Zoom-in 2: Campus Protests in the US (April 17-May 2024)
Perhaps
the most noticeable form of dissent towards American policy on the Israel-Gaza
war to date was a series of Gaza solidarity encampments and protests on
university campuses that peaked over April and May. Over 150 universities
worldwide had encampments, more than 100 of which were in the United States.[1]
The Guardian described these protests as “perhaps the most significant
student movement since the anti-Vietnam campus protests of the late 1960s”.[2]
The protestors themselves alluded and sometimes explicitly referred to the 1968
protests.
Although
students had protested in solidarity with Gaza on campuses from early on, few
of these demonstrations drew public attention in the first months of the war.[3]
The campus protests began drawing far more attention in the context of the
Columbia encampment and the university’s forceful attempts to remove it in mid
and late April. In response, students erected encampments on many other
campuses. These encampments often took the form of students putting up tents on
campus and holding a position with signs and flags for days or weeks,
periodically holding events such as talks or classes, demonstrating and
chanting. On some occasions students also took over buildings. As a
decentralized movement, encampments in different universities had different
demands but most shared sharp criticism towards Israel, especially in context
of the war in Gaza. One common student demand was that their university divest
from companies that profited from Israel’s occupation, or Israeli companies.
Other demands included breaking ties with Israeli institutions of higher
education, stopping research that supports the military, supporting Palestinian
students or universities, calling for ending military support to Israel, or
calling for ceasefire.[4]
The
protests were mainly an elite college phenomenon,[5]
at least partially because those universities had larger endowments that could
be invested and were more likely to have international connections that
included those with Israeli universities, but also perhaps because poorer
students at other institutions had other concerns.[6]
The elite universities and in particular Columbia University also drew more
national attention and had an outsized influence on the perception of the
campus protests. The media coverage surrounding these protests was often
politicized (see section on media above). An analysis of 553 protests found
that 97% of them did not cause serious interpersonal violence (physical
violence above pushing or shoving) or property damage (breaking a window or
worse). Nearly half of the 3% of protests categorized as violent became so
because demonstrators fought with police forces that were sent to clear
encampments. Property damage was found in two cases.[7]
Serious clashes between protestors on both sides took place only in UCLA, where
video evidence showed pro-Israeli counterprotestors
attacking the encampment.[8]
Police waited for a few hours before separating both sides, resulting in dozens
of injuries among protestors in the Gaza encampment.[9]
Most
university administrations opposed the encampments, being pressured by both
politicians and their donors. Political pressure was most obvious in a series
of hearings in which elite university presidents were brought to Capitol Hill and
forced to answer questions about their university policies, mostly surrounding
antisemitism and protecting their students.[10]
At least two university presidents later lost their jobs as a result.[11]
Prominent donors used their donations to apply pressure to universities, publicly
or privately threatening and sometimes actually pulling their support.[12]
The protests also fed into local politics. At least in the case of New York, a
group of dozens of business elites attempted to influence the city’s mayor to
use the police to deal with protesters in Columbia.[13]
Such pressure was likely felt within university as well. As a result of this
pressure, many university administrations actively tried to repress student
protests in different ways, commonly by using police and campus security who
were overwhelmingly associated with using violence on campus. Viral videos from
campuses showed heavily armed police forces using rubber bullets and tear gas
to disperse protesters.[14]
Physical violence was also prevalent, with students and faculty getting beaten
up by the police, sometimes on camera.[15]
As a result, over a month of protests at least 3,025 people were arrested in 61
colleges and universities.[16]
Many others were suspended or expelled from their universities. Faculty members
were among those arrested as well, sometimes using excessive force.[17]
On many other occasions, university administrations chose less explicit means
to deal with the protestors and their voices. These included, for example,
moving to online teaching,[18]
keeping police on campus,[19]
moving ceremonies out of campus, or canceling valedictorian speeches.[20]
Some
university administrations eventually negotiated with students, sometimes reaching
an agreement that fulfilled some student demands.[21]
In many other cases, however, universities did not change their policies
towards Israel/Gaza. Some universities preferred to resolve the issue by
declaring that they would no longer comment on political issues not central to
university functions.[22]
The end of the academic year and the departure of many students from campuses
for the summer ended almost all active protests, although in many cases
students protested in various end-of-year activities such as staging walkouts
of their own graduation ceremonies,[23]
raising Palestinian flags or symbols or associated signs,[24]
or demanding the cancellation of graduation ceremony speakers.[25]
Coverage and reactions
Instead of
dealing with the protestors’ demands and grievances, media coverage was
sensationalized.[26]
Public attention was drawn to a few examples of incendiary language or signs,
as well as to a more general discomfort or lack of personal safety a minority
of students felt on campus. Much of the public debate surrounded allegations of
antisemitism, often neglecting the fact that a significant portion of the
students organizing and participating in the encampments, as well as supportive
faculty, were Jewish themselves.[27]
In the US, the protests led to a bill that aimed to define antisemitism with a
broad definition that included criticism of Israel (the bill passed in the
House in May).[28]
Israeli
voices weaponized the antisemitism in both international and domestic discourse.
