The American police arrested 19 students at the University of Pennsylvania while they were demonstrating for Palestine, while the university students continue to demonstrate, demanding that the university administration cut off its academic cooperation with Israeli universities and institutions.
While the students were trying to enter one of the buildings on campus, the police arrested 19 of them. According to American media, Drexel University witnessed a march on the occasion of the 76th anniversary of the Palestinian Nakba.
About 75 students set up a sit-in camp to demand a permanent ceasefire in the Gaza Strip, and the cessation of university investments linked to Israel.
Regarding that sit-in, the president of Drexel University said that the security forces supervised the sit-in in order to ensure that it continued peacefully without disrupting order.
He stressed that they would not tolerate “racist, anti-Semitic or anti-Muslim rhetoric” and would be prepared to intervene.
Biden promises to listen to students
In a related context, US President Joe Biden attended a graduation ceremony at Morehouse College in Atlanta, Georgia.
Biden initially remained silent regarding the protests regarding the Israeli aggression on the Gaza Strip, but he later said that “order must prevail,” after the police dispersed many university sit-ins across the United States.
Prior to his speech, Biden reacted with applause to the college’s valedictorian’s call for an immediate ceasefire in a speech he delivered.
He told the students that he heard their voices and stressed that he was working around the clock for an immediate ceasefire and establishing lasting peace in the Middle East.
Some college students had called for Biden’s speech to be cancelled, and it was reported that a senior White House official recently met with students and faculty to arrange the speech.
“I support peaceful, nonviolent protest,” Biden said during the graduation ceremony. “Your voices must be heard, and I promise you that I hear them.”
Different tactics
To contain the protests, American universities adopted various tactics, including canceling graduation ceremonies or moving them to other places, preventing numbers of protesting students from taking exams, and threatening to expel and arrest them.
Since April 17, American universities have witnessed confrontations between students and faculty members, as well as with riot police evacuating student camps and arresting thousands, as happened at the universities of Columbia, Emory, New York, Austin in Texas, the City College of New York, Emerson College, and others. .
According to observers, the brutal violence practiced by the American police against students at universities recently has not been witnessed in the country since the campus movement against the Vietnam War.
This time, the authorities justify this with claims about “student safety,” backed by a mixture of “anti-Zionism and anti-Semitism.”
