(08.95.2024)
Police in Amsterdam began breaking up the occupation of University of Amsterdam buildings in the city center on Wednesday. The Binnengasthuis and other university buildings were squatted a day earlier by hundreds of pro-Palestinian demonstrators who had marched there from the university’s Roeterseiland campus on Tuesday afternoon.
(07.05.2024)
Some 125 activists were arrested as police broke up a pro-Palestinian demonstration camp at the University of Amsterdam in the early hours of Tuesday, as protests that have roiled campuses in the United States spread into Europe.
According to a statement from University Spokesperson Edward Blaguszewski, 109 people have been booked as a result of the encampment, and around 25 people are waiting to be processed.
Blaguszewski’s statement read: “As chairman of the UMass Board of Trustees, I want to offer the Board’s full and unwavering support for Chancellor Javier Reyes,” said Chairman Stephen Karam. “We have absolute confidence in his leadership, his integrity, and his commitment to our students.”
Police arrested about 130 people at the University of Massachusetts Amherst Tuesday night after the college says pro-Palestinian protesters refused to take down an encampment on campus and leave the area.
UMass has not said what the protesters are charged with, but 109 have been booked by campus police as of Wednesday morning and there are charges pending for about 25 more.
(07.05.2024)
Berlins Regierender Bürgermeister Kai Wegner (CDU) hat die FU-Besetzung durch pro-palästinensische Aktivisten verurteilt. „Wir dürfen auch an den Hochschulen nicht wegschauen, wenn antisemitische Parolen und Judenhass an den Universitäten verbreitet werden“, sagte der CDU-Politiker am Dienstag. Er sei der Universität für ihr Vorgehen sehr dankbar: „Ich finde dieses konsequente Vorgehen völlig richtig.“
Auch Wissenschaftssenatorin Ina Czyborra (SPD) verurteilte die Besetzung des FU-Hofes scharf.
– The initial arrests sparked a movement on college campuses across the country, including at the University of Texas at Austin, the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill, and the University of California, Los Angeles.
– More than 2,100 protesters have been arrested at colleges and universities in recent weeks, including students, faculty, and outside agitators.
Prime Minister Gabriel Attal‘s office said such protests would be dealt with using „total rigour“, adding that 23 university sites had been „evacuated“ on Thursday.
Students in dorms craned their necks and shakily stretched their iPhones out windows to observe the impending attack.
We clung tighter to one another as they approached us, and seized us like rag dolls and slammed us into the hallowed ground of brick and concrete. But unlike rag dolls, we bleed, we crack, we bruise, we feel.
Arrests piled up at several colleges, 14 Princeton University students launched a hunger strike, and police raided an NYU encampment Friday in the latest battles on college campuses that have pitted university officials against their own students over the war in Gaza.
Columbia called the NYPD on its own students Tuesday night for protesting Israel‘s war on Gaza. Similar raids have taken place at UCLA, USC, and NYU. The president and vice president responded with cringe tweets about women‘s rights and mental health.
Police said in a statement early Thursday that 90 people were arrested at Dartmouth College „for multiple offenses including criminal trespass and resisting arrest.“ Those arrested included both Dartmouth students and non-Dartmouth students, per the statement.
What else is happening: The NYPD said officers made several arrests at Fordham University on Wednesday evening, one day after they arrested 282 pro-Palestinian protesters at Columbia University and the City College of New York.
The University of Wisconsin at Madison said………..
We get an update from the University of California, Los Angeles, where police in riot gear began dismantling a pro-Palestinian encampment early Thursday, using flashbang grenades, rubber bullets and tear gas, and arresting dozens of students. The raid came just over a day after pro-Israel counterprotesters armed with sticks, metal rods and fireworks attacked students at the encampment. The Real News Network reporter Mel Buer was on the scene during the attack. She describes seeing counterprotesters provoke students, yelling slurs and bludgeoning them with parts of the encampment’s barricade, and says the attack lasted several hours without police or security intervention. ”UCLA is complicit in violence inflicted upon protesters,” wrote the editorial board of UCLA’s campus newspaper, the Daily Bruin, the next day. Four of the paper’s student journalists were targeted and assaulted by counterprotesters while covering the protests.
Chancellor Gene Block released a statement Thursday afternoon claiming that the Palestine solidarity encampment had been shut down because it led to unsafe university conditions and interfered with UCLA’s educational mission.
Block confirmed that more than 200 people were arrested, with more than 300 leaving voluntarily Thursday morning following a police sweep of the encampment. The dispersal followed an outbreak of violence on Tuesday night and early Wednesday morning, during which counter-protesters attacked the encampment using fireworks, tear gas and by throwing projectiles.
Throughout the night and into the morning, students outside the encampment linked arms against the police and a small group of counter protesters, remaining peaceful. Around 1:20 a.m. police dressed in riot gear broke through the west barricade unexpectedly after a loud boom sounded from a flash-bang grenade. The protestors quickly formed a human chain, slowly pushing forward, and shouting “peaceful protest,” as well as phrases such as “shame on you.”