Internationally, Israel’s Prime Minister put out a widely covered video address
in English in which he described the protests as “antisemitic” and “horrific”,
comparing them to rallies in German universities in the 1930s (i.e. as the Nazi
party rose to power): “Antisemitic mobs have taken over leading universities…
They call for the annihilation of Israel. They attack Jewish students. They
attack Jewish faculty”.[29]
Netanyahu subsequently described students who chanted “from the river to the
sea, Palestine will be free” – a relatively common call in protests – as
“supporting genocide” and linked it to the “sorry state of American education…
there’s a deep rot and bankruptcy there”.[30]
In Israel, the campus protests were framed as a form of antisemitism and
covered far more superficially.[31]
Israel Today, the most widely circulating newspaper in Israel, dedicated
its front page on April 25 to “Antisemitism Around the Globe” with a dark photo
of a demonstration of people waving Palestinian flags covering most of the
page. The subtitle read “[Jews] fearing to speak Hebrew, incitement in the
media, and police incompetence… a terrifying reality”.[32]
A lead to the next page presented readers with a
solution (“Despite everything, there is only one place to Jews in the world
[today]”, i.e. Israel).[33]
Beyond a
debate on antisemitism, US media outlets were concerned with the presence of
non-students within the protests and their organization, although little
evidence was presented to support these claims. A similar question concerned
who was “behind” the protests, which appears to have been asked more commonly
in conservative-leaning media. A Wall Street Journal opinion piece, for
example, claimed with no evidence that the protestors were “groomed” by Hamas,
Hezbollah and the Houtis.[34]
Other right-wing commentators blamed George Soros for them.[35]
Israeli media had similar concerns, decrying for example the “billions of
dollars” with which Islamic countries such as Saudi Arabia and Qatar bought
influence in American universities.[36]
A third theme of Israeli coverage, aimed primarily at domestic Israeli
audiences and almost completely absent from US media coverage, presented
American student protestors as ignorant about the real situation in
Israel/Palestine and naïve towards Hamas in particular.[37]
This talking point was amplified by the work of an initiative heavily promoted
by pro-Israel elites.[38]
The public
discussion touched upon Israeli academia as well. The Association of University
Heads in Israel (VERA) put out a statement in which they voiced their “deep
concern” regarding “the serious cases of violence, antisemitism and
anti-Israeli washing through the campuses of many leading American
universities, with the support of Palestinian organizations including terrorist
organizations”. They proceeded by stating that they would help Jewish and
Israeli scholars and students who desired to come to Israeli universities “and
find here a personal and academic home”.[39]
In May, Israel launched a well-funded program to bring Israeli ex-pat and
Jewish scholars to the country because of “an unprecedented wave of
antisemitism” by offering them generous grants.[40]
As I hope
to have demonstrated through the evidence above, the situation in Gaza is a
horrible catastrophe that continues to unfold daily in front of our eyes. The
least I can do is to gather the evidence and speak up now.
