US President Joe Biden insisted that “order must prevail” at US universities after weeks of turmoil and mass arrests at student protests against Israel’s siege on Palestine.
For weeks, authorities on campuses from New York to California have tried in vain to suppress protests from students demanding arms divestment and a stop to the continued murder of thousands of Palestinians. More then 2000 students have been placed under arrest, with more expected.
Biden has, characteristically, bided his time as his country erupts in flames. When he finally did speak, it was a pack of lies and fanciful notions of America as some kind of haven of free speech. He said:
We are not an authoritarian nation where we silence people or squash dissent.
But neither are we a lawless country. We’re a civil society, and order must prevail.
Menacing cops
UCLA students clad in white helmets linked arms and formed a line facing off against officers, who were detaining protesters and leading them away.
Police used flashbangs to disperse the crowds gathered outside the encampment who chanted “Let them go!” as helicopters hovered overhead. In another part of the encampment at UCLA, students carrying umbrellas, helmets, and plastic shields squared off against police in mostly tense silence, with sporadic chants of “Free Palestine!” and “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free!”
University staff spoke out against the violence from police, with UCLA Professor Danielle Carr expressing outrage:
"Its hard to overstate the degree of outrage & betrayal on behalf of the faculty.. the irony that in the name of student safety the encampment will be facing a militarised police invasion.. its hard to say fully many of the faculty are finding this"
UCLA professor Danielle Carr pic.twitter.com/h6fNPXq4Iy
— Saul Staniforth (@SaulStaniforth) May 2, 2024
Officers blocked stairs accessing the site, with students dressed in yellow jackets and serving as medics telling AFP they were being largely prevented from reaching the area. Reports have flooded in of pro-Israel protestors charging at the UCLA encampment, and what did the police do?
Yesterday: security stood by as counterprotestors attacked UCLA Gaza solidarity encampment.
Today: police violently attack UCLA encampment.
Let's not pretend any of this is about student safety. https://t.co/zUdhluG8SU
— Bassam Khawaja (@Bassam_Khawaja) May 2, 2024
Once UCLA student was shot in the face with a rubber bullet, and later appeared to have had his Twitter account removed:
This is what those rubber bullets are doing to UCLA students – he was shot in the face. https://t.co/wnvGyY6ZR5 pic.twitter.com/1kfLsdrybp
— Sana Saeed (@SanaSaeed) May 2, 2024
Human rights attorney Noura Erakat expressed disbelief:
Rubber bullets? Have you lost your mind @UCLA? You are using rubber bullets against unarmed protestors who are *students* of your uni demanding you divest from genocide. You are attacking them to facilitate a quieter genocide. Fantastically gross legacy.#Gaza #StudentIntifada
— Noura Erakat (@4noura) May 2, 2024
The large police presence, including LAPD and California Highway Patrol officers, came after law enforcement were criticised for being slow to act during violent clashes late Tuesday, when counter-protesters attacked the encampment of pro-Palestinian students.
Perhaps those claiming the police were slow to react were confused with the slow reaction from cops at a school shooting. Guardian reporter Lois Beckett laid out how security hired by UCLA hid as pro-genocide supporters attacked students – and one commenter noted the similarities to the Uvalde shooting where police were criticised for a slow response time:
UCLA security hid as fascist zionists attacked student protesters, just like Uvalde cops hid as a shooter murdered school children. cops are not here to protect us, they're here to protect capital. https://t.co/Ypt4DyvaCm
— #StopCopCity 🇵🇸🇵🇸🇵🇸 (@micahinATL) May 1, 2024
call this the rule of uvalde: the magnitude of an american police response is inversely proportional to the threat. the safer it is, more cops will march in faster and do more; the more dangerous it is, fewer cops will go in slower and do less. https://t.co/mKUDNSSAns
— Foz Meadows (@fozmeadows) May 1, 2024
The kids are alright
Demonstrators have gathered on at least 40 US university campuses since last month, often erecting tent camps to protest the soaring death toll in the Gaza Strip.
