Against the war in Gaza, US universities face the largest protests since the Vietnam War

The news spread like lightning among young people through telephones and social networks: the New York police had tried to forcibly remove a pro-Palestinian protest camp at Columbia University, with more than 100 students arrested in the midst of chaos that plunged the traditional northern Manhattan campus into enormous tension.

The next day the camp not only had not disappeared but had grown in solidarity with those arrested. Furthermore, they multiplied throughout the United States.

What began 10 days ago in one of the most prestigious educational institutions in the country was the fuse for this week The demonstrations and camps will explode in another 60 universities, with more than 500 arrested in recent days, in a protest movement that is already compared to that experienced during the Vietnam War.

The order for police to enter the campus was issued by Columbia President Nemat Shafik, an Egyptian-born economist with an extensive career in international organizations, who at the time was at a congressional hearing in Washington on anti-Semitism on campuses. .

He had tried to negotiate with the students without success and decided to take “an extraordinary step” by calling the police. But everything went against him and his permanence in office today hangs by a thread.

“I am horrified by Columbia’s crackdown on students protesting in solidarity with Gaza,” he told Clarion Bassam Khaaja, professor of Law at that university. “The administrators not only called the police to arrest the students who were camping peacefully, but they also suspended students en masse without due process and even evicted them from their homes. So far, the university has only flagged vague security concerns. “Columbia has a long and proud history of student protests and this crackdown on free speech is egregious,” he added.

In addition to Columbia, campuses of the universities of New York, Harvard, Notre Dame, Texas, Yale, Northwestern, Northeastern, South California, Austin, George Washington, Michigan, Emory and dozens more are red hot with protests, tension with the police and camps that sprout like mushrooms.

Most of the demonstrations oppose the war in Gaza, which has already claimed more than 34,000 lives, and rejects President Joe Biden’s unconditional support for the government of the Prime Minister of Israel, Benjamin Nentanyahu, who has launched an indiscriminate offensive on the Strip in response to the Hamas terrorist attack on October 7. Netanyahu accuses these young Americans of antisemitism.

In addition, protesters demand that universities stop receiving donations from Israel and eliminate their investments in weapons manufacturers. “We want the university to stop investing in companies that are participating in the genocide of Palestinians and making money from it and make their names known,” cried Darialisa Ávila Chevalier, spokesperson for the protesters in Columbia.

The Manhattan institution has a large number of students from the Jewish and Arab communities and has a joint program with Tel Aviv University. The matter already has economic impact: At least one major Jewish donor withdrew its aid, saying the university was not doing enough to protect students.

“Students have always been at the forefront of great social movements. The current one against Israel’s war in Gaza is similar to that of the Vietnam war, although that one was bigger for now. But we are still in the early stages of this movement,” he told Clarion David Cortright, professor emeritus of Policy Studies at the University of Notre Dame and Vietnam War veteran.

During that conflict, Cortright joined the anti-war GI soldier movement and was one of more than a thousand soldiers who signed an anti-war ad in the New York Times in 1969. The veteran notes other similarities, as that the current movement also focuses “on the complicity of universities and companies in the war” and that both were subject to repression by police forces.

“Protests of this scale are rare,” he notes. “Large social movements like the one we are seeing emerge when the grievances are so egregious and the obvious human suffering is so severe that students cannot remain silent.”

Cortright highlights one difference: the involvement of the Jewish community. “Prominent American Jews were among the strongest opponents of the Vietnam War. Today, many Jews oppose the war in Gaza, but their participation is minor. Many hear songs like “from the river to the sea” as a threat not only to the existence of the State of Israel but also to the Jewish people themselves. “Many people feel that there is not enough sympathy and understanding among protesters for the horrors that so many Israelis experienced during the criminal Hamas attack on October 7.”

Authorities have been struggling to balance students’ free speech rights and need to protect Jewish students and to banish anti-Semitic messages. Some demonstrations have included hate speech, threats or support for Hamas.

The president of the University continues negotiating to end the camp, but her leadership is today very weakened. The Columbia Senate – made up of professors, students and administrators – voted on Friday a resolution that accuses the administration of violating the rights of students and professors and calls for an investigation into the actions of the authorities.

The Columbia campus, like that of other universities, is guarded by police and no one can enter or leave without being identified. Many classes have been taught virtually. The students who protest fear being suspended or expelled and others are afraid that everything will escalate. Graduation ceremonies in May are in danger and some have already been cancelled.

María Victoria Murillo, professor of Political Science and International Studies at Columbia, told Clarion that “the situation on campus is really tense, not because there is violence but because of the divisions between students and between teachers regarding the protest. Also because the university is closed, so it is difficult to enter and exit the campus and our own buildings with police at the doors.”

Murillo sees the protests outside the university as very worrying because they shout very violent slogans and also points out that “the misinformation campaign about what is happening was accentuated because the university did not let the press enter the campus.”

Furthermore, he points out, “the arrest of the students instead of generating a disciplinary process only radicalized the protest and added to the students who did not necessarily agree with the request for divestment, but are there because their friends were imprisoned and suspended and “They can’t go to university.”

The demonstrations gained greater relevance because it is an election year and because the president and Democratic candidate Joe Biden tries to seduce the young vote to defeat Republican Donald Trump in the November elections.

Democrats are on alert because of what happened in 1968. That year, protests in Columbia erupted amid a national movement against the Vietnam War that peaked with violent clashes between police and protesters at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago. that summer.

The Democrats, who had been deeply divided over the war and ran Hubert Humphrey as their candidate, ultimately lost the election to Richard Nixon.

Today, 61% of Americans disapprove of Biden’s handling of the war, according to RealClearPolitics average.

“In recent days, we have witnessed harassment and calls for violence against Jews,” Biden said in a statement. The president condemned “blatant, reprehensible and dangerous anti-Semitism, which has absolutely no place on college campuses or anywhere in our country.”

Trump, a traditional ally of the Israeli far-right, has distanced himself from Netanyahu and has said that the war has discredited Israel.

Republicans like House Speaker Mike Johnson and Democrats like New York Rep. Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez have visited the campus and spoken to protesters. They say they sought to express their solidarity, but many students have accused them of being opportunists.

Regarding how the protests have impacted the educational community, Helen Benedict, a Columbia Journalism professor, told Clarion “It is actually the war in Gaza that has affected me and my students, not the protests.”

According to Benedict, “The Hamas attacks on October 7 and the subsequent killing and starvation of Gazans by Israel made my students very angry, formed protests, and have caused many of us as teachers to find the best way to address these horrors with our students while teaching them and making them feel free to speak.”

In the classrooms, Benedict says, “at times the discussion has become tense, but many of my colleagues and I believe that this is a learning and teaching moment for all of us, and that we must remember that freedom of expression does not just mean with which we agree.”