that counterprotesters were to blame for the slurs and no student protesters “repeated the disgusting hate speech.”

Students at the protest said a counterprotester attempted to instigate hate speech but insisted their event was peaceful and, like many across the country, was aimed at drawing attention to what the described as the “genocide” in Gaza and their university’s complicity in the war.

The president of nearby Massachusetts Institute of Technology put out a statement Saturday saying the encampment there had become a “potential magnet for disruptive outside protesters” and was taking hundreds of staff hours to keep safe.

“We have a responsibility to the entire MIT community — and it is not possible to safely sustain this level of effort,” MIT President Sally Kornbluth said. “We are open to further discussion about the means of ending the encampment. But this particular form of expression needs to end soon.”

At the University of Pennsylvania on Friday, interim President J. Larry Jameson called for an encampment of protesters on the west Philadelphia campus to be disbanded, saying it violates the university’s facilities policies, though about 40 tents remained in place Saturday morning.

The “harassing and intimidating comments and actions” by some protesters violate the school’s open expression guidelines as well as state and federal law, Jameson said, and vandalism of a statue with antisemitic graffiti was “especially reprehensible and will be investigated as a hate crime.”

A faculty group said Saturday that it was “deeply disturbed” by the university president’s email, saying it included “unsubstantiated allegations” that “have been disputed to us by faculty and students who have attended and observed the demonstration.”

The university’s chapter of the American Association of University Professors said Jameson’s statement “mischaracterizes the overall nature of an antiwar protest that necessarily involves strong emotions on both sides but has not, to our knowledge, involved any actual violence or threats of violence to individuals on our campus.”

Campus protests began after Hamas’ deadly attack on southern Israel, when militants killed about 1,200 people, most of them civilians, and took roughly 250 hostages. During the ensuing war, Israel has killed more than 34,000 Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, according to the local health ministry.

Israel and its supporters have branded the protests as antisemitic, while critics of Israel say it uses such allegations to silence opponents. Although some protesters have been caught on camera making antisemitic remarks or violent threats, organizers of the protests, some of whom are Jewish, say it is a peaceful movement aimed at defending Palestinian rights and protesting the war.

At Columbia University, where protesters have inspired pro-Palestinian demonstrations across the country, students representing the encampment said Friday that they reached an impasse with administrators and intended to continue their protest.

The university’s senate passed a resolution Friday that created a task force to examine the administration’s leadership, which last week called in police in an attempt to clear the protest, resulting in scuffles and more than 100 arrests.

Though the university has repeatedly set and then pushed back deadlines for the removal of the encampment, the school sent an email to students Friday night saying that bringing back police “at this time” would be counterproductive.

Decisions to call in law enforcement, leading to hundreds of arrests nationwide, have prompted school faculty members at universities in California, Georgia and Texas to initiate or pass votes of no confidence in their leadership. They are largely symbolic rebukes, without the power to remove their presidents.

But the tensions pile pressure on school officials, who are already scrambling to resolve the protests as May graduation ceremonies near.

The University of Southern California drew criticism after refusing to allow the valedictorian, who has publicly supported Palestinians, to make a commencement speech. Administrators then scrapped the keynote speech by filmmaker Jon M. Chu. The school announced the cancellation of its main graduation event Thursday, a day after more than 90 protesters were arrested by police in riot gear.

USC President Carol Folt made her first public statement late Friday addressing the controversies as “incredibly difficult for all of us.”

“No one wants to have people arrested on their campus. Ever. But, when long-standing safety policies are flagrantly violated, buildings vandalized, Department of Public Safety directives repeatedly ignored, threatening language shouted, people assaulted, and access to critical academic buildings blocked, we must act immediately to protect our community,” Folt said.

Arizona State University said 69 people were arrested early Saturday on suspicion of criminal trespassing for setting up an unauthorized encampment on a lawn on its Tempe campus. The protesters were given chances to leave, and those who refused were arrested.

