Without reaching the dimensions and intensity of the United States, pro-Palestinian protests on university campuses are multiplying in Europe. And political and academic authorities face a similar dilemma: tolerate the blockades and dialogue, or evict. From Amsterdam to Paris, via Berlin, police forces intervened this week to dismantle the camps and arrested dozens of students.
Police arrested 86 people at the Sorbonne on Tuesday night for occupying an amphitheater. According to the Prosecutor’s Office, those detained at the Parisian university are suspected of offenses ranging from “intrusion into the premises of a school educational establishment” to “grouping for the purpose of preparing violence against people or the destruction and degradation of property.” and the “rebellion.”
At the Free University of Berlin (UL Berlin) the police arrested 79 people after a few hundred pro-Palestinian protesters occupied one of the campus’s courtyards and part of the buildings, and tried to camp. “An occupation of the land of the UL Berlin is not acceptable,” said the center’s rector, Günter Ziegler, quoted by German media. Ziegler declared himself willing to dialogue, “but not in this way.”
According to a police statement, some protesters wore Palestinian scarves and chanted anti-Israel proclamations. The mayor of the German capital, Christian Democrat Kai Wegner, condemned the protest: “Our universities must not be the scene of anti-Semites, Israel-haters and other provocateurs.”
The definition of anti-Semitism and the distinction with anti-Zionism and criticism of Israel are at the center of debates in the United States and Europe. There are Jewish students in the pro-Palestinian protests. But there have also been complaints about alleged anti-Semitic statements, such as an episode at the beginning of March, not completely clarified and much commented on in France since then. A Jewish student at Sciences Po, the prestigious political studies institute, was attending an assembly on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and a student overheard someone say: “Don’t let her in, she’s a Zionist.”
French President Emmanuel Macron referred to the incident this past weekend in an interview with The Tribune: “I am in favor of having debates.” But he added: “Ordering a center to have this or that policy through force and blockade or preventing other students from accessing an amphitheater under the pretext that they are Jews, this is not the Republic.” A common demand in all countries is that universities review or cancel their agreements with Israeli universities.
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In the Netherlands, riot forces began on Wednesday afternoon to evict students who were demonstrating against the Gaza war in buildings at the University of Amsterdam. The agents intervened when the rectorate reported trespassing, vandalism and coercion in those premises by the protesters. According to the police, “there are not only students, but also people who are not involved in the protest and who deliberately seek a clash with the forces of order.”
During the eviction, protesters threw objects and sprayed officers with fire extinguishers. The police broke the barricades and inflicted blows. Both the City Council and the police commanders and the Prosecutor’s Office have been very concerned “about the change that has occurred in the protest.” They consider it unacceptable that “other people’s property is destroyed and public space is blocked.”
It remains to be seen if the evictions will stop protests that mobilize a few hundred students and have not achieved the same impact on public life as in the United States. A kind of cat and mouse game has been seen in countries like France. : occupations, evictions, occupations again… As if the authorities wanted to stop the movement at its beginning and prevent the protest from taking hold and growing. But the protests, which in Europe were limited to a few cities and universities, are beginning to grow.
Belgian Prime Minister Alexander De Croo, a liberal like Macron, declared about the demonstrations in his country, according to the public broadcaster RTBF: “If I were their age, I would probably be with them. “It is normal that there are voices of protest and a demand for dialogue in a complex conflict that shows the inability to stop it at the international level.”
There have been student occupations these days, in addition to France, Germany and the Netherlands, in Austria, Finland, Denmark, Italy, Ireland, Switzerland, Belgium and Spain, according to a count by the Associated Press agency. In the United Kingdom, camps have been set up in 14 universities, according to the newspaper Guardian.
In Edinburgh, “an unknown number of students have begun a hunger strike to show strength and determination regarding issues related to Palestine and Israel,” according to the vice-chancellor of this university, Peter Mathieson, quoted by the same newspaper. In Sciences Po, where there were again blockades on Tuesday, several students began a hunger strike last week. Today there are 13.
In Ireland, Trinity College Dublin said in a statement: “We stand in solidarity with students in our horror at what is happening in Gaza.” And he added that the university has begun the process to “divest” its presence “in companies that have activities in the occupied Palestinian territories and that appear on the UN blacklist for this reason.”
In response to the protests, the academic authorities have in some cases asked the security forces to evict the protesters, citing reasons such as public order, the development of academic life or expressions considered hate. Others have opted for dialogue, or both, such as the case of Sciences Po, where the administration organized a debate with the entire educational community last week, without giving up evictions.
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