(New York) After a tense night, Columbia University in New York and pro-Palestinian students agreed on Wednesday to negotiate two more days before a possible total evacuation of an encampment on campus, in the face of strong winds against the war in Gaza.
Anger remains high in certain American universities – and especially 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 the military and diplomatic support of the United States to Israel and defending the plight of the Palestinians.
In a press release Wednesday morning, the presidency of Columbia welcomed “significant progress with student representatives regarding the encampment on the West Lawn” of the prestigious university located on the island of Manhattan.
“The university will continue the dialogue for another 48 hours”, i.e. until Friday morning.
In the meantime, “student protesters have committed to dismantling and removing a significant number of tents” and “will ensure that those who are not enrolled at Columbia leave.”
On Tuesday evening, hundreds of protesters gathered in Brooklyn, the megacity’s largest borough, at the call of Jewish Voice for Peace, a left-wing pro-Palestinian Jewish group, for the Seder, the Passover ritual. Jewish.
Many of them were arrested, noted an AFPTV reporter.
“I’m here because I have to be there. I cannot observe the seder and not talk about Gaza, and ignore it. We (the Americans) are the instigators of such violence, of such hatred, it’s terrible,” thundered Rebecca Lurie, on the spot.
The previous night, 120 people were briefly arrested in front of the premises of New York University (NYU), while an encampment was set up last week on part of the Columbia campus. These protesters are demanding 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 intervene 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.
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.