Students chant pro-Palestinian slogans, form protest camps , accuse President Biden of indecisiveness, and the police chase them away. The situation in some US academic circles is escalating. What's going on there?
Many of the young people in US university circles are trying to draw attention to what is happening between Israel and the Palestinians in the Middle East. Some even talk about “genocide” against the Palestinians and accuse US President Joe Biden of inaction.
The professor from the University “Berkeley“ Lee Rayford commented to DV the following way: “There is a whole generation of people who will not vote for the Democratic Party and for Joe Biden”. For some voters, Israel's treatment of the Palestinians will play an important role in the US presidential election in November.
Four years ago, everything looked different – then joe biden beat donald trump and because he got young people on his side. And then there was unrest – of a different nature, but even today it is again about demands for social justice.
So far, sociologists and election strategists have no consensus on what the consequences of the US vote could be. President Biden is trying to point out that on the one hand he supports Israel militarily, but on the other hand – wants to reduce the suffering of the civilian population.
Support for Israel should not be unconditional
At dozens of universities in the USA, “protest camps against the genocide” were created. Participants want Israel to stop bombing Gaza. According to the health ministry in Gaza, run by Hamas (an organization designated as a terrorist organization by Israel, the US, EU countries and some Arab countries), nearly 35,000 people have been killed in the area so far, almost half of them children. Many aid organizations suggest the death toll is much higher.
The US is the largest supplier of lethal military aid to Israel, and it is this fact that unites the demonstrators: they want the US government to revoke its “unwavering” commitment to Israel. The president, for his part, emphasizes that the protests will not change his position. But as the American platform Axios informs, the government has already stopped supplying ammunition to Israel. This decision is the first of its kind in the current phase of escalation in the Middle East conflict.
In addition, the students are asking their universities to divest themselves of ties to financial interests in the arms industry and companies linked to Israel. Some of the universities have endowments with billion dollar budgets, whose assets consist mainly of shares of various companies.
In the meantime, the closing sessions and graduation celebrations are coming up. Both wealthy donors and politicians allergic to criticism of Israel are putting universities under pressure. Citing security risks and the rules, some universities have called in the police to break up the protests. At least 2,000 people were detained, and in some places the police were accused of excessive violence.
The response of the universities is not easy at all
„This is just another example of how universities suppress pro-Palestinian statements by students,” said lawyer Amr Shabaik, a representative of a human rights organization that advocates for the rights of Muslims in North America.
Supporters of Israel, for their part, refer to the people killed in the terrorist attack by Hamas on October 7, 2023. They criticize that Jewish students are being harassed and threatened. In addition, there were indications of possible links between the protest groups and Hamas.
In turn, many Jews expressed solidarity with the protests and joined the protest camps. This differentiated picture of opponents and supporters only makes university responses even more complicated.
Freedom of speech?
Thus universities fall between the fronts. Freedom of speech in the United States is constitutionally protected more strongly than in many other democracies. But both security and access to education are guaranteed rights.
Lawyer Anthony Romero points out that for all their duties “to fight discrimination and to be responsible for maintaining order, it is unacceptable for universities to sacrifice the principles of academic freedom and freedom of speech, which are the “core of their mission to educate“.
The mission to spread social and moral ideals among students so that they can "go out into the world and change it" is in conflict with the higher education system in the United States, which in many cases serves to consolidate the power of the ruling class, Lee Rayford points out.
Among other things, there are fears that the situation in the US could escalate even further, as Biden and state governors are under pressure to send the National Guard against the demonstrators. "What is most important for us now is the dialogue," the professor from Emerson College told DV. in Boston Gregory Payne.