Tensions electrified American campuses on Monday, with pro-Palestinian demonstrators saying they were determined, despite the strong police presence, to fight for their freedom of expression in the face of the right who accuse them of anti-Semitism.
Under a spring sun on Monday, dozens of tents are pitched on the large esplanade of Columbia University in New York, occupied by demonstrators who denounce the war waged by Israel in Gaza, a Palestinian territory in the grip of a humanitarian disaster.
At the entrance to the camp, a group of students distribute masks and control entries. “We promise not to share the names or information about anyone […]not even to the police or the administration,” we can read on a poster.
Since Thursday and the arrest of around a hundred people during a rally on campus, tensions have continued to increase, first at Columbia then on numerous campuses across the country.
Columbia President Nemat Shafik decided Monday that all classes would be held remotely and called in a statement to “put things back in order.”
“We will stay here until they talk to us and listen to our requests,” Mimi Elias, a student who said she was one of those arrested and since suspended by the university, told AFP.
“99% of people are here for the liberation of Palestine,” she argues. “We are not for anti-Semitism, nor for Islamophobia. We want the liberation of everyone.”
These demonstrations “turned into a question about freedom of expression”, summarized to AFP a student who does not support either camp, and who did not wish to give his name.
“Say what you have to say”
“One of the most important things about being a student is being able to explore and say what you have to say, without being punished and without the police arriving on campus,” insists he.
The arrests were the “nuclear option,” regrets Joseph Howley, professor of Greek and Latin at Columbia, believing that the university “made the situation worse.”
Member of a group of pro-Palestinian teachers, he accuses “the American extreme right” of wanting to muzzle “political opinions that it does not like”. “Today it’s about Israel and Palestine. Next week, it will be on racial or gender issues, vaccines or the climate,” he worries.
The debate rages within the academic world between, on the one hand, those who denounce the demonstrations causing, according to them, a rise in anti-Semitism, and on the other, those who defend freedom of expression, in occurrence in favor of the Palestinian cause.
“It’s a very, very sensitive subject. We’re trying to do our best,” Mike Gerber, head of legal affairs for the New York police, said Monday. “No form of violence will be tolerated.”
Further south in Manhattan, the campus of New York University (NYU) is also under tension. Management asked demonstrators to evacuate a place. Police began arresting students Monday evening, according to the New York Times.
“Anarchy”
On the campus of Yale University, north of New York, hundreds of students waved pro-Palestinian flags and signs. At least 47 people were arrested, according to a university statement Monday.
In Boston, Rayan Amim, a student at Emerson College, told AFP they were demonstrating “to relentlessly condemn the ongoing genocide of Palestinians in Gaza and the ethnic cleansing that has lasted for more than 75 years.”
The park in the heart of the Harvard campus is closed to the public for the entire week. A pro-Palestinian group announced its suspension by the university on Instagram.
American campuses have been the scene of tensions since the start of the conflict between Israel and Hamas on October 7.
Denouncing what they consider to be anti-Semitism, Republicans took up the subject in the fall. After a heated congressional hearing, the former presidents of the University of Pennsylvania and Harvard resigned.
That of Columbia, heard last week in Congress, assured that “anti-Semitism (has) nothing to do on our campus”, which did not prevent calls for his resignation from elected Republican officials, who denounce the anarchy “.
On Monday, US President Joe Biden condemned “anti-Semitic demonstrations” while denouncing “those who do not understand what the Palestinians are going through”.