A demonstrator is detained and escorted out of an encampment on the UCLA campus. | Photo: Jae C. Hong, AP
In recent weeks, pro-Palestinian demonstrations on dozens of US college campuses have resulted in the arrests of over 2,000 people.
According to an Associated Press tally, police detained about 300 pro-Palestinian protestors on college campuses on Wednesday night into Thursday morning, pushing the total to over 2,000.
At the Universities of New Hampshire and Buffalo, numerous additional people were taken into custody. Since Monday, protesters have been occupying the school's library in Oregon; on Thursday, police moved in, the Guardian reported.
“We are not an authoritarian nation where we silence people or squash dissent,” said Joe Biden. “But,” he continued, “order must prevail.”
“Violent protest is not protected – peaceful protest is,” he said. Biden criticized what he called “violent” protests.
“Vandalism, trespassing, breaking windows, shutting down campuses, forcing the cancellation of classes and graduations – none of this is a peaceful protest,” Biden said in a brief statement on Thursday morning.
“There’s the right to protest, but not the right to cause chaos,” the US president said. He stated that he didn't think it was appropriate to call the National Guard in answer to a reporter's query.
The Armed Conflict Location & Event Data Project stated in a report released on Thursday that while there have been a few clashes, "the overwhelming majority [of protests] – 99% – have remained peaceful."
The rallies show how the war has turned into a significant political hot point in the US and are part of a drive to urge schools to divest from businesses that support the war in Gaza. According to the Gaza Health Ministry, since Israel started its effort to destroy Hamas, more than 34,000 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza. As Israel has been limiting food supply, more people in Gaza are in danger of hunger.
In an attack on Israel on October 7, Hamas killed around 1,200 people and captured about 250 more. The US has given Israel significant military backing since the start of the war against Hamas, most recently in the form of a $15 billion aid package.
Following the establishment of an encampment at Columbia University in New York in mid-April, student protests have spread across the nation. As police and institutions have reacted violently to rallies that threaten to last into commencement season, faculty members have frequently joined or backed student protestors. In the weeks after the protests started, hundreds of people have been taken into custody.
Early on Thursday morning, police broke up a protest camp at UCLA and took at least 200 protesters into custody. The police operation came next. The police action began after a vicious attack on the campsite on Tuesday night that lasted for hours. Students were attacked with projectiles and chemical weapons by masked "instigators" who came to campus, and school security and police retreated or stood by without intervening.
Late on Wednesday night, at least a thousand people gathered at UCLA's campus before police arrived and tore down the pallets and plywood that the protestors had brought to support their campsite. Students recounted experiencing repeated attacks with chemical agents, projectiles, and fireworks. The chaotic operation continued into the early hours of the morning.
Most of the activity on campus had subsided by late Thursday morning. The Daily Bruin, the student newspaper at UCLA, shared images on social media of a campus building with graffiti that said "Free Palestine" and "Fuck Israel".
Legal aid attorneys in New York said they were still battling for the release of demonstrators more than twenty-four hours after they were taken into custody; many of them had just been charged with minor offences and, according to the attorneys, should not have been taken into custody in the first place.
“Many protesters who were arrested earlier this week and arraigned last night were ultimately charged with criminal trespass, a low-level offense, and at that point, they should have been immediately released from custody,” said Tina Luongo, Legal Aid Society chief criminal defense practice attorney.
A professor at Dartmouth, where an encampment had just recently appeared, claimed that the university had reacted "full force" and shared a video of a colleague with white hair being grabbed and dragged away by police.
“In the hour or so it was allowed to exist, this was the model of a peaceful, inclusive protest,” Jeff Sharlet, a professor at Dartmouth, told the Washington Post. “They obstructed nothing; disrupted nothing; menaced nobody; and neither used nor displayed hate speech.”
The anti-war demonstrators were occupying a building at Columbia when New York police broke up a demonstration that had shut down the university on Tuesday night, resulting in the chaotic scenes at UCLA.
By Wednesday, protesters were being shoved by police using shields as they cleared out all but one tent from the University of Wisconsin, Madison, resulting in a scuffle there as well. Authorities reported that four cops were hurt, one of them a state trooper who was struck in the head by a skateboard. Four were accused of battering police officers.
Brown University in Rhode Island agreed to a divestment vote in October, reportedly becoming the first US college to comply with such a demand. This was one of the rare instances of authorities de-escalating protests.
At City College, Fordham University, Stony Brook College in New York; Portland State in Oregon; Northern Arizona University in Flagstaff; Tulane University in New Orleans; and the University of Texas, Dallas, authorities have also made arrests and dispersed protest camps.
Protests by students have also sprung up in Australia, Canada, and the United Kingdom.