Cops crack down on Pro-palestinian student protests
Police arrested dozens of people at pro-palestinian demonstrations at Yale University in Connecticut and New York University in Manhattan, as the war in Gaza continued to reverberate through US university campuses.
The police crackdowns came after Columbia University cancelled in-person classes on Monday in response to protesters setting up tent encampments at its New York City campus last week.
Demonstrators blocked traffic around Yale’s campus in New Haven, Connecticut, demanding the school divest from military weapons manufacturers.
Police arrested more than 45 protesters, according to the student-run Yale Daily News.
In New York, officers moved on the NYU crowd shortly after nightfall as hundreds of demonstrators for hours had defied university warnings that they faced consequences if they failed to vacate a plaza where they had gathered. Video on social media showed police taking down tents in the protesters’ encampment.
As demonstrators tussled with officers and chanted, “We will not stop, we will not rest. Disclose. Divest.”
A New York police spokesperson said arrests were made after the university asked police to enforce trespassing violations but the total number of arrests and citations would remain unknown
until much later. No immediate injuries were reported.
Protests at Yale, Columbia, NYU and other university campuses across the nation began in response to the Oct 7 escalation of the Israeli-palestinian conflict.
In an email to Columbia staff and students on Monday, Columbia President Nemat Minouche Shafik said the university was cancelling in-person classes and moving to online teaching to “de-escalate the rancour and give us all a chance to consider next steps.”
Last week, Shafik called in New York Police to clear a tent encampment protesters had set up on Columbia’s main lawn to demand the school divest from Israelrelated investments, an unusual move condemned by some faculty.
The school said the encampment violated rules. Police arrested more than 100 students from Columbia on April 18 on charges of trespassing. Columbia and the affiliated Barnard College have suspended dozens of students involved in the protests.
US President Joe Biden, who has been criticised by the protesters for supplying funding and weapons to Israel, said in a statement on Sunday that his administration has put the full force of the federal government behind protecting the Jewish community.
“Even in recent days, we’ve seen harassment and calls for violence against Jews,” Biden said.
“This blatant antisemitism is reprehensible and dangerous – and it has absolutely no place on college campuses, or anywhere in our country.”
Student organisers from the Columbia encampment criticised the Biden statement, noting that some of the organisers are Jewish and that news outlets had focused on “inflammatory individuals who do not represent us.”
“We firmly reject any form of hate or bigotry and stand vigilant against non-students attempting to disrupt the solidarity being forged among students – Palestinian, Muslim, Arab, Jewish, Black and pro-palestinian classmates and colleagues,” they said in a statement.
“It’s very clear to us that people on the outside do not understand what this encampment is about,” said Lea Salim, a Barnard sophomore who said she was one of 15 Jewish students arrested on the Columbia lawn last week. — Reuters