https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UIP7HGEkcvY

Police crack down on demonstrations at UT Austin and USC as students at Harvard and Brown set up encampments in protest against Israel’s war on Gaza.

Police in the United States have arrested dozens of protesters at the University of Texas at Austin (UT Austin) and the University of Southern California (USC) as student-led demonstrations against Israel’s war on Gaza intensified across the country and House Speaker Mike Johnson suggested calling in the National Guard.

The arrests on Wednesday in cities of Austin and Los Angeles came as students at Harvard University and Brown University on the east coast also defied threats of action and set up encampments in solidarity with Palestinians in Gaza.

The movement, which began at Columbia University in New York last week, is calling on universities to cut financial ties to Israel and divest from companies they say are enabling its brutal war in Gaza. At least 34,262 Palestinians have been killed in Israeli attacks on the besieged enclave since October 7, when fighters from Hamas attacked southern Israel, killing 1,139 people and taking dozens of people captive.

The student-led protests have been peaceful and largely respectful, but have been met by heavy-handed action from many universities amid allegations of anti-Semitism.

The biggest rally on Wednesday took place at UT Austin where hundreds of students staged a walkout and marched to the campus’s main lawn, where they planned to set up an encampment. But the university said it would “not tolerate disruptions” and called in local and state police to disperse the crowds.

Hundreds of officers arrived at the scene, some on horseback. Holding batons, they charged at the crowds and forcefully arrested several students.

At least 34 were taken into custody, the Texas Department of Public Safety said.

Greg Abbott, the Republican governor of Texas, said the protesters “belong in jail” and that any students joining in what he called “hate-filled, anti-Semitic protests” should be expelled.

Jeremi Suri, who is Jewish and a professor of history at UT Austin, told Al Jazeera there was “nothing anti-Semitic” about the protests.

“These students were shouting ‘free Palestine’, that’s all,” he said. “They were saying nothing that was threatening. And as they were standing and shouting, I witnessed the police – the state police, the campus police, the city police – an army of police almost the size as the student group … many were carrying guns, many were carrying rifles, and then, within a few minutes, this group of police stormed into the student crowd and started arresting students.”

At the USC campus in Los Angeles, efforts by students to set up an encampment were also met with force.

Campus security scuffled with students as they took down tents, and dozens of police officers holding batons and wearing helmets later moved in to arrest the protesters as helicopters hovered overhead. The crackdown came after USC Provost Andrew Guzman sent a campus-wide email, saying protesters had “threatened the safety of our offices and campus community”.

Al Jazeera’s Rob Reynolds, reporting from the university, however, said that “this protest against the war on Gaza was entirely peaceful”.

“We did not see any confrontations or harassment among the students,” he said.

Reynolds said some of the students later staged a sit-in with their arms linked.

“One by one, protesting students are being handcuffed with zip ties and led away by Los Angeles police officers, under arrest and taken away to a vehicle on the campus. They did not resist arrest and we did not see any violence on the part of the police,” he added.

The Los Angeles Police Department said some 93 people were arrested in and around the USC campus.

Jody Armour, a law professor at the university, said officials were using claims of anti-Semitism to try and silence the protests.

“We have lots of Jewish, and Muslim, and Palestinian, and Catholic like I am, Protestants too, intergenerational, coming together. Everybody should hate anti-Semitism and fight anti-Semitism, but being opposed to Israel’s slaughter in Gaza that the UN has said may plausibly be genocide, does not mean that you’re anti-Semitic, and we need to stop allowing people to weaponise anti-Semitism against real valid protests.”

On the other side of the country, in Cambridge, Massachusetts, hundreds of students at Harvard University set up their own encampment at Harvard Yard, despite the university closing the space and threatening “disciplinary action” against students for setting up tents without prior permission. The protesting students were calling for the institution to divest from Israel and also lift the suspension of a pro-Palestine group called the Harvard Undergraduate Palestine Solidarity Committee.

Similar scenes played out at Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island.

The New York Times said students there had erected some 40 tents by Wednesday afternoon, despite the university threatening “proceedings” against the students if they did not clear out.

At Columbia University in New York, meanwhile, there was an uneasy truce between students and officials.

The university, which called in police to clear an encampment last week resulting in the arrest of more than 100 students, is currently in talks with the students to dismantle the protest camp and averted another confrontation by extending a deadline for dispersal by another 48 hours.

Johnson, the Republican speaker of the US House, also visited the campus to support Jewish students amid concerns of anti-Semitism, and called on Columbia President Nemat Shafik to resign “if she cannot bring order to this chaos”. Johnson, who addressed the media on the library steps near the encampment, said that “if this is not contained quickly and if these threats and intimidation are not stopped, there is an appropriate time for the National Guard”.

He said he intended to demand US President Joe Biden “take action”, and warned that the demonstrations “place a target on the backs of Jewish students in the United States”.

Protesters nearby appeared to pay little attention.

“We regret that there’s no attention on this peaceful movement and politicians are diverting attention from the real issues,” said Mahmoud Khalil, a Palestinian student at Columbia who was part of the negotiations with the university’s administration about the protests although he was not staying at the camp. “This is academic freedom, this is freedom of speech.”

