{"id":261081,"date":"2024-04-29T12:00:38","date_gmt":"2024-04-29T11:00:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=261081"},"modified":"2024-07-02T08:49:36","modified_gmt":"2024-07-02T07:49:36","slug":"us-campus-crackdowns-ignite-gaza-solidarity-movement","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2024\/04\/us-campus-crackdowns-ignite-gaza-solidarity-movement\/","title":{"rendered":"US Campus Crackdowns Ignite Gaza Solidarity Movement"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>

Democracy NOW!<\/p><\/div>\n

25 Apr 2024 <\/em>– \u201cWhat starts here changes the world. It starts with you and what you do each day.\u201d So reads an encouraging sign that greets students at the University of Texas\u2013Austin. The university\u2019s actions tell a different story. A photo shared on social media this week shows the sign in front of a row of state troopers in riot gear. They assembled to disperse students protesting Israel\u2019s assault on Gaza. Police, some armed with semi-automatic rifles, some mounted on horseback, proceeded to violently arrest at least 50 people, including a journalist.<\/p>\n

The UT protest was part of a student uprising sweeping campuses nationally, inspired by a Palestinian solidarity encampment at Columbia University in New York City. Columbia President Minouche Shafik\u2019s mishandling of that peaceful encampment has sparked the protest movement\u2019s momentum.<\/p>\n

The encampment followed months of anti-war protests following Hamas\u2019s October 7th attack on Israel and Israel\u2019s relentless bombing and ground invasion of Gaza. As President Shafik appeared before a Republican-controlled Congressional House committee last week, where Columbia was accused of tolerating widespread anti-semitism on campus, scores of students, many of them Jewish, pitched tents and a banner reading, \u201cGaza Solidarity Encampment.\u201d<\/p>\n

Later that night, President Shafik called in the New York Police, saying the protesters were a \u201cclear and present danger.\u201d While the police responded, arresting over 100 students, Police Chief John Chell described the protesters as peaceful and cooperative. After authorities dismantled the initial camp, more students quickly established a new one, which remains standing as this goes to press.<\/p>\n

Following Columbia\u2019s violent response, student groups across the nation are launching Palestine solidarity encampments of their own, from Harvard, Tufts and Emerson in greater Boston, to Emory in Atlanta, Princeton, Cornell, UC Berkeley, Cal Poly Humboldt in northern California, and at FIT<\/span>, the Fashion Institute of Technology, in midtown Manhattan, to name just a few.<\/p>\n

At Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island, students set up tents, chanting, \u201cFrom Columbia to Brown, we will not let Gaza down!\u201d It was last November when Palestinian-American Brown University student Hisham Awartani was shot with two of his friends while visiting his grandmother in Burlington, Vermont for Thanksgiving. He remains paralyzed.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s not surprising that Columbia was the locus of solidarity. In April 1968, students occupied buildings on campus to protest the Vietnam war as well as Columbia\u2019s plans to build a gymnasium in the largely-Black adjoining neighborhood of Harlem (which they called \u201cGym Crow\u201d). Columbia officials summoned the NYPD<\/span> then, too. Over 700 people were arrested.<\/p>\n

Democracy Now! co-host Juan Gonzalez was one of the student organizers of the 1968 Columbia occupation. He recalled those events this week, 56 years later, speaking on Democracy Now!<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cThe Columbia strike unfolded over several weeks. The first week was the week of the occupation, but because of the brutality of the attacks by the police \u2014 more than 150 people were hospitalized the night of April 30th \u2014 it led to a massive strike of the entire university. Over 10,000 students shut the university down for the rest of the semester.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Juan compared Columbia\u2019s response, then and now:<\/p>\n

\u201cWe occupied buildings. We did not allow classes to go forward in 1968. But [now] classes are going forward. The students were camped out peacefully on the lawn. So, the disproportionate nature of the response of the university, the quickness with which it responded, without even consulting or listening to the faculty, is really astounding.\u201d<\/p>\n

