Columbia University closes campus after escalating anti-Israel protests

Commercial presentation Update: 30/04/2024 14:29
Issued by: 30/04/2024, 05:42

New York – New York’s Columbia University today announced restrictions on access to its northern Manhattan campus after student protests against Israel’s offensive in the Gaza Strip escalated there. Dozens of people occupied one of the school buildings overnight in an attempt to force the severance of all financial ties to Israel. The action came shortly after the school began suspending students who did not leave the protest tent city in the middle of campus by Monday’s ultimatum.

Newly, only students who live in the dormitories and employees performing necessary activities will be able to enter the campus, he says daily The New York Times (NYT) citing the university’s Department of Public Safety. The restriction is to remain in force “until circumstances permit a change”. The school has already introduced distance learning.

The crisis at the prestigious university, whose pro-Palestinian students inspired protests at colleges across the United States, has been going on for nearly two weeks. The original “Gaza solidarity camp” was cleared by the police on April 18, but the first wave of arrests and study interruptions only escalated the tension, and a new tent city soon grew up on the university campus in northern Manhattan.

According to the AP agency, hundreds of students remained in it on Monday after the afternoon ultimatum, expressing their disapproval of the allegedly pro-Israel approach of the school management. Institute spokesman Ben Chang said the school had begun suspending students who did not heed calls to evacuate the campus. According to him, the university recognizes freedom of speech, but their protests are a “noisy disturbance” of the peace needed to prepare for the ongoing final exams.

The school has offered the chance to finish the academic year to those protesting students who sign a pledge to abide by the school’s rules until next June or until graduation, whichever comes first. Mahmoud Khalil, the chief negotiator of the protesting students, called the ultimatum set for Monday at 2:00 p.m. (8:00 p.m. CEST) “further intimidation” by the university.

A new protest then began overnight tonight, when dozens of people barricaded themselves inside the historic Hamilton Hall, while others stood outside. Protesters hung a Palestinian flag from the window and shouted “Palestine will live forever” or “from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free,” the student wrote. blade Columbia Daily Spectator.

Meanwhile, students in the western US are also blocking school buildings. Already more than a week ago, they occupied part of the campus of California State Polytechnic University, Humboldt in northern California, at Portland State University in Oregon, students occupied the library tonight, the NYT reported.

Protesters are demanding that schools sever any ties to Israel and to companies they say are profiting from Israel’s campaign in Gaza. Universities across the US are dealing with similar movements, with police not only cracking down on protesters at Columbia University. Hundreds of people have been taken into custody over the past two weeks, police said at Emory University in Georgia last week arrested and teachers.

At the University of Texas on Monday, a group of protesters surrounded police officers and a van carrying several earlier detainees. The police used pepper spray and stun grenades against them. In total, according to the authorities, they detained 40 people.

On the same campus, the police already arrested over 50 people last week. The Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE), a non-profit organization that monitors free speech on American universities, intervened she marked for “trampling on the First Amendment rights” of the US Constitution. “Such disproportionate use of force based on the content of protected speech is patently unconstitutional,” the group said.

Demonstrations on campuses are mostly peaceful, but the management of a number of schools considers them too disruptive. Some Jewish students, on the other hand, say that they are accompanied by expressions of anti-Semitism and that they do not feel safe because of it. The protests also attract outside activists who further inflame passions.

The University of Utah in Salt Lake City also experienced a wave of arrests on Monday, where students wanted to create their own protest camp. The school authorities warned them that they would be breaking the rules, after which they called the police, who arrested 17 people. The tent city was also created on the campus of the University of Chicago, but there, of course, the Rector https://twitter.com/yashar/status/1785116854752874701/photo/1that he will not intervene if the initiative does not threaten the teaching and safety of other students.

The current demonstrations reflect the disapproval of many young Americans with the way Israel is conducting an offensive in the Gaza Strip against the Palestinian movement Hamas, which it launched after the terrorist attack by Hamas and its allies on Israel last October 7. According to Palestinian officials, the campaign killed nearly 35,000 people, most of them civilians. Israel blames the high number of civilian casualties on Hamas, whose fighters operate among the civilian population.

USA Palestine Israel school demonstration fight PHOTO