Anti-Israel Group Plans for Encampments at Universities Nationwide Following Yale Arrests and Columbia Protest

The anti-Israel group Students for Justice in Palestine will push to establish “solidarity encampments” at universities across the country following a nearly week-long sustained encampment at Columbia University. This comes just hours after a number of students were arrested at Yale University for participating in pro-Palestinian protests there.“Universities have chosen profit and reputation over the lives of the people of Palestine and our will as students,” the group wrote in a post on Instagram. “The supposed power of our administrators is nothing compared to the strength of the united students, staff, and faculty committed to realizing justice and upholding Palestinian liberation on campus.”“In the footsteps of our comrades at Rutgers-New Brunswick SJP, Tufts SJP, and Columbia SJP, we will seize our universities and force the administration to divest, for the people of Gaza!” the group said. On Monday, Yale University students marched through campus singing, and nearly 50 were arrested. According to Yale student Thomas Birmingham, protesters shut down a main intersection near campus by standing in the middle of the road. The movement for shutting down campuses began with an encampment at Columbia University in New York on Wednesday set up as the university president was testifying before Congress on how administrators are dealing with the rising tide of antisemitism on their campuses. The ensuing protests have grown so vitriolic that Columbia had to institute remote learning for Monday. “I am deeply saddened by what is happening on our campus,” the university president, Minouche Shafik, said in a statement. “We cannot have one group dictate terms and attempt to disrupt important milestones like graduation to advance their point of view. Let’s sit down and talk and argue and find ways to compromise on solutions.”Ms. Shafik also instituted a number of new measures, including increased security patrols, additional identification checks when entering campus, and extra guards stationed outside of the building that houses Columbia Hillel. A number of local politicians and activists have visited the campus to either join the protest or to decry the anti-Israel demonstrators. On Saturday, multiple city councilors sat with the protesters to express their support.On Monday, a business school professor, Shai Davidai, attempted to march on campus with other pro-Israel demonstrators, but his Columbia identification card was deactivated. A spokeswoman for Columbia did not immediately respond to a request for comment about why that card was deactivated. The encampments have spread beyond Columbia and Yale. On Sunday, students at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology set up their own protest. “We’ve shown our administrators the power that we hold, and we can’t give it up,” one MIT student named Hannah said. “We are the ones who run this campus.”The Tufts University chapter of Students for Justice in Palestine erected a wall on campus that said “glory to the martyrs” and “down with settler states,” which included painting of burning police cars, and American and Israeli flags.

Anti-Israel Group Plans for Encampments at Universities Nationwide Following Yale Arrests and Columbia Protest

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