Amid shifting world focus from ongoing Gaza carnage to the mounting Iran-Israel tensions and the horror of the Israeli military operation in Rafah, a wave of anti-war marches and demonstrations across the top universities in the United States against Israel’s war of extermination has suddenly turned the course of discourse. Further, the spread of protests across other countries has not only put the U.S.-Israel policy in a fix but continues to trouble U.S. President Joe Biden, who is already having a tough time against his Republican opponent, Donald Trump, in the ensuing elections. Moreover, the complicity of the university authorities in the police actions against the students has triggered a new debate about the future of U.S. democracy and diminished the belief in the U.S. liberal polity and freedom of expression and dissension.
The ongoing demonstrations and protests in the U.S. universities are not a maiden expression of the anger against the Gaza war as much larger protests from East to West were already witnessed soon after the launch of the bombardment and ground military operation in Gaza. However, what is happening now in the U.S. mirrors the protests and anti-war marches against the Vietnam War. This time, it all began on April 18 at Columbia University when a number of students organized several marches in solidarity with the people of Gaza, demanding Biden stop all support for the Israeli war and genocide in Gaza and also calling the Israeli government to stop the massacres of civilians under the garb of self-defense. Within a week, these protests spread across dozens of U.S. universities such as Harvard, George Washington, Texas, Berkeley, New York, Yale, MIT and North Carolina, particularly after the intervention of police forces and the arrest of dozens of protesters in Columbia and California universities,
These protestors, apart from universities, hail from a broad coalition of political and human rights organizations such as Students for Justice for Palestine, the Palestine Solidarity Movement, American Muslims for Peace and Jewish Voices for Peace. Amid the marches, many of the protestors were seen carrying the Hezbollah and Hamas flags, chanting pro-Hamas slogans and calling for another intifada, an expression of resurgence against Israeli occupation.
Around 2,000, including students, professors, researchers and teaching assistants, have been arrested on charges of trespassing, non-compliance and vandalizing of government properties. The current protests are different from the past because these student protestors are not leaving the campuses even after class hours and a large number of them have erected umbrella-like tents to spend their nights making a roll-on protest. These demonstrations are not only confined to universities but now have been joined by students belonging to high schools and higher secondary schools in the city of Chicago. Hundreds of protestors are Jews and are expressing their anger against the crimes committed by the Israeli government in their names.
These movements are happening at a time when the majority of students are preparing for their semestrial examination and many universities are busy organizing their graduation ceremonies. However, due to growing tensions and rising incidents of clashes between the security forces and the students, many universities have decided to either postpone the ceremonies or make it a low-profile event. For example, the University of Vermont canceled a lecture by Washington’s representative to the U.N. because of the tension on the campus.
The University of South California, too, decided to cancel its graduation ceremony while other universities are seeking deployment of additional forces to avoid any disruption at the campuses. Other universities seem to have succumbed to growing student pressure as the president of Evergreen University issued a statement demanding a cease-fire in Gaza and the release of all hostages. Similarly, students at Brown University agreed to dismantle their camps only after the administration decided to hold a vote on withdrawing its investments in campiness supporting Israel. Similarly, members of the art and science faculty at Emory University voted against the president for calling police forces inside the campus. While universities like California Riverside reached an agreement with the protestors to reveal the nature of cooperation with the Israeli lobbies, some universities have also agreed to discuss and disclose the investment in the companies accused of funding the Israeli arms industry.
These pro-Palestine protests in the U.S. have reached other countries such as France, the United Kingdom, Germany and Canada, which are witnessing huge demonstrations in support of their counterparts in U.S. universities. Only in Amsterdam were 125 students detained after they refused to comply with the order to leave the campus. The students from Oxford and Cambridge have also installed camps in solidarity with the Palestinians and those who are on the street for the cause of Palestine.
With the anti-war marches against the Israeli massacre, the ghost of the Vietnam War returned to the university campuses in the U.S. It was again the students of the University of Columbia in 1968 who had begun to protest against the Vietnam War amid the U.S. losing its soldiers every day.
The movement began at Columbia, spread within a week across other universities and soon widened to integrate with the Black Civil Movement, the feminist movement, doctors and journalist syndicates, and anti-imperialist and anti-war movements, which emerged as a turning point in the history of student politics in the U.S. Then also the members of the U.S. National Guard were deployed at the campuses to reign in the 4 million students across the country. Subsequently, the U.S. student movement spread to Paris, where it was trapped by a massive student movement, and both strengthened each other. Other countries, too, witnessed anti-Soviet protests for its policies in Vietnam and its occupation of erstwhile Czechoslovakia. The current wave of protests seems to be a revival of the old intellectual tradition of the U.S. when millions had come to the streets and demonstrations and marches seemed to have turned into a sort of civil disobedience movement.
The ongoing protest and demonstrations are not only an alarming call to Israel against its decades-old oppression of Palestinians and a sign of the emergence of a new bond for Palestine, but the police actions are an exposition of the hollowness of the U.S. claim of being a fortress of democracy and freedom in the world. The U.S. policy of extreme bias toward Israel has sparked a storm of accusations of political hypocrisy and double standards, as evident in the case of its policies toward Palestine and Ukraine. Leveling all anti-Israeli voices as anti-Semitic seems to be an intent design of U.S.-supported Israeli lobbies or Israel-supported U.S. lobbies to hide the truth. Many in the past have been tried for anti-Semitism, but the ease with which it is being deployed today has never been the case.
The resignation of the presidents of Pennsylvania State University, Harvard and MIT is an explicit account of the shrinking space for the dissension and increasing control of intellectual space in the U.S. Destruction of students’ camps and clashes with the students have become a routine affair without any talk of the International Court of Criminal (ICC) verdict against Israel, which can be explained only as an act of duplicity and hypocrisy. There is no point in repeating how the U.S. in the past has hastened to implement the U.N. Security Council resolution in Iraq and Libya but failed to do the same in the case of Israel/Palestine. The U.S.’ current attitude has exposed the fact that free speech in a country with such strong First Amendment protection can be subjected to partisan considerations. The unprecedented level of support to Israel by the Western powers has made them lose their credibility and moral foundation further.
However, given the deep entrenchment of Israeli lobbies in the U.S. Congress and Senates and other policy-making institutes and universities, it would not be easy for the universities or other organizations to join the chorus emanating from the protestors because a significant number of donors to these universities and institution happen to be Jews. They have already threatened to cut or stop the funding to the respective universities if authorities fail to stop these anti-Israel protests. One of the real estate moguls, Barry Sternlicht, has already announced that he will halt his donation worth $20 million to Brown University. Some U.S. Likewise, Congress members have sought to revoke the vias of the foreign students who are part of the anti-Israel protests.
