For the past two weeks, pro-Palestine protests and demonstrations have been springing up in several college campuses throughout the United States, particularly Ivy League schools. Many of these protests have escalated violently, as aggression between authorities and students surge.
After Columbia University president Nemat Shafik was called for a Congressional hearing on April 17th, students set up a protest encampment on campus. The police were called to detain over one hundred protesters, sparking nationwide pro-Palestine protests across college campuses.
Students have been demanding that their academic institutions divest from endowments in companies which may be profiting from the ongoing Israel-Hamas war. The overarching opinion among those protesting is that Israel has committed and continues to commit genocide, making the demonstrators adamant in their resolve that administrators must cut all direct or indirect economic ties with the state.
As tensions mount and larger numbers of police are brought in to shut down the encampments, injuries caused by police-protester clashes have increased. 1,500 arrests have been made on college campuses since April 18th and videos appearing to show police officers assaulting peaceful protesters are posted daily.
The unrest is also frightening Jewish students attending these universities, many of whom have reported antisemitic activity and speech. In a statement released by Columbia University, administrators condemned protesters for mocking and threatening to kill Jewish people.
Instances of antisemitic violence have contributed to the growing worries. Recently, a Jewish Yale student reporting for the Yale Free Press was allegedly assaulted with a Palestine flag while covering the campus protests.
Zoe Clarke, a Salisbury University sophomore majoring in Accounting, was recently elected as president of the Hillel club on campus.
“The Hillel club on campus is part of Hillel international, and they focus on providing support to Israel and the Jewish people,” Clarke said.
She is concerned about how the ongoing protests on college campuses may be bolstering antisemitism throughout the US, possibly stoking fear in members of the Jewish community.
“[Jewish students] are afraid that they’ll get harassed by people who are pro-Palestine, like they are at Columbia,” Clarke said. “I don’t think they should be hurting Jewish students and I think that the protests need to be peaceful.”
“I dont think it’s peaceful to stab someone in the eye, I dont think it’s peaceful to stamp people, and I dont think it’s peaceful to stop Jewish students from going to class. “
Clarke has strong personal feelings regarding the Israel-Palestine conflict. Since the October 7th, 2023 Hamas attack marked the beginning of the current war, she has been more invested.
“October 7th was traumatizing honestly, like I just looked on the news and Israel was bombed, and these people died, and these people were [taken] hostage,” Clarke said. “I’ve always been Jewish, but like, that really shook me on the inside to the core, because every single thing I’ve ever learned in my life about why we need Israel is even more important now because there are people that will just hate us for being Jewish and attack us for living in a place.”
An SU Junior majoring in Education who wished not to be named has an opposing stance. Sitting in the middle of the Conway Hall lawn on May 1st, the student decided to demonstrate.
“I’m just sitting and hoping that somebody will join me and know that it’s okay to protest on college campuses,” they said. “Nobody talks about [the Israel-Palestine issue] in class, nobody’s sitting outside, nobody’s putting up signs.”
“There’s not really anything going on.”
The student has been keeping up with the conflict since the October 7th attack, which resulted in the deaths of 1,200 Israeli civilians, ignited the war. The subsequent military actions have been ongoing for over six months and have resulted in the deaths of over 34,000 Palestinians, the majority of whom were civilians.
They think that the protests erupting throughout college campuses are making a considerable difference due to the boiling political turmoil.
“I think [the protests] are a good thing, I think it’s really shaking a lot of people up, because on a lot of these campuses like Columbia and even Texas University, a lot of the students there are children of congress members or of politicians or things like that,” they said. “So everyone’s kind of nervous, being like, ‘we didn’t expect this out of this kind of campus, because your parents, your grandparents, are the ones that are all making these decisions happen,’ so all of them getting in trouble is a big shock to a lot of people.”
By COLIN McEVERS
Editor in Chief
Featured image courtesy of Colin McEvers.
Sources:
The Washington Post: https://www.washingtonpost.com/education/2024/04/23/college-student-antiwar-protests-israel-palestine
The Washington Post: https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2024/05/01/police-university-protests-arrests/
The Hill: https://thehill.com/homenews/house/4636945-antisemitism-bill-campus-protests/
CBS News: https://www.cbsnews.com/news/college-student-protesters-demonstrations-israel-hamas-war-grow/
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