[1] These two websites include references and
links to the different encampments: https://students4gaza.directory/
; https://www.palestineiseverywhere.com/ . This analysis found 123 campuses with encampments and 318 campus with
protests: https://washingtonmonthly.com/2024/05/24/are-gaza-protests-happening-mostly-at-elite-colleges/
[3]
Graph at: https://theconversation.com/media-coverage-of-campus-protests-tends-to-focus-on-the-spectacle-rather-than-the-substance-229172
[4] For student demands, organized per university, see https://students4gaza.directory/
[7] https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/article/2024/may/10/peaceful-pro-palestinian-campus-protests; data and original analysis here: https://acleddata.com/2024/05/10/us-student-pro-palestine-demonstrations-remain-overwhelmingly-peaceful-acled-brief/
[8] https://x.com/BenzionSanders/status/1785681768349118750; https://x.com/FilmThePoliceLA/status/1785654963915588036; https://forward.com/news/608215/campus-violence-erupts-at-ucla-as-pro-israel-protesters-tries-to-dismantle-encampment/. For the pro-Israel counterprotestors
identity see: https://www.cnn.com/2024/05/16/us/ucla-student-protests-counterprotesters-invs/index.html; https://x.com/KyungLahCNN/status/1790908711898165639. UCLA was otherwise tense as well but
violence between protestors was concentrated in the single aforementioned
night: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/apr/29/palestinian-israeli-protesters-clash-university-california. It appears that a single pro-Israeli
counter-protester was arrested, https://forward.com/fast-forward/617536/arrest-in-ucla-encampment-violence-edan-on/
[9] https://forward.com/opinion/608479/ucla-violence-campus-protests/; https://www.cbsnews.com/losangeles/news/police-clear-out-pro-palestinian-encampment-at-ucla/ ; https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2024-05-01/la-me-ucla-camp-police ; https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2024-04-30/ucla-moves-to-shut-down-pro-palestinian-encampment-as-unlawful
[10]
The first hearing in early December included the presidents of Harvard,
University of Pennsylvania, and MIT: https://www.cnn.com/2023/12/11/business/university-leaders-testimony-nightcap/index.html. The second hearing in mid-April included
the president of Columbia: https://www.cnn.com/business/live-news/columbia-antisemitism-house-testimony/index.html. The third hearing was for the presidents
of Northwestern, Rutgers and UCLA in late May, see: https://www.nytimes.com/live/2024/05/23/us/college-antisemitism-hearing. Unlike the former two hearings, it had no
immediate impact.
[11] U
Penn: https://www.politico.com/news/2023/12/09/penn-president-resigns-00130961; Harvard: https://www.reuters.com/world/us/harvard-president-gay-resigns-harvard-crimson-student-newspaper-2024-01-02/ .
To date, the president of Columbia has kept her job, but: https://www.politico.com/news/2024/05/16/columbia-university-faculty-pass-vote-of-no-confidence-in-president-00158393
[12] https://www.foxbusiness.com/lifestyle/columbias-billionaire-donors-mull-giving-anti-israel-protests ; https://www.thedp.com/article/2024/05/penn-donors-react-encampment-university-response
[13] https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2024/05/16/business-leaders-chat-group-eric-adams-columbia-protesters/
[14] https://twitter.com/JoshuaPHilll/status/1785443970237317351 ; https://x.com/Kahlissee/status/1783538202705285206 ; for heavily armed police forces see: https://x.com/RyanChandlerTV/status/1783197539824468403 ; https://x.com/balagonline/status/1783185444085117425
[15] https://x.com/DD_Geopolitics/status/1783565419305136271 ; https://x.com/JoshuaPHilll/status/1783518484137226284 ; https://x.com/AkbarSAhmed/status/1785856063226490986 ; https://www.instagram.com/reel/C6MpTOhP5uS/
[16] https://apnews.com/article/israel-palestinians-campus-protests-50d754675b710c9b983faf9ec9164d81
[17] https://x.com/PatrickQuinnTV/status/1783532600637681964 ; https://x.com/RobertMackey/status/1783684235938894086 ; https://www.newsweek.com/65-year-old-man-lucky-alive-after-arrest-campus-protest-1895846 ; https://x.com/TylerKatzen/status/1785698828420608183 ; https://x.com/meznaqato/status/1785452260324979121 ; https://x.com/probablyreadit/status/1782569732538843267 ; https://x.com/rafaelshimunov/status/1786332708379017607
[21] https://www.nytimes.com/2024/04/30/us/brown-divestment-deal.html ; https://www.haaretz.com/us-news/2024-05-06/ty-article/.premium/rutgers-faces-backlash-over-shameful-capitulation-to-pro-palestinian-student-demands/0000018f-4e92-dcda-abcf-6e9711670000 ; https://newbrunswick.rutgers.edu/sites/default/files/2024-05/AGREEMENT_05072024.pdf
[22] https://www.theguardian.com/education/article/2024/may/28/harvard-policy-issues-institutional-neutrality
[23] https://x.com/JalalAK_jojo/status/1793672275809718459 ; https://twitter.com/iamschvitzing/status/1789666643141914965
[26] https://theconversation.com/media-coverage-of-campus-protests-tends-to-focus-on-the-spectacle-rather-than-the-substance-229172 ; https://www.nybooks.com/online/2024/06/13/acts-of-language-isabella-hammad/
[27] https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/apr/24/not-like-other-passovers-hundreds-of-jewish-demonstrators-arrested-after-new-york-protest-seder ; https://x.com/rafaelshimunov/status/1786332708379017607 ; https://x.com/ofercass/status/1783246682626400722
[28] https://www.usnews.com/news/national-news/articles/2024-05-07/explainer-the-controversy-surrounding-the-antisemitism-bill .