Officers detained several people at Fordham University in New York and cleared a protest set up inside a school building, officials said. Police appeared to kettle students:
NOW: Officers are pushing protesters outside Fordham University with barricades so now the crowd can’t move at all pic.twitter.com/WkQH29A6BA
— katie smith (@probablyreadit) May 1, 2024
At the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, protesters dug in, blocking an avenue near the centre of the campus in Cambridge during the height of Wednesday afternoon’s rush hour commute. Students paid touching tribute to visionary journalist Wael Al Dahdouh:
on international workers’ day, MIT students set up a second encampment called the MIT Dahdouh Welcome Center w/ receipts on MIT’s complicity in genocide
Long live the Popular University for Gaza 🇵🇸 https://t.co/s4uzSvUJfI pic.twitter.com/uY0nV4XctU— ac | 🇵🇸🇭🇹🇨🇺 ✊🏾❤️🔥 (@ac_kristo) May 1, 2024
Riot police were menacingly decked out as they dragged students off their own campus at the University of Texas, Dallas:
Texas State Troopers, in Full Riot Gear Are Physically Dragging Students Off the Encampment.
Is This Not Fascism? Where is the 1st Amendment? https://t.co/Z1YePp0pbn
— Khalissee (@Kahlissee) April 29, 2024
Police said about 300 arrests were made at Columbia, and the tents shown in the tweet below have since been cleared by over-eager cops:
This video came up on my FYP and I couldn’t help but cry as I watched it.
This was the Gaza solidarity encampment at Columbia before it was brutally quashed by the NYPD at the request of Columbia uni admin. All this, just so Israel can continue its genocide. pic.twitter.com/pzv2p34vpv
— Fatima (@fatimazsaid) May 1, 2024
However, students remain steadfast:
Student protesters at The New School in New York City say they are prepared to remain at the Gaza solidarity encampment for as long as it takes for a vote for divestment from Israeli-linked companies to be called for. pic.twitter.com/GHYYLHI121
— Al Jazeera English (@AJEnglish) May 3, 2024
BreakThrough News shared footage of alarming police violence at Dartmouth:
Just hours after the student encampment launched at Dartmouth University, police use brutality to disperse the 1,000+ crowd.
Students report seeing police brutalize an elderly woman who was passing out water. Police arrested student journalists, professors and legal observers. pic.twitter.com/au1PzCSwUS
— BreakThrough News (@BTnewsroom) May 2, 2024
Lecturer at Middlesex University Tarek Younis summed up what students across the US face:
At Columbia, students are being starved.
At UCLA, students are beings shelled.
Everywhere, students are being abused and arrested.
All these incredible images starkly reveal how much the US and Israel share the same perverted settler-colonial strategies. https://t.co/af5m01IuF8— Tarek Younis (@Tarek_Younis_) May 1, 2024
Balancing act
Like university leaders, Biden’s administration has also tried to walk the fine line between free speech and complaints of intimidation. Biden said:
There should be no place on any campus, no place in America for anti-Semitism, or threats of violence against Jewish students.
Honestly, it’s getting tired.
Student protests across America and around the rest of the world are not antisemitic – they’re a response to the interminable siege of Palestine.
What else are students supposed to? Sit back and watch as universities in Palestine are razed to the ground? Do nothing while the US arms Israel? Twiddle their fingers while experts predict that 10,000 Palestinians are buried in rubble that will take years to clear?
What are the police supposed to do then, you may ask?
Stay the hell away:
A national model for minding your business!
“Philadelphia Police Department declines to disband encampment after Penn requests immediate help” https://t.co/3IcqrmdbGg
— Chanda Prescod-Weinstein (@IBJIYONGI) May 2, 2024
Additional reporting by Agence France-Presse
Featured image via the Canary