The students pushed the officers back, regaining control of the perimeter in approximately 30 minutes and rebuilding their barricades.
Police then began shooting fireworks into the air above protestors’ heads…
President Joe Biden on Thursday defended the right to protest but insisted that „order must prevail“ as college campuses across the country face unrest over the war in Gaza.
„Dissent is essential for democracy,“ he said at the White House. „But dissent must never lead to disorder.“
He did not provide additional details on the incident, which was first reported by news outlet The City.
The New York Police Department did not immediately respond to The Associated Press’ request for comment.
For over seven hours, zionist aggressors hurled gas canisters, sprayed pepper spray, and threw fireworks and bricks into our encampment. They broke our barriers repeatedly, clearly in an attempt to kill our community.
Campus safety left within minutes, external security the university hired for “backup” watched, filmed, and laughed on the side as the immediate danger inflicted upon us escalated. Law enforcement simply stood at the edge of the lawn and refused to budge as we screamed for their help. The only means of protection we had was each other. WE KEEP EACH OTHER SAFE.
For over seven hours, zionist aggressors hurled gas canisters, sprayed pepper spray, and threw fireworks and bricks into our encampment. They broke our barriers repeatedly, clearly in an attempt to kill our community.
Campus safety left within minutes, external security the university hired for “backup” watched, filmed, and laughed on the side as the immediate danger inflicted upon us escalated. Law enforcement simply stood at the edge of the lawn and refused to budge as we screamed for their help. The only means of protection we had was each other. WE KEEP EACH OTHER SAFE.
Despite the danger, we refused to engage standing by the principles of our encampment—self defense. For all the school’s pretense of student safety, we have experienced an unprecedented amount of violence and hatred while they stood by. The university’s hypocrisy all too apparent, as signs of this escalation were reported, documented, and indicated early on. The zionist attacks, their use of chemical weaponry, their hatred, their destruction, are but a microcosm of the genocide in Gaza. The university would rather see us dead than divest.
Multiple fights broke out in dueling protests between Israel and Palestine protesters.
Fireworks, tear gas and fights broke out just after 10:50 p.m. Tuesday night and continued early Wednesday morning as around 100 pro-Israel counter-protesters attempted to seize the barricade around and storm the ongoing Palestine solidarity encampment in Dickson Plaza.
The chaos comes as Chancellor Gene Block faces criticism for improper handling of the encampment and the same day the university deemed the encampment to be unlawful, threatening students inside with suspension and expulsion. Security and UCPD both retreated as pro-Israel counter-protesters and other groups attacked protesters in the encampment – led by Students for Justice in Palestine and UC Divest Coalition at UCLA – that followed similar ones across the country.
Just before midnight, a large group of counterdemonstrators, wearing black outfits and white masks, arrived on campus and tried to tear down the barricades surrounding the encampment. Campers, some holding lumber and wearing goggles and helmets, rallied to defend the encampment’s perimeter.
CNN‘s Shimon Prokupecz breaks down the NYPD‘s response at Columbia University, where police arrested dozens after the university requested their assistance to respond to on-campus protests.
Over 100 protesters were arrested Tuesday at Columbia University and City College of New York, according to a law enforcement official.
Most of the arrests were made at Columbia, including about two dozen protesters who police say tried to prevent officers from entering the campus, the official said.
(27.04.2024)
Heavily armed police force raided Friday evening, April 26, the Hadash branch in Nazareth and arrested two activists who were setting up displays and flags for the May Day rally.
Activists from Hadash, the Communist Party of Israel (CPI) and the Young Communist League were involved in the planning and preparations for the central May Day demonstration being organized by Hadash and the CPI who will be held, as every year, in Nazareth, today at 10:30, with a mass march along Tawfiq Zyad street in the center of the city.
Nearly 200 protesters were arrested Saturday at Northeastern University, Arizona State University and Indiana University, according to officials, as colleges across the country struggle to quell growing pro-Palestinian demonstrations and encampments on campus.
As a new anti-war movement has sprung on campuses across the country, Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP) Boston and IfNotNow Boston support the student encampment movement in solidarity with Palestine across this city and the country. We denounce Northeastern University’s discipline of student activists and Boston Police Department’s arrest of peaceful protesters. We denounce false claims from the Northeastern administration that protests were “infiltrated by professional organizers” who used “virulent antisemitic slurs.”
Video posted to X by GBH News reporter Tori Bedford clearly shows the incident in question, in which a pro-Israel counter-protester, holding an Israeli flag, attempts to be disruptive by yelling “kill the Jews.” He goes on to accuse student protesters of being funded by the Qatari government and imply that they are not US citizens. By using this event to slander their own students, the Northeastern University administration is acting in incredible bad faith. They owe pro-Palestine student organizers an apology.
Mass State Police said 102 people were arrested and face trespassing and disorderly conduct charges and are being transported to the Suffolk County House of Correction to be booked and processed.
Northeastern University released a statement on Saturday morning through social media saying approximately 100 people had been detained and the ones without a university ID were arrested.