“While the university will continue to be an environment that embraces freedom of speech, ASU’s first priority is to create a safe and secure environment that supports teaching and learning,” the university said in a statement.

Campus free speech is getting murky for Republican governors
Politico (archive.ph)
By Juan Perez Jr.
2024-04-27 11:00:00GMT

Spoiler

A student quietly stares at a row of Texas State Troopers as pro-Palestinian students protest the Israel-Hamas war on the campus of the University of Texas in Austin, Texas, on April 24, 2024. | Suzanne Cordeiro/AFP via Getty Images)

Republican states spent years swooping in to bolster safe spaces for conservative voices at public universities in the name of fighting liberal censorship. The Israel-Gaza war is causing many of them to rethink free speech protections.

State troopers and local police this week arrested scores of demonstrators who assembled at flagship public schools in red states with a history of setting trends on free speech, diversity programs and LGBTQ+ issues for the right. Texas institutions are staring down an order from Gov. Greg Abbott to overhaul campus policies. In Florida, Gov. Ron DeSantis is suggesting expelling students who cross the line separating free speech from targeted harassment.

A wave of pro-Palestinian unrest is not only challenging lawmakers who cemented campus free speech protections in recent years, but also creating a political test for laws and legal doctrines honed during the Civil Rights era and the Vietnam War. The moment is forcing higher education officials to balance their obligations to free expression with the legal authority they possess to limit defiant disruptions as antiwar demonstrations spread and graduation season approaches.

“You can’t just have a blanket exclusion at a public university for speech activity, protests, marches, demonstrations and loud speeches,” Mark Rotenberg, the top lawyer for the Hillel International organization and a Reagan-era Justice Department official, said in an interview. “That is completely clear from long-standing constitutional precedent. But by the same token, protesters do not have a right, including at public universities, to simply call their shots as they want.”

Public universities face stricter legal requirements to uphold the First Amendment than Columbia, Yale and other private schools. And Texas, Florida and Indiana are among roughly two dozen states that have some form of free expression law for colleges on their books, according to the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression free speech advocacy organization. They also exist in places like deep-blue California, where a legislative fight over student protests is pitting civil liberties advocates against Democratic lawmakers.


A crowd estimated at about 200 rallied and marched on campus of the University of Central Florida on April 26, 2024, in opposition to Israel's response in the armed conflict between Israel and Hamas-led Palestinian militant groups. | Joe Burbank/Orlando Sentinel via AP

Abbott promoted his signature of Texas’ campus free speech law in 2019 amid Republican complaints that so-called cancel culture had seized higher education and grown hostile to conservative views.

The law requires public institutions to ensure common outdoor areas on campus “are deemed traditional public forums,” set disciplinary policies for students and faculty who “unduly interfere” with other’ expression and created more protections for student organizations. It also reinforced schools’ authority to set reasonable restrictions on the time, place, and the manner of those activities.

But conservative leaders started outlining a different vision even before police started clashing with and arresting dozens of people on the flagship campuses for University of Texas, Indiana University and elsewhere this week.

Abbott issued an executive order last month demanding that universities review and update their speech codes by this summer to address antisemitic incidents, and ensure pro-Palestinian student organizations face discipline for violating those policies. Earlier this month, Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick also suggested lawmakers examine public colleges’ free speech procedures and antisemitism prevention policies when they reconvene next year.

“You’ve got to be able to operate a school, you’ve got to be able to keep your students safe,” Texas Republican state Sen. Paul Bettencourt said in an interview.

“You can’t let occupations occur on public lawns, for example, because all that’s going to do is end up with the same endpoint that Columbia had — which is a closed school and students, especially Jewish students, feeling that they don’t feel safe anymore,” said Bettencourt, a member of the Texas Senate education committee and a co-author of the 2019 state campus expression law. “That’s not tolerable in the state of Texas.”

Abbott’s office did not respond to a request for comment, but on Wednesday, as campus arrests unfolded, he posted on social media that “These protesters belong in jail.”

In Florida, DeSantis has also taken a hard line against pro-Palestinian groups and their campus events since the war erupted.

