Pro-Palestinian protests | One hundred people arrested at a Boston university

(Boston) One hundred people considered to be pro-Palestinian demonstrators were briefly arrested on Saturday by riot police at a Boston university, the latest episode of a student movement which is becoming widespread in the United States.

Starting ten days ago from the prestigious Columbia University in New York, this new wave of support for the Palestinians and against the war led by Israel in the Gaza Strip has spread to a number of establishments, from California to New York. -England (north-east) via the south of the country.

At Northeastern University in Boston, a large historic city in the northeast which is also home to Harvard, “around 100 individuals were arrested by the police; students who showed their Northeastern U. cards were released […] Those who refused were arrested,” the university announced on X.

“Killing Jews”

“Violent anti-Semitic insults” such as “killing Jews” were uttered on campus and this “went too far”, thundered the establishment before announcing at the end of the morning a “return to normal”.

An “illegal” encampment was dismantled Saturday morning by university police officers and local law enforcement in riot gear, according to footage on social media.

The university accused “professional organizers with no affiliation with Northeastern U.” of “infiltrating a student protest that began two days ago.”

The students will be subject to “disciplinary procedures”, but “no legal measures”.

Furthermore, the presidency of Columbia, the epicenter of the student mobilization, indicated Friday evening that it had given up on having the New York police evacuate a “village” of tents of 200 people on a lawn on its campus, and announced that a leader of the movement was banned from entering after anti-Zionist threats on a video in January.

The young man subsequently presented his “apologies”, according to CNN, which described the campus as “relatively calm” on Saturday.

On the other hand, the situation was tense at the University of Pennsylvania (UPenn), whose president had to resign this winter after statements to Congress in Washington deemed ambiguous on anti-Semitism.

Following “credible reports of harassment and intimidation,” the presidency ordered the immediate dismantling of an encampment on campus.

And in California, Humboldt Polytechnic University will remain “closed” for the rest of the semester due to the “occupation” of two buildings, according to a press release.

Riot police

Images of riot police arresting students, at the call of university leaders, went around the world.

They echo the movement on American campuses during the Vietnam War. Even the painful memory when the Ohio National Guard opened fire in May 1970 at Kent State University, killing four peaceful students.

The solidarity movement with Gaza has taken a very political turn seven months before the American presidential election, between allegations of anti-Zionism and anti-Semitism and defense of freedom of expression which is a constitutional right in the United States.

The country has the largest number of Jews in the world behind Israel (some six million) and also millions of Arab-Muslim Americans.

This week across the United States – particularly in California and Texas – a number of pro-Palestinian students and activists were arrested and most often released without prosecution.

And in these rallies for Gaza many Jewish students, often from the left, actively support the Palestinian cause, keffiyeh on their shoulders, also denouncing a “genocide” perpetrated by Israel against the Palestinians.

But many other young American Jews express their discomfort, and even their fear, in the face of slogans deemed anti-Semitic.

Thus, Skyler Sieradzky, 21, a student at George Washington University in the capital, claimed to have been spat on when arriving this week with an Israeli flag.

“They call us terrorists […] But the only tool we have is our voices,” replied “Mimi,” a Columbia student attending a pro-Palestinian rally.

The war was triggered on October 7 by an unprecedented attack carried out from the Gaza Strip against Israel by Hamas commandos, which resulted in the death of 1,170 people, mainly civilians, according to an AFP report established in from official Israeli data.

In retaliation, Israel promised to destroy the Islamist movement, and its vast military operation left 34,388 people dead, mostly civilians, according to Hamas.