Pro-Palestine seders planned in New York, elsewhere as US campuses simmer
Organisers say they are willing to risk arrests as they demand Biden administration stop arming Israel against besieged Palestinians of Gaza.
Palestinian flags are seen around the encampment on the campus of Columbia University in New York City / Photo: AFP
Pro-Palestinian demonstrators plan to risk mass arrest by closing down the Brooklyn street where US Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer resides, a coalition of Jewish groups opposing Israel's carnage in besieged Gaza have said.
The protest, planned on the second night of the week-long Jewish feast of Passover, is one of a dozen to be held in cities around the country, including Portland, Oregon, and Seattle.
There has been a spate of major demonstrations on college campuses from California to Massachusetts over the past week.
On many of the campuses, protesters have set up tent encampments to press their demands.
In Brooklyn on Tuesday, protesters will hold a Passover Sedar, a ritual holiday meal and service, while urging Schumer, the highest elected Jewish American, to support an end to providing US weapons for Israel's war in Gaza, organisers said in a statement.
"Hundreds will risk arrest while demanding Senator Schumer, who has recently spoken sharply against Netanyahu, take the next step and stop arming Israel," the statement said, referring to far-right Israeli Prime Minister.
Since Friday, hundreds of students and others were arrested at Columbia, Yale and New York University.
Protests in 'uncommitted' Minnesota
At the University of Minnesota, pro-Palestine protesters demonstrated on campus to demand an end to the Israeli carnage in Gaza and press the university to cut ties with companies and institutions that support Israel.
In a case that is not the first in which police responded with aggression against students, it was reported that nine of the students were arrested.
Dozens were previously arrested at Columbia and Yale universities.
Later, an emergency protest mobilised over a thousand students and staff members, and a community organiser said the Solidarity Encampment was being re-established.
Muslims in Minnesota announced months ago they would be voting uncommitted over President Joe Biden's support for Israel. Jewish activists also joined Minnesota's Muslims in the protest vote.
Tensions across campuses
At Columbia in New York City, the university cancelled in-person classes on Monday in a bid to defuse tensions on campus and out of concern that Jewish students faced possible harassment.
On Tuesday, the school said classes for the rest of the year were hybrid — with students able to attend either online or in person.
New York City police arrested more than 120 protesters on New York University's campus late on Monday, a police spokesperson said. Police said university authorities reached out for help, and protesters failed to clear by the deadline given by the university.
Israel has waged a brutal military invasion on the Palestinian territories since October last year following cross-fence raid by Hamas resistance fighters. The hours-long raid and the Israeli military's haphazard reaction resulted in the killings of more than 1,130 people, Israeli officials and local media have revised down from 1400.
Palestinian fighters took more than 250 hostages and presently 130 remain in Gaza, including 34 who the Israeli army says are dead, many of them killed in indiscriminate Israeli strikes and targeting by Israeli soldiers.
Hamas says its October 7 blitz on Israel that surprised its arch-enemy was orchestrated in response to Israeli attacks on Al Aqsa Mosque, illegal settler violence in occupied West Bank and to put Palestine question "back on the table."
Israel has since then killed at least 34,200 Palestinians — 70 percent of them babies, women and children — and wounded more than 77,000 others, while thousands are feared buried under debris of homes annihilated in Israeli bombardment.
The Israeli war, now in its 200th day, has pushed 85 percent of Gaza's population into internal displacement amid acute shortages of food, clean water and medicine, while 60 percent of the enclave's infrastructure has been damaged or destroyed, according to the UN.
Israel stands accused of genocide at the International Court of Justice, whichhas ordered Tel Aviv to stop genocidal acts and take measures to guarantee that humanitarian assistance is provided to civilians in Gaza.
Francesca Albanese, the UN special rapporteur on the rights situation in the Palestinian territories, said recently there were reasonable grounds to believe Israel was committing genocide against Palestinians in Gaza.
Gaza demonstrators at New School in US threatened with suspension as protests grow
Protesters warned of multitude of potential penalties ranging from warnings to suspension and expulsion
Michael Hernandez |24.04.2024 -
WASHINGTON
Students taking part in a sit-in protest at a school in the US against "the ongoing genocide of Palestinians in Gaza" have been threatened with suspension, activists and the school's student-run newspaper said Tuesday.
Demonstrators set up what they are calling the Gaza Solidarity Encampment in the University Center lobby at the New School, a private university in New York City, on Sunday. They have remained there since.
New School administrators ended negotiations with demonstrators without a resolution, the school's chapter of Students for Justice in Palestine said on social media Monday. They implored community members to join at the University Center to prevent arrests and suspensions from moving forward.
