A wave of pro-Palestinian occupations at American universities and brutal repression by the authorities. Biden’s popularity among young people is plummeting
Days of the 60’s are reminiscent of everyday life in the USA after the huge uprising of solidarity with the Palestinians being tested by students at the country’s leading universities. The parallel may seem exaggerated, since then students were demonstrating against the war in Vietnam in which the US was directly involved, while today the Americans themselves are not fighting in Gaza and the country is not mourning its own children.
Yet Israel’s incessant slaughter of the Palestinian people and US support for the Jewish state in a war it has denounced as genocidal have angered and outraged thousands of students. The protesters are demanding that the universities sever financial ties with Israel, arms manufacturers and other companies intertwined with the Israeli occupation of Palestinian territories.
The pro-Palestinian protests may not be exactly… déjà vu of the anti-Vietnam war movement, but no one can ignore the two things they have in common: the pressure on the government and the… hostility faced by the protesters, especially the students.
Mass arrests
The atmosphere has been particularly electrifying in the past week, with police forcefully invading university campuses and making mass arrests of students and activists. The provost authorities reportedly turned their backs on the students, culminating in the reaction of Columbia University Chancellor Nemat Minous Shafik, who herself called the police to break up the gathering, giving the protesters an ultimatum. In fact, the squatters claimed that the university administration threatened them with the intervention of both the National Guard and the New York police if they did not comply.
It was started by Columbia University students on April 17, when protesters who occupied the site and set up tents faced police repression. The events that took place even led the popular artist Alcinoos Ioannidis to cancel his planned concert at the university and to convey, among other things, in a post on social media what he experienced: “I saw the first occupation of the campus after 1968 and the arrest of 108 students” .
Because of the tension that occurred at Columbia – it has now suspended classes for life – the spark was lit for new foci of mobilization at major American universities. Similar scenes unfolded at New York University in Manhattan, while police intervened on the Yale campus in New Haven, Connecticut, where authorities handcuffed dozens of protesters accusing them of trespassing.
The domino of campus occupations spread to MIT, Tufts and Emerson in Massachusetts, as well as Berkeley in California and the University of Michigan in the state of the same name. Brown University in Rhode Island, the University of Texas at Austin and the University of Southern California in Los Angeles followed, while dozens of arrests were also made at several other university institutions.
Electoral trap
Joe Biden’s stance on campus lawlessness could prove disastrous for the Democratic president, alienating both a segment of the youth and a segment of the Jewish vote. When asked about it by journalists, he replied that he condemns both the “anti-Semitic demonstrations” and “those who do not understand what is happening to the Palestinians”. Of course, he was more concerned with anti-Semitism. “This clear anti-Semitism is reprehensible and dangerous and has absolutely no place in universities or anywhere else in our country,” he said, among other things.
His statements particularly disturbed the students who organized the protest in Columbia, who responded to the American president with their announcement that some of the participants are Jews. At the same time they complained that the media has focused “on people who express extreme positions, which do not represent them”, categorically rejecting any form of hatred or intolerance.
Several polls show a decline in Biden’s popularity among young people, a trend confirmed by a recent Harvard University survey. One of the main reasons is said to be his policy towards Israel and Gaza.
At best for Biden, the protests will distract the public while the White House pushes forward with negotiations for a cease-fire and the release of hostages held by Hamas, while pressing, as the US argues, Israel to limit attacks on civilians.
At worst, they could spark violence during the Democratic National Convention in Chicago in August, recalling the upheavals of violent anti-Vietnam War protests during the 1968 convention in the same city.
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