Columbia University in New York, where a pro-Palestinian movement started on campuses in the United States, began Monday evening to sanction students who refuse to leave, “except by force” an encampment that has been set up for ten days.
Part of the renowned university in northern Manhattan, this new wave of the movement of students and activists against Israel’s war against Hamas in the Gaza Strip has spread to numerous establishments, from California to New England. passing through the center and south of the country.
“We have begun to (administratively) suspend students, as part of this new step to ensure the safety of our campus,” Columbia vice president of communications Ben Chang announced to the press.
The day after a relatively calm weekend on campus, where a “village” of tents is set up, Columbia President Minouche Shafik launched an ultimatum on Monday morning expiring at 6 p.m. GMT. She urged 200 occupants of an encampment to leave, following the failure of five days of negotiations for an amicable solution.
“Liberate Palestine”
These pro-Palestinian students and activists demanding that Columbia, a private university, cut ties with patrons or companies linked to Israel, then called to “protect the encampment”.
“We will not be dislodged, except by force,” Sueda Polat, a student leader of the movement, shouted at a press briefing, denouncing “a scare tactic that means nothing in the face of the deaths of more than 34 000 Palestinians.
Dozens of young people paraded, their faces hidden by sanitary masks, walking around the campus clapping their hands and singing “Free Palestine”, according to a journalist from Agence France-Presse who counted around fifty people remaining in the small encampment in a relaxed atmosphere and without police presence.
Columbia assured Friday that it would not call on the New York police to evacuate the tents.
But for Joseph Howley, professor at Columbia, the ultimatum issued by President Shafik amounts to “giving in to external political pressures”.
The wave of protest has been spreading across American universities for ten days. The movement started from Columbia where one hundred pro-Palestinian people were arrested on April 18.
Since then, hundreds of people — students, teachers and activists — have been briefly questioned, sometimes arrested and prosecuted at several universities across the country.
Images of riot police intervening on campuses, after being called to the rescue by university leaders, have gone around the world, recalling similar events in the United States during the Vietnam War.
Tense debate
The demonstrations have revived the debate, already tense and even violent since the Hamas attack in Israel on October 7, on freedom of expression, anti-Zionism, and what constitutes anti-Semitism.
This winter, the two university presidents of Harvard and UPenn had to resign after being accused before Congress in Washington of not doing enough against anti-Semitism.
On the one hand, students and teachers accuse their universities of seeking to censor political speech, on the other several personalities, including elected representatives of Congress, affirm that activists are fueling anti-Semitism.
“Many of our Jewish students, and others, have felt an intolerable atmosphere in recent weeks. Many have left campus and it is a tragedy,” the president of Columbia said in her statement.
Minouche Shafik also affirmed that the university would not withdraw from its investments in Israel, which the protesters also demanded. But Columbia “offered to invest in health and education in Gaza,” she said.
But the leader of the Republicans in the House of Representatives in Washington, Mike Johnson, denounced on X a “campus overtaken by anti-Semitic students” and called on Ms. Shafik to resign.
On Sunday, the White House called on protests in support of Gaza to remain “peaceful” and condemned “anti-Semitic remarks.” President Joe Biden’s spokesperson, Karine Jean-Pierre, recalled Monday that “freedom of expression must be within the framework of the law and the law.”
Over the weekend, 100 people were arrested on a college campus in Boston, and their encampment was dismantled, 80 at a college in Missouri, 72 on a campus in Arizona, and 23 others at Indiana University.
At the University of Texas at Austin, an illegal encampment was also dismantled and a few people arrested.
The war was triggered by the unprecedented October 7 attack on Israeli soil by Hamas commandos which resulted in the deaths of 1,170 people, mainly civilians, according to an Agence France-Presse report from official Israeli data.
In retaliation, Israel promised to destroy the Islamist movement, and its vast military operation in the Gaza Strip left 34,488 people dead, mostly civilians, according to Hamas.