(Austin) The anger of pro-Palestinian American students against Israel’s war against Hamas in the Gaza Strip grew Wednesday in the United States, with tense face-to-face confrontations with police in Texas, New York. York, New England and California.
Visiting Columbia University in Manhattan – where this latest wave of student protests began in October – the Republican Speaker of the House of Representatives, Mike Johnson, threatened: “if the situation is not brought under control quickly and if the threats and intimidation do not stop, it will then be time to call in the National Guard.”
PHOTO JEENAH MOON, REUTERS
Visiting Columbia University, Republican Speaker of the House of Representatives Mike Johnson threatened: “If the situation is not brought under control quickly […]it will then be time to call in the National Guard.”
To “restore order on these campuses,” insisted the conservative leader.
A warning that resonates painfully in the United States: on May 4, 1970, the Ohio National Guard opened fire at Kent State University on peaceful student demonstrators, four of whom were killed.
Mr. Johnson, close to former Republican President Donald Trump who is running for re-election, warned that he would demand Democratic President Joe Biden to “act” and judged that the pro-Palestinian demonstrations “put a target on his back of Jewish students in the United States”, which has the most Jews in the world (some six million) after Israel.
” Freedom of expression ”
Since the start of the conflict in Gaza in October, American universities have been shaken by sometimes violent debates on freedom of expression and accusations of anti-Semitism and anti-Zionism which cost the presidents of Harvard and the University their jobs this winter. University of Pennsylvania.
“Enjoy your freedom of expression,” Mr. Johnson said provocatively, booed by hundreds of Columbia students who were up in arms against Israel’s war against Hamas, which has killed some 34,200 people, most of them civilians, according to the Palestinian Islamist movement’s Ministry of Health.
The unprecedented attack of October 7, 2023 carried out by Hamas left 1,170 dead, mainly civilians, according to an AFP report established from official data.
On Wednesday, the White House reaffirmed that President Biden, who hopes to be re-elected in November, “supports free speech, debate and non-discrimination” at universities.
Since the renewed tensions last week at Columbia, the movement has spread to other campuses.
United States/Israel Alliance
Particularly in the New England states, in the northeast, where prestigious universities have asked the police to arrest student demonstrators who denounce the military, diplomatic and economic alliance of the United States with Israel and criticize the current conditions of the Palestinians.
“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 of Palestinian origin who has been camping for several days in tents set up on the Columbia campus.
PHOTO STEFAN JEREMIAH, ASSOCIATED PRESS
Signs are posted on tents at the pro-Palestinian protest encampment at Columbia University in New York.
The university presidency welcomed “significant progress” in discussions with students to evacuate this encampment by Friday.
During the night from Monday to Tuesday, 120 people were briefly arrested in front of New York University, in the heart of Manhattan. In Yale, Connecticut, around fifty demonstrators were also arrested.
Its competitor Harvard, the oldest in the United States, in the suburbs of the historic city of Boston, also saw a camp set up on its tree-lined campus on Wednesday.
Riot police
On the other side of the country, the University of Texas at Austin was the scene of a face-off between hundreds of pro-Palestinian students and the police, many of them officers on horseback and in uniform. riot control.
Some waved Palestinian flags and wore keffiyehs, others, supervised by police, had wrapped themselves in Israeli flags.
PHOTO NURI VALLBONA, REUTERS
Police confront pro-Palestinian demonstrators at the University of Texas.
And at the University of Southern California (USC), several hundred students demonstrated shouting “liberate Palestine”, “revolution through intifada”.
In the very diverse crowd, some waved Palestinian flags, others wore keffiyehs and carried signs calling for “stop the genocide” and a “ceasefire”.
Hundreds of demonstrators gathered Tuesday evening in Brooklyn, New York’s largest borough, at the call of Jewish Voice for Peace, a group of left-wing pro-Palestinian Jewish Americans, for the seder, the Jewish Passover ritual. Many of them were arrested.
“We (the Americans) are the instigators of such violence, of such hatred, it’s terrible,” Rebecca Lurie thundered on the spot.