The 1968 Columbia crackdown preceded the Chicago Democratic National Convention by three months. The DNC<\/span> will be in Chicago again, in just over three months.<\/p>\n

Columbia grad student Sarah King was arrested at the initial encampment, and has since been suspended and banned from campus.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe camp itself is very beautiful. It\u2019s been a real place of interfaith celebration and solidarity, in support of the people of Gaza, who are now at over 200 days of genocide,\u201d she said on Democracy Now!<\/a> King, who is Jewish, responded to accusations that the protests are anti-semitic:<\/p>\n

\u201cThe worst persecution that the Jewish students on campus are facing is from Columbia University. We were disproportionately banned by Columbia because so many of us are part of the Gaza Solidarity Encampment, trying to prevent a genocide in our name.\u201d<\/p>\n

On Wednesday, President Biden signed into law a $95 billion military aid package for Ukraine, Taiwan and Israel, with $26 billion designated for Israel.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe universities across America have to realize that the young people of this country do not support the constant imperial wars that our government is either participating in or funding, and that something has to change,\u201d Juan Gonz\u00e1lez concluded.<\/p>\n

What for the University of Texas is a slogan, \u201cWhat starts here changes the world,\u201d is quickly becoming, for thousands of students across the country, a call to action, demanding peace in Gaza.<\/p>\n

___________________________________________<\/em><\/p>\n

Related:<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

* Juan Gonz\u00e1lez Reflects on Historic 1968 Columbia Protests & Crackdown on Gaza Solidarity Encampment<\/em><\/a>
\nFifty-six years ago today, hundreds of students at Columbia University in New York started a revolt on\u00a0…\u00a0Read More\u00a0\u2192<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

* Hundreds Arrested: Students Across U.S. Protest for Palestine as Campus Crackdown Intensifies<\/a><\/em>
\nStudent protests calling for university divestment from Israel and the U.S. arms industry have rocked campuses\u00a0…\u00a0Read More\u00a0\u2192<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

* Pro-Palestinian Campus Encampments Spread Nationwide Amid Mass Arrests at Columbia, NYU & Yale<\/a><\/em>
\nPalestinian solidarity protests and encampments are appearing on college campuses from Massachusetts to\u00a0…\u00a0Read More\u00a0\u2192<\/a><\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\"\"<\/a> Amy Goodman is the host of \u201c<\/em>Democracy Now!\u201d a daily international TV\/radio news hour airing on more than 900 stations in North America. She is the author of <\/em>Breaking the Sound Barrier, released in paperback and now a <\/em>New York Times best-seller.<\/em><\/p>\n

Denis Moynihan is the co-founder of <\/em>Democracy Now! Since 2002, he has participated in the organization\u2019s worldwide distribution, infrastructure development, and the coordination of complex live broadcasts from many continents. He lives in Denver where he is developing a new noncommercial community radio station.<\/em><\/p>\n

The original content of this program is licensed under a <\/em>Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License<\/em><\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n

Go to Original \u2013 democracynow.org<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

25 Apr 2024 – \u201cWhat starts here changes the world. It starts with you and what you do each day.\u201d So reads a sign that greets students at the University of Texas\u2013Austin. But a photo shows the sign in front of a row of state troopers in riot gear to disperse students protesting genocide in Gaza. Armed with semi-automatic rifles and mounted on horseback, they proceeded to violently arrest at least 50 students, including a journalist.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":261083,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[45],"tags":[229,609,87,865,88,2571,427,1281,1378,880,70,1025],"class_list":["post-261081","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-activism","tag-activism","tag-demonstrations","tag-gaza","tag-genocide","tag-israel","tag-official-lies-and-narratives","tag-palestine","tag-police-brutality","tag-protests","tag-state-terrorism","tag-usa","tag-west-bank"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/261081","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=261081"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/261081\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":261084,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/261081\/revisions\/261084"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/261083"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=261081"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=261081"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=261081"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}