More than 8 thousand protest actions in the US in solidarity with Palestine

Washington y Nueva York. The escalation of student protests in the United States are part of a huge movement that is demanding an end to US support for Israel’s war against the Palestinian people in Gaza and whose dimensions to date include more than eight thousand events in at least 850 cities and towns around the country over the last almost seven months.

Faced with the intensification of this movement, characterized precisely by its diversity with the participation of Jewish and Muslim students and professors, university authorities and national and local politicians have reacted with repression, punishments and expulsions and even closure of activities.

A few weeks before the graduation ceremony, the University of Southern California (USC) announced that it will cancel its entire ceremony that concludes the school year, while authorities in other universities and supposed bastions of free expression have called for the police to repress and arrest their own students.

The White House spokeswoman declined to comment on the deployment of National Guard elements to some university campuses, while Congress is considering approval of a bill explicitly worded to allow officials to shut down NGOs in the United States. that support the Palestinians.

Despite the repression, the political power of these anti-war and anti-genocide protesters is predicted to continue growing as the presidential election campaigns accelerate. The conservative newspaper Wall Street Journalciting data from the Nonviolent Action Lab at Harvard University (and by the way, one of the universities where this movement has expressed itself) reported that the total number of protests in the United States against Israel’s war in Gaza has exceeded 8 thousand with actions in more than 850 cities.

Although the protest actions are considerably smaller than those that occurred after the murder of George Floyd in May 2020, which blossomed into the Black Lives Matter call against police violence against minorities, the director of the project at Harvard hopes that the movement will continue. growing throughout the summer. “Without that comparison … I think we would be looking at this and thinking, ‘wow, this is one of the biggest protest movements we’ve seen in a long time,’” political scientist Jay Ulfelder told the Journal.

This Thursday, students at even more universities began setting up tent sit-ins to join the chorus demanding that universities reverse their financial investments in companies that in any way support Israel’s war in Gaza. From Boston to Texas, Chicago to Florida, more and more students are demanding that their universities proclaim their opposition to that war and support for Washington.

In Los Angeles, a local television news ABC News broadcast an interview with Lazar Allano, father of a student at USC who is part of this movement. “I am here to support my daughter, she is studying here, they are protesting against a genocide. My family opposes genocide. We think that no one, no young person deserves to be killed. My daughter started organizing, she says we have to support Palestine.”

Images from multiple protest sites at universities show students studying (it is almost the end of the semester), praying and even in several places performing the Passover ceremony for the Jewish holy days.

Here’s @EmoryUniversity economics professor Caroline Fohlin knocked to the ground with her head on the concrete. Her glasses are thrown off. She shouts “I’m a professor” #Gaza #Protesters pic.twitter.com/4HFuDzHEoi

— Natasha Barnes (@UICProfWatch) April 25, 2024

In Washington, a few blocks from the White House, students at the George Washington University campus began setting up their sit-in, just like those now rising in Pittsburgh, Houston, Tallahasee in Florida, and in more and more locations.

Although almost all demonstrations and protest actions have been peaceful, and the media – including student media – report the presence of Jewish, Muslim, Christian, atheist and more students unitedly expressing their anger and repudiation of the Israeli war against Palestinians and With the complicity of the US government, various political leaders continue to try to characterize the protesters and their protests as anti-Semitic.

For the White House, the growing movement threatens to reduce electoral participation, especially among young people, and with it the reelection of Joe Biden. Activists are already making plans to hold large rallies outside the Democratic National Convention in Chicago in August, and in the meantime they continue to show up at nearly every public event for the president and his team to demand that Washington call for an immediate ceasefire.

Some of the most brutal images this week came from the University of Texas at Austin, where Gov. Greg Abbott deployed state troopers in riot gear to violently arrest students.

WATCH: Among those arrested today were Noelle McAfee, Chair of the Philosophy Department at Emory University.

I’ve asked for a comment from Emory on this arrest, no word yet.

This video provided to us by an #Emory PHD student. You can hear him in this video. @ATLNewsFirst pic.twitter.com/86aJgb7NUX

— Patrick Quinn (@PatrickQuinnTV) April 25, 2024

Democratic U.S. Rep. Greg Casar, who represents Austin in Congress, visited protesters Thursday to make clear that not every elected politician supports the governor.

“Our country has always been better when we listen to students who challenge wars and stand up for what is right,” Casar told the students, noting that students came to that same location in 1960 to demonstrate against racial segregation, again in 1969 against the war in Vietnam, and in 2003 against the war in Iraq. “We need a ceasefire now in Gaza.”

These historical memories of student movements are also being discovered and marked by young people at Columbia University and the University of California at Berkeley, which were axes of the student movement of the sixties, among others.

At Emory University in Georgia, a police officer handcuffs a woman and takes her away to detain her, and someone asks her what she needs as she is escorted away. She responds: “can you do me the favor of speaking to the Faculty of Philosophy to let them know that I have been arrested,” and when asked who she is, she informs, “I am the president of the faculty.”