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Campus protests over Israel’s war in Gaza have spread across the country. Police are clashing with protesters in New York, at the University of Austin in Texas, and in Los Angeles at the University of Southern California.
After a tense night of negotiations and protests at Columbia University, leaders on campus have agreed to extend talks with pro-Palestinian student protester encampments for another 48 hours.
School administrators initially set a midnight deadline for encampments to disband from campus but changed their tune around 3am after students agreed to remove some tents and non-students as well as stop discriminatory or harassing language among protesters.
Some Jewish students have faced antisemitic harassment leading to safety concerns on campus.
In return, the school will allow talks to continue and delay increasing police presence on the already locked down campus.
The development arrives as the protest encampments at Columbia have spurred similar protests at colleges and universities around the United States including NYU, Yale, the University of Minnesota, the University of California Berkeley and more.
More than 100 people have been arrested at Columbia alone in connection to the protest encampments which are asking the school to divest financial ties to the war in Gaza.
Images from campus pro-Palestine protests
Texas DPS appear to bring live ammunition to University of Austin protest on Wednesday
House Speaker Mike Johnson called all US pro-Palestine protests ‘anti-semitic’ and protesters ‘lawless agitators’ during Columbia University visit
House Speaker Mike Johnson visited Columbia University today amid ongoing pro-Palestine protests to call for the university’s president to resign and to address Jewish students.
He called the protests “disgusting” and “unnecessary” ahead of his visit. The day before his visit, the UN issued a report that it had found “mass graves” in Gaza, where Palestinians — including women, the elderly, and the wounded — had been found dead. Some of the remains allegedly had their hands bound.
Mr Johnson arrived to chorus of boos and consistent shouts from protesters, including chants of “we can’t hear you.”
He said Israel and Jewish students would “never stand alone” and said the protesters were supporting terrorists and “gnashing their teeth” at the existence of Israel.
Mr Johnson continued, calling the protesters “lawless agitators” and characterised all of the pro-Palestine protests across US campuses as “anti-semitic.”
At one point, Mr Johnson stopped his speech due to ongoing chants and said “enjoy your free speech”.
WATCH: Pro-Palestinian protesters at US universities
Riot police arrest students as Palestine protests spread to colleges in Texas and California
On Wednesday afternoon, police on horseback arrived at University of Texas at Austin’s campus and began arresting students, according to The Texas Tribune. At least 10 people participating in the protest were detained. The university’s Palestine Solidarity Committee organised the demonstration.
The students were demanding that the institution divest from manufacturers supply Israel weapons in attacks against Palestine. The students gathered at a campus gym with plans to march through the university and hold a sit-in. By 12pm CT, 200 students had banded together.
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Columbia University student group says university has pledged not to call the NYPD or National Guard on protesters
Students for Justice in Palestine, a Columbia University student organisation, said the university has given them a “written commitment and concession not to call the NYPD or the National Guard” on protesters.
“Student protestors on Columbia’s campus — the majority of whom are Palestinian, Black, brown, and Jewish students from marginalized backgrounds — stood by each other for hours last night, awaiting the outcome of Columbia’s disturbing threat of military or police violence,” the group said, according to NBC News.
The group said it feared another Kent State University incident, citing the 1970 killing of four students protesting the Vietnam War at the hands of the US National Guard.
AOC calls out the press for coverage of campus protests a day after a UN report details Israel’s mass graves
On Tuesday, the UN released a report saying inspectors found “mass graves” in Gaza, some of which were allegedly filled with the elderly, the wounded, and women. Some of the Palestinians buried in the mass graves appeared to have had their hands tied before they were killed.
Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez called out the press for giving ample air time to cover ongoing campus protests — a topic that is quickly spiraling into a culture war flash point — rather than zeroing in on the discovery of the mass graves.
NYU journalism professor says police broke up Seder at Palestine support protest under guise of ‘fighting anti-semitism’
Dr Chenjerai Kumanyika, an assistant professor of journalism at NYU, went to support students protesting Israel’s war in Gaza on Tuesday, where he saw police officers break up a Seder and violently arrest students.
“In the spirit of solidarity between Jews and Muslims, they held a Seder at the protest. And there, what the university did was break that up, and somehow call that fighting antisemitism,” Mr Kumanyika told NBC News.
He also said he saw police officers zip tie students and haul them off to police stations.
“All of this is being done under the justification that it is somehow protecting the NYU community. But I think what’s actually going on is that this university wants to avoid the call for divestment, the call for transparency about its investments in Israel. Just the idea that this is about safety is kind of ridiculous, given what I experienced last night,” he said.
Netanyahu decries pro-Palestine university protests over Gaza as ‘horrific’ and ‘antisemitic’
Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu has condemned the protests taking place across US universities against his country’s war in Gaza, arguing the “horrific” demonstrations are “antisemitic” and reminiscent of the dark years just before Hitler came to power.
“Antisemitic mobs have taken over leading universities. They call for the annihilation of Israel. They attack Jewish students. They attack Jewish faculty,” Mr Netanyahu said in a video address on Wednesday, as he called for an end to the demonstrations.
Read the full report by Josh Marcus’ here:
Rudy Giuliani heckled when visiting Columbia University protests
Donald Trump’s former attorney and former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani, was heckled when he visited protests at Columbia University on Tuesday.
Mr Giuliani was sitting in a black SUV in an American flag shirt when protesters began yelling for him to be jailed.
“Lock him up! Lock him up!” a heckler yelled. “Rudy Giuliani! Go to jail! New York hates you! The Yankees hate you!”
Source: independent.co.uk