“When you’re chasing Jewish students around, when you’re not letting a Jewish professor enter a building, when you’re targeting people like that — that’s not free speech, that’s harassment,” DeSantis said Wednesday during a bill signing event near Tampa. “You do that in Florida at our universities, we’re showing you the door. You’re going to be expelled when you’re doing that stuff.”


A protester shouts down White Nationalist Richard Spencer during a speech at the University of Florida in Gainesville, Florida, in 2017. Florida Republicans were spearheading a legislative effort they argue would protect free speech at the state's public universities. | Chris O'Meara/AP

The state has its own campus free speech law signed by former Republican then-Gov. Rick Scott, who is now in the Senate. The DeSantis administration, however, has been at the center of a legal fight over whether schools can cancel certain student groups despite free speech concerns. DeSantis is also calling to expel student demonstrators and cancel the visas of foreign students studying in the U.S. who participate, after urging schools in 2019 to embrace debate and controversial topics.

“The political balance of all of this was exactly the opposite from where it is now,” said Michael Dorf, a Cornell Law School constitutional law expert. “You heard people on the right complaining that the colleges and universities had gone overboard in attending to the sensitivities of people being offended by a bunch of things.”

Now prominent Republicans, including House Speaker Mike Johnson, are calling for National Guard troops to be deployed to clamp down on protests.

“It’s not an accident that it’s Mike Johnson, rather than the Democrats in the House, who are going to Columbia to decry it as insufficiently protective of the sensitivities of a minority group,” Dorf said in an interview. “He’s making the same kinds of claims that the DeSantises of the world were complaining about less than a year ago.”

Free speech rights also have limits, including on college campuses. Schools can set reasonable restrictions on the time, place and manner of protests — and administrators are leaning hard into that wiggle room to justify crackdowns that have prompted growing alarm from an array of civil liberties and academic organizations.

Police and Indiana University officials said demonstrators violated campus rules when they tried to set up tents and canopies as part of a protest on the Dunn Meadow expanse in Bloomington. Much like in Texas, a 2022 Indiana law prohibits state institutions from setting certain restrictions on expressive activity.

University of Texas officials had warned the Palestine Solidarity Committee student organization not to host a “Popular University for Gaza” event on campus, citing the potential for disruption as students prepare for the end of the semester.

“Our University will not be occupied,” UT-Austin President Jay Hartzell wrote to campus Wednesday after the institution and Abbott summoned state troopers to campus to assist local police.


Speaker of the House Mike Johnson speaks to the media on the campus of Columbia University in New York City, on April 24, 2024. | Madine Touré/POLITICO

Campus demonstrations at Florida State University and the University of Florida are being held in check by administrators threatening steep consequences, including suspension, for students and faculty that step out of line.

Then there’s California.

State legislative committees have advanced a bill that would require the California’s public universities to to prohibit advocating genocide and train all students on how to exchange ideas in a civil manner.

“In recent months and weeks we’ve witnessed an alarming trend of escalating harassment, intimidation and violence targeted at marginalized groups on our campuses,” state Sen. Steve Glazer, a onetime adviser to former Gov. Jerry Brown and a state university trustee, said at a Tuesday hearing on the bill. “This obviously threatens the safety and wellbeing of our students, faculty and staff. It threatens the educational environment, and it threatens the free exchange of ideas.”

Yet despite several amendments drafted to avoid conflicts with the First Amendment and the state constitution, the measure continues to face steep opposition from civil liberties and student groups.

“Leaders of American colleges, universities and political officials are reacting to the sense that there is this geometric rise in antisemitic hatred on college campuses, including at very elite institutions,” Rotenberg said. “And folks want something done about it.”

Andrew Atterbury and Blake Jones contributed to this report.

 

[WelfareNiggerQueen]

Whatever happens, we win, boys.

Eh. It is two groups of foreigner loving faggots that I hate duking it out but they both love nuking the Constitution for what they view as hate speech/antisemitism.

