The University of Texas at Austin is the scene Wednesday of a tense face-to-face between hundreds of pro-Palestinian students and the police, including many mounted and helmeted officers, the latest episode of American student anger against the war in Gaza.
Tensions remain high in certain American universities – particularly on the east coast and in New York – after, at the call of their leaders, the police arrested a number of students opposed to the conflict ravaging the Palestinian territory, denouncing support military and diplomatic from the United States to Israel and defending the plight of the Palestinians.
American President Joe Biden “supports freedom of expression, debate and non-discrimination” in universities, White House spokesperson Karine Jean-Pierre said on Wednesday. “We think it’s important that people can express themselves peacefully. But in cases of hateful rhetoric, in cases of violence, we must denounce it,” she added.
Candidate for re-election in November against Donald Trump, the Democratic president is himself torn between this support for Israel and the anger of part of the left-wing electorate, particularly among young people. He promulgated a major aid plan on Wednesday, particularly for Israel.
At the University of Texas at Austin, a dynamic progressive city in this conservative southern state, hundreds of students in summer outfits gathered in a visibly good-natured atmosphere on campus at the call of the “solidarity committee with Palestine.
Some wave Palestinian flags and wear keffiyehs, others, supervised by police, wrap themselves in Israeli flags.
At the other end of the country, at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles, around a hundred students called for an “occupation” of the campus on Wednesday, setting up tents early in the morning.
Evacuation of a camp
This new movement against the conflict in Gaza started last week from Columbia University in New York, where the presidency and students agreed Wednesday morning to negotiate for two more days — until Friday morning — before a possible total evacuation of a wild camp set up on campus.
The presidency of Columbia welcomed “significant progress” in discussions to evacuate this encampment set up a few days ago on a lawn of this historic establishment in northern Manhattan.
In the meantime, “student protesters have pledged to dismantle and remove a significant number of tents” and “will ensure that those who are not enrolled at Columbia leave.”
But if the camp returned to a more peaceful atmosphere on Wednesday, the underlying tensions – at Columbia and other American universities – have not really disappeared.
“As a Palestinian, is it my responsibility to stand there and show solidarity with the people of Gaza? Absolutely ! » replied Yazen, a 23-year-old American student of Palestinian origin interviewed by AFP in Columbia.
Arrests Tuesday in New York
Tuesday evening, hundreds of demonstrators gathered in Brooklyn, the largest borough of the megacity, at the call of Jewish Voice for Peace, a group of left-wing pro-Palestinian Jewish Americans, on the occasion of the Seder, the Jewish Passover ritual.
In a tense atmosphere, many of them were arrested, noted an AFP reporter.
“I’m here because I have to be there. I cannot observe the Seder and not talk about Gaza, and ignore it. We [les Américains] We are the instigators of such violence, of such hatred, it’s terrible,” Rebecca Lurie thundered on the spot.
During the night from Monday to Tuesday, 130 people were briefly arrested in front of the premises of New York University (NYU). There too, these protesters demanded an end to the war ravaging Gaza and a boycott by their establishment of any activity linked to Israel.
At Yale University, in Connecticut (northeast), around fifty demonstrators were also arrested.
Each time, the police intervened at the request of university presidents.
Many higher education institutions in the United States have been shaken for nearly seven months by the war in the Gaza Strip, triggered by an unprecedented Hamas attack on Israeli soil.
Among these universities, the very prestigious and oldest in the United States, Harvard, in Boston. A camp resembling that of Columbia was being set up on the leafy campus of this historic temple of law and economics.
Accused, in particular by the right and elected officials of the Republican Party, of allegedly not doing enough against anti-Semitism, two university presidents, including that of Harvard, in Boston, had to resign this winter.