Protests: Violence erupts at UCLA
Quebec judge quashes bid to clear Mcgill camp
• Duelling groups of protesters clashed at the University of California, Los Angeles, shoving, kicking and beating each other with sticks after pro-israel demonstrators tried to pull down barricades surrounding an anti-israel encampment. Hours earlier, police burst into a building occupied by antiwar protesters at Columbia University in New York, breaking up a demonstration that had paralyzed the school.
After a couple of hours of scuffles between demonstrators at UCLA, police wearing helmets and face shields slowly separated the groups and quelled the violence.
The scene was calm as day broke Wednesday.
UCLA cancelled classes and stationed law enforcement officers throughout campus.
In Montreal, an anti-israel encampment on the campus of Mcgill University erupted in cheers shortly after noon when a protester announced that a Quebec judge had refused two students’ request for an order to dismantle the camp.
“The injunction has been denied!” the protester screamed as her fellow protesters erupted in chants of, “Free, free Palestine.”
Justice Chantal Masse said there “was not a sufficient demonstration of urgency” in the request. She also noted that lawyers who opposed the request argued it was “abusive and sought to silence all discussion that doesn’t fit within a frame that is pro-israeli.”
It was unclear what Mcgill would do in response. On Tuesday, the university requested police assistance in handling the encampment, saying the protest goes against school policy and the law. A single police car kept watch on the site early Wednesday morning.
A similar protest at University of British Columbia appeared to be dug in for the long haul, with tents set up on a sports field along with tables filled with food, a mini library, a first aid station and portable toilets.
“We are planning to stay until the university has met our demands,” said Sam, a UBC student who declined to give her last name. “For now, we are holding strong and we plan to keep going.”
The encampments of protesters calling on universities to cut ties with Israel have spread across campuses in the United States and Canada in a student movement unlike any other this century. The ensuing police crackdowns echoed actions decades ago against a much larger protest movement protesting the Vietnam War.
In the U.S., there have been confrontations with law enforcement and more than 1,000 arrests. In rare instances, university officials and protest leaders struck agreements to restrict the disruption to campus life and upcoming commencement ceremonies.
The clashes at UCLA erupted as counter-protesters tried to pull down parade barricades, plywood and wooden pallets protecting a tent encampment. Video showed fireworks exploding over and in the encampment.
People threw chairs and other objects. A group piled on one person who lay on the ground, kicking and beating them with sticks until others rescued them from the scrum.
People outside the encampment, one draped in an Israeli flag, played recordings of a variety of sounds, including a baby crying and sirens.
Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass called the violence “absolutely abhorrent and inexcusable” in a social media post and said city police were on the scene. California Highway Patrol officers also appeared to join. The university said it requested help.
Late Tuesday, New York City police officers entered Columbia’s campus after the university requested help. They cleared a tent encampment, along with Hamilton Hall where a stream of officers used a ladder to climb through a second-floor window. Protesters had seized the Ivy League school building about 20 hours earlier.
“After the university learned overnight that Hamilton Hall had been occupied, vandalized, and blockaded, we were left with no choice,” the school said.
A few dozen protesters at Columbia were arrested after shrugging off an earlier ultimatum to abandon the encampment Monday or face suspension.
Fabien Lugo, a first-year accounting student who said he was not involved in the protests, said he opposed the university’s decision to call in police.
“This is too intense,” he said. “It feels like more of an escalation than a de-escalation.”
Brown University, another Ivy League school, reached an agreement Tuesday with protesters on its Rhode Island campus. Demonstrators said they would close their encampment if administrators consider divestment from Israel in October — apparently the first time a U.S. college has agreed to such a demand.
Meanwhile, at Northern Arizona University in Flagstaff, police in riot gear closed in on an encampment late Tuesday and arrested about 20 people for trespassing.
Police also cleared an encampment Wednesday morning at Tulane University in New Orleans and took down all but one tent at the University of Wisconsin in Madison.