Crackdowns on US college campuses fail to quell pro-Palestinian solidarity

Maryam Alwan is not even supposed to be on campus anymore.

The Palestinian American student was one of more than 100 demonstrators arrested by the New York Police Department last week, at the behest of Columbia University.

Speaking to TRT World, Alwan said she no longer has access to campus buildings because the school suspended her. But she's not sure where else to go.

"I was suspended because I was arrested, but then I was arrested for trespassing, which means that I would have had to have been suspended before I was arrested. So they're just trying to crack down on all pro-Palestine advocacy. And it's really sickening to see."

Columbia is an elite school that has been at the epicentre of pro-Palestinian student protests in the United States. After months of demonstrations over the war on Gaza, students there set up an encampment to push the university to divest from companies with ties to Israel.

But the school swiftly moved to call in the police to dismantle the protests.

While the police action had a chilling effect on some students, others have been galvanised to increase their participation and continue pushing their school to divest from companies with ties to Israel. A second larger "Gaza Solidarity Encampment" now stands on Columbia's lawn.

The group has five demands: Full disclosure of Columbia's investments; full divestment from any company that profits off of Israeli occupation and apartheid; cancelling a partnership with the Tel Aviv Global Center for Tech; cancelling the dual degree program with Tel Aviv University and full amnesty for all students who have been arrested or suspended in recent months.

The university has said it is willing to negotiate with students, but no progress has yet been made on these demands.

Speaking to TRT World, graduate student Jared Kannel said "young Americans are sick and tired" of US support for Israel and imperialism.

"We hope that when we say Palestine will free us all, we hope that an end to the US support for Israel will also mean an end to US imperialism as a whole, so that the US can focus on dealing with US things and not acting as global police dictating how elections should go," Kannel said.

Tense mood

The tents do not obstruct the flow of student traffic, but appear to be impeding efforts to set up graduation. Meanwhile, security officials at each entrance are severely restricting access to the campus for anyone not affiliated with Columbia.

There is still of course heckling from fellow students. But on a list of community guidelines posted outside the camp, number 10 reads, "We do not engage with counter protesters."

Earlier this week, TRT World observed this rule in action when a young man wearing a backpack ambled up to the fenced-off area. Peering into the encampment, he asked, "Do you guys take showers in there?"

Apparently ignored, he persisted. "Do you wear deodorant?"

Finally, sounding frustrated by the lack of response, he shouted, "Or do you just sit in your own stink?" and stalked off.

Counter-protesters aside, the encampment appeared largely peaceful.

But the mood is also tense because the university keeps threatening to dismantle the tents. Many people who spoke to TRT World said they were worried about what would happen next.

"I am scared," one senior undergraduate student told TRT World.

Standing outside of the tent camp and declining to be named for fear of being doxxed, she added, "I'm not scared of the people in the encampment with me. I am scared of the administration and the ways they might crack down by bringing in more police force. As a student of colour, it makes me feel in danger to walk on campus when there is police up and down the streets and around our school."

Less than 15km away at New York University, police were recently called in to break up a similar pro-Palestinian protest.

Speaking to TRT World, NYU Professor Robert Cohen said he was taken aback at how quickly universities have turned to police to deal with campus demonstrators.

Cohen, who has studied the history of student protests, added that officials are under extreme pressure from Congress and donors to act under the pretext of halting anti-Semitism and extremist elements.

"What's dangerous about that is then who is going to protect free speech and academic freedom if the college and university presidents are under this pressure and are afraid?"

Many protesters who spoke to TRT World said they're drawing inspiration from their predecessors who successfully lobbied to end the war in Vietnam in the 1960s and end South African Apartheid in the 1980s.

According to Cohen, students who demonstrated for these causes were maligned as caricatures then, much as they are now.

He continued, "It would be really nice if for once in American history, those who are not young would listen to young people. And I don't mean that they have to be uncritical of them, but just give them a fair hearing and not just write the whole generation off because, you know, you're talking about thousands of thousands of people (protesting), and that's not a fair, judicious way to deal with a movement like this."

War machine

Despite growing protests and polls showing the majority of Americans do not support Israel's war in Gaza, US President Joe Biden has just signed a package to send more than $20 billion in additional aid to its Middle East ally.

Saying "it's a good day for world peace" on Wednesday, Biden added that his commitment to Israel remains "ironclad.”

Whatever happens on US campuses, students urge people to continue keeping their eyes on Gaza. After 200 days of war, at least 34,000 Palestinians are confirmed dead, some 15,000 of them children.

Kannel said, "I see video after video of Palestinian people being brutally massacred and them crying out asking, 'how does nobody see this?' Knowing that I see this and knowing that if we try to protest that the conversation won't be about Palestine, it'll be about anti-Semitism on campus. I felt very defeatist, but this (encampment and the solidarity protests around the US) have given me the first shred of hope that I've had in a very long time."

Speaking to Columbia protesters this week, Palestinian photojournalist Motaz Azaiza agreed.

According to school newspaper The Spectator, Azaiza thanked the demonstrators for all that they do, adding, "Gaza now sees you, and Gaza is seeing what you are doing for Gaza. This is the first place that makes me feel that my words, it's on the ground, it's action."