Feel like the lesson in all this is the Palestinian side has been massively better about doing propaganda in comparison to the Israeli/Jewish side (if you ignore the road blockades). The pro-Israel side has made itself the boring side to go with while if you go pro-Palestine you can show support by wearing a fun scarf and eating junk food in a park.

The Republicans(zionists) went full retard even harder than the pro-palestine people. For years they were clamoring on about the border and Ukraine funding(no more money going to foreigners) and within the span of a couple of days they totally flip flopped to reveal their true colors. They want everybody to live and die for Israel, become tax cattle for Israel, totally abandoned the border, and showed us that they really could have dealt with the 2020 riots but simply didn't.

Elections are going to be fun since all the voter bases feel extremely disenfranchised. Jeb 2024?

 

[NIA-DOA 2.0]

Has any report given an idea of what demographics these protesters fall into? I am not too curious about race or ethnic background, but the one I really think will be eye-opening is the income bracket they fall into.

 

[Criticallacitirc]

Y’all have zero community support in this bc of your inability to center Palestinians and Arabs and this is so poorly planned,”

And ARABS? So now some cunt from Saudia Arabia who's family probably has a house keeper that's the equivalent of a modern slave gets to larp that they're some how oppressed?

 

[MeltyTW]

The United States is finally paying the piper for being involved with Eastern geopolitics. The establishment is warring with itself between identify politics conflicting with their God-given right of freedom of speech by picking sides of a centuries long conflict for religious reasons. The pragmatic solution for this would've been to be hands-off to focus on ongoing issues happening HERE.

that presumes zog considers "here" to be their "here" to them "here" is in their actual liege in israel.

The Republicans(zionists) went full retard even harder than the pro-palestine people. For years they were clamoring on about the border and Ukraine funding(no more money going to foreigners) and within the span of a couple of days they totally flip flopped to reveal their true colors. They want everybody to live and die for Israel, become tax cattle for Israel, totally abandoned the border, and showed us that they really could have dealt with the 2020 riots but simply didn't.

im upset that the youth still see this as a minority driven issue but i am glad that tens of millions of people are seeing the parties as just two sides of the zog machine, repubs to make you think austerity to pay more to israel is good because itll maybe hurt the minorities the dems import even as the nations infrastructure crumbles with entire states dying and more white people becoming landless slaves who cant afford to rebel, while offering the false comfort of opposition to the status quo draining us. and then the dems who exist to tell us that defending ourselves from the imported slave labor flipping out is illegal and that we dont have an identity beyond loyalty to the zog economic zone formerly known as america, who cant defend americans from being killed in blm riots because one baby killer was kneed but can shut down any protest or media site or make anti first amendment laws to stifle criticism of israel bombing brown babies en masse.

All Biden and the Democrats have to do is wait out this unrest.

i think youre wrong, what israel is doing is undermining the entire virtue signaling premise of the dems, why vote biden if hes just going to bomb brown babies and not even for the benefit of the country hes supposedly loyal to and supposedly runs? why be a clout farmer who wants dem approval if theyre just going to ban your livelihood because you didnt like them nuke brown babies while telling you to call america evil for killing one brown baby killer?

if they could wait it out they wouldnt have deployed more troops, snipers, and defense assets than they have in the border in bidens whole sham of a presidency.

 

[Ishtar]

Most people who will vote Dem aren’t going to be turned away because of bombing brown babies. Maybe some younger people might stay home, but the Dems have the African American constituency locked in, as well as unmarried women, and certain other groups.

It might depress turnout in some areas but I don’t think this will have the decisive political impact many(including myself) are hoping for.

 

[Catch The Rainbow]

@Catch The Rainbow reply bug.
Your entire religion is predicated on being God's chosen people, even the term Master Race is less laced with a sense of superiority than being racially chosen by an omnipotent power.

Are Jews genetically incapable of self awareness?

