Spanning across college campuses throughout the nation, student protests over the Israel-Hamas war continue, leading to concerns surrounding antisemitism and hundreds of demonstrators ending up in handcuffs. With protests being organized by coalitions of student groups across many college campuses, the protests are orchestrated primarily independently but with the same ultimate goal—demanding their universities separate themselves from companies connected to the Israeli military campaign in Gaza. Protests include thousands of demonstrators filling the streets of Brooklyn, and throughout colleges across the country, calling for civilian casualties in Gaza to cease.
While, historically, America has been Israel’s most significant ally, protests across the nation continue to grow, an expression of Americans’ dissatisfaction with their country’s hand in the course of the Israel-Hamas war. Following Biden’s self-declaration of identifying as a “Zionist” and Israel aid, Pro-Palestinian protests have grown into encampments on university campuses, filled with students and faculty from all backgrounds, including Jewish and Muslim faiths. These encampments host teach-ins, interfaith prayers, and musical performances, but the protests are now resulting in arrests, dismantling, and concerns about antisemitic behaviors and students’ safety.
Filling the streets of Brooklyn, a recent protest culminated in a standoff between demonstrators and police, with the clash leading to New York police arresting protestors over disorderly conduct and zip-tying individuals who refused to move. The city’s police arrested more than 120 protestors at New York University and an additional 100+ protestors at Columbia University in recent weeks.
Demonstrators at Columbia University set up an encampment, with students deciding to reclaim their Ivy League university for the people of Palestine who no longer have any standing universities. While the encampment was called to be dismantled by the university’s president, leading New York police to arrest protestors, the event inspired students across the nation to use their voices and make space to be heard in support of Palestine.
The use of police force to silence protestors and undermine academic freedom has been criticized by organizations and even Republican members of the U.S. Congress, but of more concern and criticism is the safety concerns surrounding Jewish, Muslim, and Palestinian students.
The Council of America-Islamic Relations executive director, Afaf Nasher, stated “Defaming and endangering Jewish, Muslim and Palestinian… students based on suspiciously inflammatory remarks that a few unidentified, masked individuals have made outside of campus,” is just as problematic. And Republican U.S. Congress members have raised concerns and accusations of antisemitism and harassment by some protestors, with documented heated exchanges of insults between pro-Palestinian and pro-Israeli demonstrators in the public streets around Columbia.
The harassment Jewish, Muslim, and Palestinian students have been enduring led to universities being blamed for failing to protect their right to protest and stand up for human rights. Mahmoud Khalil, a Palestinian student at Columbia, expressed, “As a Palestinian student, I too did not feel safe for the past six months, and that was as a direct result of Columbia’s one-sided statements and inaction.” After the arrests and issues of harassment, Columbia has now decided that classes for the rest of the year would be hybrid, with students having the choice to attend online or in person.
With Israeli students feeling like a target is on their backs and protests popping up across the nation in the University of Minnesota campus in St. Paul and the University of California, Berkeley, organizers continue to use their voice to call for their universities to separate from companies supporting the Israel-Hamas war and for their country to call for a cease-fire. As the war continues across waters, it is expanding to U.S. college campuses, with students demanding to be heard.
