Tensions are increasing at US universities. Pro-Palestine demonstrators and police face each other there. There are said to have been threats of violence.
Confrontations between police and students have broken out again during nationwide pro-Palestinian protests at US universities. The US state of Texas deployed mounted police at the University of Texas at Austin on Wednesday. At least two people were arrested, the student newspaper “The Daily Texan” reported. In New York, the management of Columbia University postponed the evacuation of a pro-Palestinian protest camp.
At the protest in Texas, students chanted slogans such as “Down with the occupation.” Videos on online services showed police officers in protective equipment pushing back protesters.
The protest group Columbia University Apartheid Divest (CUAD) announced on online networks on Wednesday that the university management had extended a deadline initially set for Tuesday midnight (local time) by 48 hours. Accordingly, the university management agreed not to ask the police or the National Guard to come to campus.
“Threatened with violence in a disturbing way”
The university management’s concession was an “important victory,” the CUAD group said. However, the responsible school authorities had previously “threatened military or police violence in a disturbing manner”.
A university spokesman told the student newspaper The Columbia Spectator that in return for the deferment, students agreed to abide by fire safety rules, ban “discriminatory language” and restrict access to non-university members.
Massive pro-Palestinian protests began last week, calling on the university to divest from companies with ties to Israel. Students have also launched protests at several other universities, including Yale, MIT, UC Berkeley, the University of Michigan and Brown.
In recent days, supporters of Israel have highlighted several anti-Semitic incidents and accused Columbia University and other US universities of promoting intimidation and hate speech.
Netanyahu calls protests “disgusting”
On Tuesday, hundreds of people were arrested during pro-Palestinian protests at several US universities. At Columbia University, management switched classes to online events to defuse the situation.
US President Joe Biden has repeatedly condemned “anti-Semitic protests” that have “absolutely no place on university campuses or anywhere in our country.” However, Biden believes that “free expression, discussion and non-discrimination at universities are important,” said press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre on Wednesday.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called the pro-Palestinian protests “abhorrent” in a statement on Wednesday. The “anti-Semitic mob” had “gained the upper hand at leading universities,” he continued. The pro-Palestinian protesters called for the destruction of Israel and attacked Jewish students and university staff. This must be “stopped”.
Meanwhile, more students joined the protests. On Wednesday, at least 100 students began what they called an “occupation” on the campus of the University of Southern California in Los Angeles. Images on online services showed an encampment forming at Harvard University near Boston on Wednesday afternoon.