Chosen people means chosen by God for greater responsibility in following all 613 commandments and being an example of how to act for other nations to follow. Non Jews get the same rewards as Jews if they follow the 7 Noahide laws. If Jews thought they were religiously or racially superior, why would they allow converts?

 

[Doseferatu]

I genuinely don't understand the difference in this situation between being anti-Israel and being pro-Hamas.

If you're a fuckin' Jew-hater, one side took your spot at Harvard and the other side flew fuckin' planes into buildings and beheaded somewhere between 1-40 babies and would shoot half your loved ones on sight for not being sufficiently devoted to Allah and would rape the other half before shooting them. And it would be a kindness to shoot them and not wire the whole family together and burn them alive.

I don't want to come off all Alan Jackson but this was Israel's 9-11 and Hamas absolutely knew they were going to get reamed beforehand and they did it anyway, and the way I see it, every dead Palestinian kid is on them.

Islam is incompatible with western civilization. Fuck 'em all, and fuck all their supporters and enablers.

I hate both - one for forcing the other upon us by influencing our domestic and foreign policies and never caring if we died as a result - they only desired our subjugation and demise. I hate the other for wanting to enforce a lifestyle on me and mine that is incompatible with our happiness and future prospects.

 

[clipartfan92]

Reports: State police in riot gear dismantle protest camp at IU, arrest 23
IndyStar (archive.ph)
By Tony Cook
2024-04-27 22:13:05GMT

Spoiler

At least 60 Indiana State Police in riot gear moved in on pro-Palestinian protesters at Indiana University's Dunn Meadow on Saturday afternoon, dismantling encampments and arresting 23 people, according to the Indiana Daily Student.

The arrests come after a relatively quiet day Friday, when a few hundred people including IU students, alumni and faculty gathered with Palestinian flags and signs calling for the liberation of Palestinian people, a ceasefire in Gaza and the resignation of IU leaders including President Pamela Whitten who recently received a vote of no confidence from faculty. Police hovered near the scene but did not physically confront protesters.

That changed Saturday. At about 9:50 a.m., university posted a message on social media warning the encampment violated university policy.

"IU encourages and respects free speech, including the right to peacefully protest and demonstrate," the message said. "Consistent with university policy, the installation of temporary structures requires advanced approval and camping is not allowed overnight. IU students, faculty, staff and visitors are expected to comply with both university policy and state law. Students are held accountable to the Student Code of Conduct. These policies are in place to safeguard the IU community."

A couple hours later, after IU police told protesters to vacate tents, state troopers formed a line and advanced on the encampment, pushing forward with riot shields and shoving protesters back, the IDS reported. State troopers dismantled tents and said IU officials requested their assistance to enforce the university's policy.

Armored vehicles were staged nearby and a portion of Indiana Avenue was shutdown. What appeared to be a state police helicopter circled overhead.

With the encampment cleared, police began backing out of the meadows and by late afternoon, a crowd of nearly 100 remained in the area and erected seven tents, the IDS reported.

State Sen. Shelli Yoder, D-Bloomington, said she was participating in a town hall with several city officials a few blocks away when the arrests began. She arrived at Dunn Meadow shortly after the encampment was cleared. Students were scared and outraged, she told IndyStar.

"I do feel that students, faculty and staff and community members that their free speech has been trampled on over the last 48 hours," she said.

Yoder, who is a faculty member at the IU Kelley School of Business, said the Bloomington Police Department was asked to not be involved in clearing the encampment and let state police handle it. That contributed to what she described as a "militaristic" presence.

She said protesters who have been banned from campus should be allowed to return. "I really call on the administrators at IU to do all that they can to protect free speech," Yoder said.

The arrests Saturday were the second wave of arrests at the campus this week. Thursday, 33 protesters at the encampment were arrested and handcuffed with zip ties.

The arrests came one day after IU officials quietly changed its on-campus events policy to require tents and other structures to receive prior approval from the university, the Herald-Times reported. Dunn Meadow is a field frequently used for protests over the years in Bloomington.