White House spokeswoman Karine Jean-Pierre, meanwhile, said Biden backed free speech.

“The president believes that free speech, debate and nondiscrimination on college campuses are important,” she told reporters.

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2024/4/25/students-arrested-in-california-texas-as-gaza-war-protests-in-us-intensify

The demonstration is in solidarity with the people of Palestine as they resist genocide and continue in their struggle for liberation


I think americans are becoming wiser by the day compared to some nigerians that want to see innocent people die everyday, they don't listen to media propaganda anymore.



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mqeyLN9XL-8

Lol at protest against genocide.

Gud one From the California and Texas's authorities. Arrest any bastard terrorist and her sympathizers who wish to cause chaos and disrupt the peace being enjoyed in the universities involved.

If Not witchcrafts, who will want Israel to stop the onslaught against Hamas wen dozens of Israelis re still being kept hostage. Tell Hamas to release the hostages first.

Nigerians should pray for world peace and stop calling for more bloodshed



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qqfd-6hiHZA

Deal with Dem terrorist sympathizers

Na waoh. This is getting serious.

Google terminated 50 employees I think this week because of this Gaza protest.

Hmmmm.

I just read how many thousands of people Israel killed in the war and it got me thinking... Why did Hamas start the war again in the first place

This war started years back, each fight, Israel kill the most of them, yet they are not tired of initiating the war again and again.

The truth is, even if this war comes to an end, the children who watched their parents die, or a brother who watched his brother die, will want to initiate the war in few years time, as it has always been.

Humans have the spirit of retaliation.
It will take great forgiveness by the people this war affected, before the war can permanently come to an end.

God1000:
The demonstration is in solidarity with the people of Palestine as they resist genocide and continue in their struggle for liberation


I think americans are becoming wiser by the day compared to some nigerians that want to see innocent people die everyday, they don't listen to media propaganda anymore.

.I'm sure it's the Muslim students of the schools dat instigated d protest...wen America was letting them into d country, we warned them....I hope and pray dat America falls one day

God1000:
The demonstration is in solidarity with the people of Palestine as they resist genocide and continue in their struggle for liberation


I think americans are becoming wiser by the day compared to some nigerians that want to see innocent people die everyday, they don't listen to media propaganda anymore.

Lol. If US citizens that support Isreal in this war come out to protest, you go know say this pro-palestine protest na child's play.

There is far more support in the US for Isreal than Palestine. Nor let these baby protests fool you.

Don’t they have parents that tell them the truth?
Even if they have been brainwashed by social media

Protesters arrested in some people's sane society?

Impossible is nothing.

Americans and Bizzybody

WrriterNg:
The United States would not make it to it's 300th birthday. This is very certain.

Just a little more violence from this would trigger a revolution that would tear the country apart into smaller parts.

Kids, don't do drugs.

Put the protesters in first flight to Gaza. At least, let them show support & love within.


It's better not to start what one can't finish.

God1000:
The demonstration is in solidarity with the people of Palestine as they resist genocide and continue in their struggle for liberation


I think americans are becoming wiser by the day compared to some nigerians that want to see innocent people die everyday, they don't listen to media propaganda anymore.

Eh yah

Arrest them all.

WrriterNg:
The United States would not make it to it's 300th birthday. This is very certain.

Just a little more violence from this would trigger a revolution that would tear the country apart into smaller parts.

Dreaming is permitted.

It is getting clearer to everybody by the day

They keep playing

God1000:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UIP7HGEkcvY

Police crack down on demonstrations at UT Austin and USC as students at Harvard and Brown set up encampments in protest against Israel’s war on Gaza.



https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2024/4/25/students-arrested-in-california-texas-as-gaza-war-protests-in-us-intensify

These protests are indeed gaining momentum on U.S. campuses. Same kinda protests rocked the U.S. back in the 1960s in protest against military drafts and the U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War.

But what has to be done has got to be done to bring a semblance of peace to that region of the Middle East. I ONLY see a military solution to this situation that'll drag on for sometime as long as Iran continues to supply her proxies such as Hamas, the Houthis, Hezbollah, etc, with weapons such as drone, missiles, and other forms of military logistics.

The endgame is here. Period.

Solidarity protest for those who want isreal extinct . Islamist wey murder Americans. Their own na play,

Noted.

God1000:
The demonstration is in solidarity with the people of Palestine as they resist genocide and continue in their struggle for liberation


I think americans are becoming wiser by the day compared to some nigerians that want to see innocent people die everyday, they don't listen to media propaganda anymore.

Same people who murdered Americans during September 11. Most of this students where not born then. Gen Z wahala

God1000:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UIP7HGEkcvY

Police crack down on demonstrations at UT Austin and USC as students at Harvard and Brown set up encampments in protest against Israel’s war on Gaza.



https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2024/4/25/students-arrested-in-california-texas-as-gaza-war-protests-in-us-intensify

Putin is a tyrant crew will skip this thread

So dem dey arrest protesters in saner clime too.
Anyway send the arrested people to Palestine to go and support them overther.
Nothing concern me with Israel, Palestine or America..
Na Naija bey own

Send them to Gaza the prophet is calling