The proposed definition for antisemitism is the one defined by the
International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance, which has often been used to
interpret criticism of Israel as antisemitism, see: https://www.theguardian.com/news/2023/apr/24/un-ihra-antisemitism-definition-israel-criticism
[29] https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/apr/24/us-campus-protests-benjamin-netanyahu-ceasefire.
Some US lawmakers publicly refuted these claims, e.g. https://www.npr.org/transcripts/1247670359
[30] https://www.timesofisrael.com/liveblog_entry/netanyahu-says-college-protesters-chanting-from-the-river-to-the-sea-are-supporting-genocide/
[34] https://www.wsj.com/articles/whos-behind-the-anti-israel-protests-hamas-gaza-hezbollah-talking-points-d2f538ca
[35] https://www.wsj.com/articles/some-anti-israel-protesters-are-paid-soros-rockefeller-funding-activism-hamas-fba26c20 ;
on Soros see also: https://www.thedailybeast.com/theres-been-a-george-soros-for-every-era-of-antisemitic-panic
[36] E.g. https://www.ynet.co.il/economy/article/yokra13903697 ; https://www.maariv.co.il/news/politics/Article-1095319 ; https://www.israelhayom.co.il/news/geopolitics/article/15711685
[38] For examples aimed at a US domestic
audience, but with less traction, see: https://x.com/Facts_For_Peace/status/1794093433818096072 ; https://x.com/Facts_For_Peace/status/1801653974648410448 . For the connection to the group of
elites, see the discussion here: https://www.semafor.com/article/11/09/2023/billionaires-discuss-50-million-anti-hamas-media-blitz; https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2024/05/16/business-leaders-chat-group-eric-adams-columbia-protesters/
[40] https://www.themarker.com/news/education/2024-05-26/ty-article/.premium/0000018f-b5b6-d390-ab8f-f5bee80a0000; https://www.facebook.com/Bezazelsmotrich/photos/%D7%91%D7%99%D7%9E%D7%99%D7%9D-%D7%90%D7%9C%D7%95-%D7%99%D7%95%D7%AA%D7%A8-%D7%9E%D7%AA%D7%9E%D7%99%D7%93-%D7%90%D7%A0%D7%95-%D7%90%D7%95%D7%9E%D7%A8%D7%99%D7%9D-%D7%9C%D7%97%D7%95%D7%A7%D7%A8%D7%99%D7%9D-%D7%99%D7%A9%D7%A8%D7%90%D7%9C%D7%99%D7%9D-%D7%91%D7%90%D7%95%D7%A0%D7%99%D7%91%D7%A8%D7%A1%D7%99%D7%98%D7%90%D7%95%D7%AA-%D7%94%D7%9E%D7%95%D7%91%D7%99%D7%9C%D7%95%D7%AA-%D7%91%D7%A2%D7%95%D7%9C%D7%9D-%D7%91%D7%95%D7%90/988484582838144/?paipv=0&eav=Afbn2KFToO1qrHWpcUKB5K_G0uVHfC0qdzwc_QxQih_5pjL23tHM_3585PmFbxxIxek&_rdr