NYPD disperses pro-Palestinian protesters at Columbia University

The anger of American students in support of the Palestinian cause spread in two weeks from the largest universities on the East Coast to the universities of California through the South and Central, reminiscent of the demonstrations against the Vietnam War in the late 1960s at Columbia University. Somewhat at the epicenter of this movement, the NYPD evicted students who had occupied a building on campus since the previous night on Tuesday night.

Dozens of police in riot gear arrived on campus around 1:30 a.m. (GMT), assisted by a ladder truck. They took over Hamilton Hall, a building steeped in history that had already been occupied in 1968 during the Vietnam War. Dozens of people, some wearing keffiyehs, were arrested and placed in police buses. At the same time, a crowd outside the campus shouted “Free Palestine!” “.

According to American media, all demonstrators were evacuated. “Last night’s events on campus have left us with no choice,” university President Minouche Shafik wrote in a published letter asking the New York Police Department to intervene on the perimeter of the private Manhattan facility.

For two weeks, Minouche Shafik and many other university leaders across the country have faced demonstrators, sometimes just a few dozen strong, occupying their campus to protest Israel’s war in the Gaza Strip against Hamas.

In his letter to the NYPD, Minouche Shafiq asks law enforcement to “maintain a presence on campus until at least May 17 to maintain order and ensure that no encampments are established.” »

On Monday night, several dozen protesters barricaded themselves in the building, which the pro-Palestinian group Columbia University Against Apartheid renamed Hinds Hall after a six-year-old girl killed in the Gaza Strip. .

“End anti-Semitism,” according to Trump

Six months before presidential elections in a polarized country, the student movement has sparked a strong reaction from the political world.

Joe Biden “has to do something” against these “paid agitators,” Republican nominee Donald Trump said on Fox News Tuesday night. “We must end the anti-Semitism that plagues our country today,” he added.

“While Columbia University is in chaos, Joe Biden is absent because he is afraid to take on this topic,” House Republican leader Mike Johnson wrote on X in the evening.

“Seizing a university building by force is the wrong approach” and does not constitute “an example of a peaceful demonstration,” John Kirby, a spokesman for Democratic President Joe Biden’s National Security Council, said before police intervened.

Pro-Palestinian demonstrators are demanding that their universities cut ties with patrons or companies with ties to Israel. At Brown University’s elite northeast campus in Providence, Rhode Island, a deal has been struck with students to demolish the encampment in exchange for a university vote in October on possible “asset divestments” of companies that enable and profit from genocide in Gaza. “

Meanwhile, authorities are concerned about restoring calm on campuses. There have been other arrests around the country, according to the New York Times. Hundreds of students, teachers and activists from around twenty universities have been arrested since last weekend, with some arrested and detained. At the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, a group of students took charge of raising the Palestinian flag in the center of campus before police again displayed U.S. colors, according to press reports.

These new pro-Palestinian demonstrations in the United States have reignited the heated debate since October between freedom of expression and accusations of anti-Semitism. The country is home to the largest population of Jews in the world after Israel and millions of Arab Americans.