The scene is one that has played out at college campuses across the nation as students and others demonstrate against the ongoing Israel-Hamas war, demanding a ceasefire in Gaza and the severing of financial ties with Israel.

In Indianapolis, a rally Thursday organized by Jewish Voice for Peace — Indiana and Middle Eastern Student Association of IUPUI blocked traffic outside the Governor's Mansion in Indianapolis, leading to 14 arrests.

Carol Kugler of the Herald-Times contributed to this story.

Police arrest pro-Palestinian protesters, break up gathering on ASU campus
Arizona Republic (archive.ph)
By Rey Covarrubias Jr.
2024-04-27 22:49:23GMT

Spoiler

Police arrested several protesters calling for a cease-fire in the Israel-Hamas war before a day of demonstrations ended at Arizona State University's Tempe campus.

The protesters had planned to camp overnight, although the university had made it clear that encampments were prohibited on campus. Shortly after Friday turned to Saturday, officers moved in.

"Those who do not immediately leave will be arrested," came an officer's command over a loudspeaker.

About 1 a.m., about 50 people remained on the Alumni Lawn in front of Old Main near College Avenue and University Drive.

Shortly before 2 a.m., all the protesters either had dispersed or had been arrested. Alumni Lawn had been barricaded off.

Officers with the Arizona Department of Public Safety and the Maricopa County Sheriff's Office assisted ASU police.

A handful of arrests were made Friday morning as well. The event kicked off about 8:45 a.m. as ASU students and demonstrators filed into Alumni Lawn by the dozens, waving Palestinian flags and signs. They called for an official statement from the university condemning the violence in the Gaza Strip.

Another 69 people were arrested early Saturday on criminal trespassing charges after a group's encampment went on past 11 p.m. and participants refused to leave following multiple warnings, according to an ASU spokesperson.

The spokesperson referenced university policy about encampments being prohibited on university property with "lawful demonstrations" allowed except between 11 p.m.-5 a.m. Most in this gathering were not ASU students, faculty or staff, according to the spokesperson.

"While the university will continue to be an environment that embraces freedom of speech, ASU’s first priority is to create a safe and secure environment that supports teaching and learning," read a statement from ASU.

The group quickly and quietly constructed a Gaza solidarity camp, one of many in a growing movement across the nation this week. The encampment featured more than a dozen tents and shade structures.

Protesters included a mix of current and former ASU students, community activist organizations and leaders. Throughout the Friday evening, they were surrounded by college police on each side of the Alumni Lawn.

More than a hundred protesters sat on the grass. Dozens of tents were clustered in the center of the gathering, featuring clearly labeled stations for food and first aid. Stacks of bottled water lined the spaces between people.

Counterprotesters supporting Israel had been seen in the area earlier but were gone by 9:30 p.m.

'It's very important for me to be here'
Jeanine Sabbah, a junior at ASU, gathered on the Alumni Lawn next to the tent she planned to stay in overnight. She said she had family who lived in the West Bank.

"Because they don't have the kind of voice I have, it's very important for me to be here, especially since we're giving taxpayer dollars to the Israeli government and the IDF," Sabbah said.

Above all, she said she was worried about the safety of her family and of others still in the Gaza Strip, highlighting that her fellow protesters were calling for a peaceful cease-fire.

"ASU hasn't really made any big statements about things, and that's really unfair in my eyes, because America is so involved," Sabbah said.

Sabbah reflected on feeling unsupported by her professors who refused to allow her class to discuss the Israel-Hamas war after the Oct. 7 attack.

"We'll probably be doing a lot of chants tonight. It's just all about bringing attention to the issue," Sabbah said.

Sabbah mentioned that she was an experienced camper, so the idea of sleeping outside in a tent didn't bother her.

Maya Vallejo graduated from ASU and intended to stay on the Alumni Lawn as long as she could into Friday night.

She had helped set up food and first aid stations underneath canopies near the center of the Alumni Lawn.

"What's going on is incredibly unacceptable, and the more people who see it on this main big road and reckon with what's happening, that's a good thing," Vallejo said.

