New York- The past weeks in New York City have been tumultuous, with sit-ins, threats, and statements exchanged by university presidents and government officials to distort student demonstrations rejecting the Israeli war of annihilation on the Gaza Strip.
This naturally bustling city was the flashpoint of protests in many American states and other countries.
In recent days, the city has witnessed relative calm after the New York Police dispersed the last sit-ins in it, arrested many of its organizers, and closed several university buildings at the request of their administrations to prevent the recurrence of sit-ins inside them, while the police remained at its doors surrounding its walls.
Relative calm
This relative calm raises a question about students’ future options in the face of the actions of their university administrations and the city police. To answer him, Tel Aviv Tribune Net met with a group of students who led demonstrations and sit-ins in some New York universities.
These students requested that their names not be revealed because some of them have been arrested more than once, some are awaiting trial soon, and there are others who have been suspended from studying at the university.
A member of the team organizing the Columbia University sit-in – who has been arrested twice since last October 7 – says that before starting from the end of the momentum of the demonstrations, things must be put into perspective so that the assessment is more accurate and describes reality.
He added that they realize the difficulty of achieving their demands, especially in light of “the association of a number of members of the university’s Board of Trustees with the Israeli lobby, and some of them own shares in a number of weapons companies that provide their military technologies to the occupation army.”
Therefore, the speaker continues, the step came to take control of the Hamilton Building and name it “Hind Building,” after the martyr Palestinian girl Hind Rajab (6 years old), who was killed by the occupation army in Gaza. Explaining that, contrary to what is being promoted, they are the ones who were subjected to harassment and did not feel safe.
Contrary to what the university is promoting, that the protesters are endangering the security of students, the protesters were being subjected to harassment and did not feel safe, according to him.
Moving paths
Another person from the same team – who is awaiting trial this May, after his arrest following his sit-in at Columbia University – comments that simply revealing the extent of the bias and violence of those who describe themselves as elites “reveals to the Americans and to the world the extent of the falsehood in which we live.”
Also, the university summoning the New York Police and forcefully dispersing the peaceful sit-in in an unprecedented event, and the blatant bias of the police and a number of security services in other states towards unarmed students, reveal – according to him – the amount of work that must be done so that they are not “prisoners of devices that promote something different.” It does so when it conflicts with its interests.”
One of the important paths that students are working on after their sit-ins are forcibly dispersed is preparing legal files and submitting them to a number of competent authorities, as legal lawsuits directed against the university and the New York Police. This is something that was done in previous movements and had an impact on the level of legislation, in addition to the huge fines that parties are forced to pay, as happened previously in the “Black Lives Matter” movement.
According to one of the lawyers defending the students, they are now working to collect video clips filmed by attendees and students to disperse the sit-ins, as evidence that strengthens the argument for the unjustified violence to which they were exposed, and the systematic bias towards peaceful demonstrations.
One of the important steps is to protect foreign students who are threatened by the authorities of some states with deportation, and to provide housing for students who have been harmed by the services that the university provides to them, due to their participation in peaceful demonstrations and sit-ins, which are arbitrary measures, and the student team and their lawyer representatives say that they will sue the university over them. .
Innovative methods
The student team that Tel Aviv Tribune Net met agreed that the main goal was not to sit-in for the sake of sit-in, nor to chant in order to draw attention and provoke riots, but rather to end the war and the institutional support that contributes to a genocide that takes place in front of the eyes of the world via live broadcast. Therefore, relative calm does not mean anything from their point of view, because sit-ins and chants are the means they use to achieve their demands.
One of the speakers told Tel Aviv Tribune Net – who was arrested once during the first sit-in at Columbia University – “The funny thing is that the university administration was behaving with us as if we were children who are not aware of what we are doing, but we are aware of what we are doing, and we expect their procedures,” adding, “Maybe our administration forgets that we are among the “The smartest students in the United States, and we think carefully before taking our next step.”
The students refused to reveal their upcoming actions in detail due to the sensitivity of time, but they stressed that what happened recently when 500 students went to the home of Columbia University President Nemat Shafik in the middle of the night and shouted in front of her house, is only a very simple example that their ideas “will not run out.”
They also went to the homes of a number of members of the university’s Board of Trustees in the early morning hours who are connected to companies that support the ongoing war on Gaza and shouted in front of them.
One of the demonstration leaders who graduated from the university told Tel Aviv Tribune Net, “Even if the police close the doors of the universities in our faces, they will find us everywhere.” Emphasizing their awareness of all the challenges they face, the smear campaigns targeting them, and the damage inflicted on many of them, “but all of this is nothing compared to what the people of Gaza are suffering.”
The team organizing the sit-in at the university also confirmed that the “long breath” in the face of the brutality they were met with was the point they would rely on. One of the students – who was a member of the team – says, “Political battles are battles of points, and we score points, and they lose them.”
It is not a requirement for the team to achieve all of their demands today, but this wave is growing day after day, and those who sympathize with it and those who are biased towards it are increasing, and this is important, the student adds.
She believes that what is most important for them is to stop the war on the Palestinians, and for them to have a role, even if only a small one, in popular pressure on the institutions and government of the United States, “which we see as a primary partner in the crime,” as she puts it.