The New School Free Press student-run newspaper reported that Monday's negotiations with Mark Diaz, the executive vice president for Business Operations at the university, were intended to discuss divestment from "corporations benefiting from and complicit in the ongoing genocide and apartheid against Palestinian people."
Full financial transparency from the university was also to be addressed. But the meeting was called off after protesters refused demands from the administration to immediately disband.
The newspaper reported that the New School's Student Conduct and Community Standards Office issued a statement in which they warned students taking part in the demonstration that they face a range of disciplinary actions to include expulsion, "interim suspension" and unspecified warnings.
Officers with the New York Police Department have been photographed outside the building's entrance.
It is unclear when the photos were taken, but videos posted to social media Tuesday appeared to show a picket line of students on the street outside the University Center.
Protests against Israel's war against Gaza have intensified on college campuses after Columbia University, also in New York City, asked the NYPD last week to arrest demonstrators staging a sit-in on a college lawn. More than 100 people were arrested on Thursday.
The action has largely invigorated antiwar demonstrators as protests have spread to other campuses including the New School, Yale and New York University and has done little to quell criticism from those who say university leaders are not doing enough to provide campus security, particularly for Jewish students.
All 10 New York Republicans in the US House of Representatives urged Columbia President Minouche Shafik to step down Monday. The conservative lawmakers said in a letter to Shafik that "anarchy has engulfed" the school's Manhattan campus and accused Shafik of failing to provide students with "a safe learning environment."
Israel's offensive on the Gaza Strip has displaced more than 75% of the coastal enclave's estimated 2.3 million residents and resulted in over 34,000 deaths, according to Gaza health officials. Israel has also targeted Gaza's places of higher education with all of its 12 major universities being destroyed.
The UN's Palestine Refugee Agency (UNRWA) has separately reported mass destruction at the sprawling network of schools it operates in the coastal enclave.
Demonstrators are demanding that universities divest from Israel-linked firms and condemn Israel's assault on Gaza. Counter-protesters in support of Israel have said the protests veer into antisemitism and make Jewish students feel unsafe.
Protesters warned of multitude of potential penalties ranging from warnings to suspension and expulsion
Michael Hernandez |24.04.2024 -
WASHINGTON
Students taking part in a sit-in protest at a school in the US against "the ongoing genocide of Palestinians in Gaza" have been threatened with suspension, activists and the school's student-run newspaper said Tuesday.
Demonstrators set up what they are calling the Gaza Solidarity Encampment in the University Center lobby at the New School, a private university in New York City, on Sunday. They have remained there since.
New School administrators ended negotiations with demonstrators without a resolution, the school's chapter of Students for Justice in Palestine said on social media Monday. They implored community members to join at the University Center to prevent arrests and suspensions from moving forward.
The New School Free Press student-run newspaper reported that Monday's negotiations with Mark Diaz, the executive vice president for Business Operations at the university, were intended to discuss divestment from "corporations benefiting from and complicit in the ongoing genocide and apartheid against Palestinian people."
Full financial transparency from the university was also to be addressed. But the meeting was called off after protesters refused demands from the administration to immediately disband.
The newspaper reported that the New School's Student Conduct and Community Standards Office issued a statement in which they warned students taking part in the demonstration that they face a range of disciplinary actions to include expulsion, "interim suspension" and unspecified warnings.
Officers with the New York Police Department have been photographed outside the building's entrance.
It is unclear when the photos were taken, but videos posted to social media Tuesday appeared to show a picket line of students on the street outside the University Center.
Protests against Israel's war against Gaza have intensified on college campuses after Columbia University, also in New York City, asked the NYPD last week to arrest demonstrators staging a sit-in on a college lawn. More than 100 people were arrested on Thursday.
The action has largely invigorated antiwar demonstrators as protests have spread to other campuses including the New School, Yale and New York University and has done little to quell criticism from those who say university leaders are not doing enough to provide campus security, particularly for Jewish students.
All 10 New York Republicans in the US House of Representatives urged Columbia President Minouche Shafik to step down Monday. The conservative lawmakers said in a letter to Shafik that "anarchy has engulfed" the school's Manhattan campus and accused Shafik of failing to provide students with "a safe learning environment."
Israel's offensive on the Gaza Strip has displaced more than 75% of the coastal enclave's estimated 2.3 million residents and resulted in over 34,000 deaths, according to Gaza health officials. Israel has also targeted Gaza's places of higher education with all of its 12 major universities being destroyed.
The UN's Palestine Refugee Agency (UNRWA) has separately reported mass destruction at the sprawling network of schools it operates in the coastal enclave.
Demonstrators are demanding that universities divest from Israel-linked firms and condemn Israel's assault on Gaza. Counter-protesters in support of Israel have said the protests veer into antisemitism and make Jewish students feel unsafe.
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