Vallejo, a graduate student at ASU, felt a deep bond with her alma mater and the undergraduate students who dedicated their time to protest for what they believed in. She said she would contemplate taking the next day off work to continue participating in the protest.

'Convictions if they're strong, don't change'
Alexia Isais spoke to the circle gathering at the center of the protesters on the lawn, sharing her 2020 journey of being fired from ASU's student paper, The State Press, after posts that were critical of police.

"Convictions if they're strong, don't change, and if you believe in Palestine, you'll believe in Palestine your whole life," Isais said.

"I can't be silenced, and no one here can be silenced," said Isais, who handed out information flyers to new attendees.

Mohammed Riyad, Palestinian American Community Center president, joined the protesters, condemning the war and calling for a "Free Gaza."

"We are out here tonight to support the students and to tell them that we stand by them," Riyad said. "We believe what they are doing is a great thing, they are speaking their views about the injustice, and for a cease-fire to end the war."

The activist emphasized the importance of taking seriously the protesters' claims that ASU supports Israel.

"I think any claims of that sort need to be fully investigated," Riyad said. "If it turns out our academic institutions support or are involved in any way supporting an entity or a country that commits war crimes, then that needs to be stopped immediately."

Protester says police chief pushed her down
Police hadn't always remained calm during the daylight hours of the protest, according to eyewitnesses.

In video obtained by The Arizona Republic, Mary Fayad can be seen on the ground after a man yelled and pushed a group of protesters away from him.

She said it was ASU police Chief Michael Thompson.

"I am a Palestinian, I was assaulted by an officer today," Fayad said.

Thompson's office and the ASU police's public affairs office did not immediately respond to The Arizona Republic's request for a response.

The Republic reporter Jose R. Gonzalez contributed to this article.

ASU confirms 69 people arrested outside of Old Main in response to encampment early Saturday morning
The State Press (archive.ph)
By Sophia Ramirez
2024-04-27 00:25:42GMT

Spoiler

Counter-protesters and cleanup crews throw away camp equipment while pro-Palestine protesters occupy the Alumni Lawn outside of Old Main in an encampment called the "ASU Liberated Zone" on Friday, April 26, 2024, in Tempe. Paul Pascual

ASU PD, Tempe PD and State troopers arrested 69 people and threw away tents after midnight outside of Old Main around midnight on Saturday.

The arrests came after two warnings to protestors in an encampment about one hour apart, one at around 10:40 p.m., and another at around 11:47 p.m. Police moved in five minutes later.


Emailed statement from Executive Vice President and University Provost Nancy Gonzales and Executive Vice President, Treasurer and CFO Morgan R. Olsen to faculty on April 27, 2024.

There was an 11 p.m. deadline to clear the camp, according to an ASU spokesperson. The encampment had been set up since after 8 a.m. on Friday morning.

Protestors and police had been facing off, backing the protestors away from Old Main and towards University Drive. Officers arrested protestors who were at the front of the remaining crowd of about 200 people just after 1:00 a.m.. The crowd dwindled slowly after.

As police slowly moved forward, cleanup crews behind them picked up what was left of the sprawling encampment.

An ASU spokesperson said the people in the encampment were mostly not ASU students, faculty or staff and demonstrations cannot take place between 11 p.m. and 5 a.m. The spokesperson said people who refused to leave were charged with criminal trespass.

"While the university will continue to be an environment that embraces freedom of speech, ASU’s first priority is to create a safe and secure environment that supports teaching and learning," the ASU spokesperson said.

Several pro-Palestine student & community groups began an encampment on Alumni Lawn, outside Old Main. The "ASU Liberated Zone" amassed around 400 protestors at its height around 6 p.m. Friday night.

Police officers ordered the people in the encampment violated Arizona Revised Statute 13-1502 which states that someone commits third-degree trespassing if they "knowingly enter or remain unlawfully on any real property after a reasonable request to leave by a law enforcement officer, the owner or any other person having lawful control over such property, or reasonable notice prohibiting entry."

Later, police said to the crowd that the encampment violated Arizona Revised Statute 13-2902, deeming it an unlawful assembly "with the intent to engage in conduct constituting a riot" and a class one misdemeanor.

Protestors proceeded to link arms and hunker down after the warning. After the deadline passed, little about the situation changed for over a half hour, except for the arrival of state police cars.

In the early moments of the protest, the ASU Police Department arrested three demonstrators for trespassing. The chief of ASUPD was also recorded cutting up tents. After tents were taken down early in the morning, protestors rebuilt them throughout the day and stayed up through high winds.

From the morning until midnight, the protest remained peaceful through most of the day as the sun set on the growing encampment.


https://twitter.com/DaveBiscobing15/status/1784031882448884027 (archive.ph)

Protestors chanted "Free, Free Palestine" and "Genocide Crow has got to go" while their encampment, stocked with ample water and food, sprawled across the lawn. Police stuck around the protest, monitoring its growth, but didn't interfere again until late Friday night.

Along with calling for a ceasefire in Gaza, the list of the encampment's official demands included ASU President Michael Crow's resignation and the University's divestment from "all companies tied to the state of Israel or complicit in the occupation of Palestine."

They also demanded the reinstatement of MECHA de ASU, a political student organization that was suspended for comments on an Instagram post earlier in the semester.

Imam Omar, the Imam of Tempe Mosque and chaplain for Muslim students at ASU, encouraged the protest to remain peaceful and warned protestors against getting into conflicts with police officers.

"Do not let them harass any police officers," he said to the crowd around noon. "That defeats the message and puts you guys in more danger, so please keep the peace and keep your voices loud, but do not harass any police officers."

The University later released a public statement saying, " Encampments are prohibited on Arizona State University property. Peaceful expression of views is always acceptable, but demonstrations cannot disrupt university operations. ASU is committed to maintaining a secure environment for everyone."

Earlier in the afternoon, around 15 counter-protestors came to the site, but the protest remained peaceful. At 5:45 p.m., an unidentified man harassed protestors at the edge of the zone, yelling offensive racial insults.

During the evening, the protest engaged in peaceful demonstrations, including prayer, chants, and drumming. At 6 p.m., a young child danced in the drum circle with music playing from the speakers.

Edited by Shane Brennan, Walker Smith and Angelina Steel.

ASU Police Chief seen cutting tents:

 

[The Last Stand]

Chosen people means chosen by God for greater responsibility in following all 613 commandments and being an example of how to act for other nations to follow. Non Jews get the same rewards as Jews if they follow the 7 Noahide laws. If Jews thought they were religiously or racially superior, why would they allow converts?

Does that even matter anymore? We have both political parties endorsing war for three different factions at the taxpayer's expense. The pro-Hamas faction is rabid against their paymasters.

 

[TowinKarz]

The fact University Administration had the gall to claim they have no idea what to do about unrest on campus and "struggle" to come up with a solution while they'll expel a white male at warp speed if anyone claims he sexually assaulted them in a dream last night should convince any of the 15 or so stragglers still on the fence that modern Academia is a leftist cesspit.

 

[The Last Stand]

The fact University Administration had the gall to claim they have no idea what to do about unrest on campus and "struggle" to come up with a solution while they'll expel a white male at warp speed if anyone claims he sexually assaulted them in a dream last night should convince any of the 15 or so stragglers still on the fence that modern Academia is a leftist cesspit.

Or allowing de facto segregation and discriminatory admission practices while allowing their students to take out predatory loans.

 

[FieldPiece]

Chosen people means chosen by God for greater responsibility in following all 613 commandments and being an example of how to act for other nations to follow. Non Jews get the same rewards as Jews if they follow the 7 Noahide laws. If Jews thought they were religiously or racially superior, why would they allow converts?

Yeah and how are those converts treated? Maybe ask the Ethiopians who got sterilized. Also sucking blood from baby dicks and torturing chickens isn't exactly a good example of how to act.