Dear President Mills and Provost Dopico,
We write this public letter as Jewish faculty at NYU requesting that the university administration discontinue its practice of relying on specious charges of antisemitism when adjudicating matters of student conduct and faculty discipline concerning pro-Palestinian speech and protest. This matter has particular urgency as just this morning a coalition of NYU students has established an encampment in solidarity with Gaza, and already NYU has taken steps to limit and constrain their speech and mobility.
We reject outright the administration’s insistence that criticism of Israeli state policy is inherently antisemitic and so constitutes discrimination. There is nothing Jewish about supporting Israel’s destruction of Gaza or about the US bombs that have killed more than 10,000 children there, nor is it antisemitic to denounce Israeli state violence or to protest American imperialism. Moreover, by adopting a cheapened idea of “antisemitic” hate speech defined by the very same right wing political figures who have given energy and legitimacy to neo-fascist groups across the US and to the McCarthyite anti-intellectual assault on higher education unfolding today, the university degrades the discourse of antisemitism itself. With this in mind, we request that the university reverse all punitive Office of Equal Opportunity decisions in disciplinary proceedings that have depended upon the erroneous equation of anti-Israel speech with antisemitism.
Noelle McAfee (age 63, born November 25, 1960) is a prominent political theorist and feminist. Currently, she holds the position of chair in the philosophy department at Emory University, a role she’s held since 2010.
Alongside being a Professor of Philosophy, she’s also a Professor of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at Emory.
(25.04.2024)
(25.04.2024)
„To sustain this level of blind support for Israel, the U.S. must erode its own democracy,“ said one foreign policy expert. „And that is what we see happening on U.S. campuses now.“
(25.04.2024)
A CNN crew witnessed at least two professors detained by Atlanta police, including Emory University economics professor Caroline Fohlin and Noëlle McAfee, chair of the philosophy department.
After all, the division over the war in Gaza is by no means confined to students. As has happened with so many rifts in our country’s history, students have simply used their activism to become a prism reflecting the wider world. Which is why they need to be taken seriously, for all of our sakes.
If they do nothing else, the growing demonstrations are forcing us to confront who we are, what we believe and why.
What is happening in Gaza is not a war “over there.” It’s right here, right now, among our own children. And we all need to figure out where we stand.
Going over some of the news, good and bad, coming out of the campus protests. Including what happened to Emory University‘s professor of economics Caroline Fohlin, but also a beautiful speech given by an 88-year-old activist.
University administrators from Texas to California moved to clear protesters and prevent encampments from taking hold on their own campuses as they have at Columbia University, deploying police in tense new confrontations that already have led to dozens of arrests.
At the same time, new protests continued erupting in places like Pittsburgh and San Antonio. Students expressed solidarity with their fellow students at Columbia, and with a pro-Palestinian movement that appeared to be galvanized by the pushback on other campuses and the looming end of the academic year.
Israeli forces withdrew from a refugee camp in the occupied West Bank on Saturday following a deadly two-day raid likened by Palestinians to the intensity of Second Intifada attacks.
The assault began late on Thursday with Israeli armoured vehicles and troops surrounding the Nur Shams refugee camp east of Tulkarm city.
For more than 50 hours, Israeli forces maintained a siege on the camp while they shot at residents, arrested scores of people and destroyed homes.
According to the group, half of the detainees were arrested at the Nur Shams refugee camp, amid the ongoing 40-hour raid by Israeli forces.
The latest arrests bring the total number of Palestinians detained by Israeli forces since 7 October to 8,340.
The Israeli army said it killed 10 Palestinians in the ongoing raid on the Nur Sham refugee camp near Tulkarm in the occupied West Bank, which started on Thursday evening.
(13.04.2024)
„This morning, at 10 o‘clock, I landed in Berlin to attend a conference on Palestine, where I had been asked, along with many others … to give my evidence of the 43 days that I had seen in the hospitals in Gaza, working in both al-Shifa and al-Ahli hospitals,“ he said.
Abu Sittah said he was escorted from the passport office to the basement of the airport, where he was questioned for three-and-a-half hours.
„At the end of three-and-a-half hours, I was told that I woud not be allowed to enter German soil and that this ban will last the whole of April,“ he said.
812.04.2024)
Die Organisatoren hatten den Tagungsort erst am Vormittag bei einer Pressekonferenz im Stadtteil Wedding und auf der Webseite des Kongresses bekannt gegeben. In der Ankündigung für den Kongress und in der Pressekonferenz warfen sie Israel unter anderem „Apartheid“, „Kolonialismus“ und „Völkermord“ (Genozid) im Gazastreifen vor. Deutschland trage eine „Mitschuld“, weil es Waffen an Israel liefere.
Es ist Freitag gegen Abend, der 12. April 2024. In der Hand hält der Arzt ein Mikrophon von Middle East Eye (MEE), einem in England ansässigen Internetportal, das in englischer und französischer Sprache Nachrichten über den Nahen und Mittleren Osten veröffentlicht. Ruhig und überlegt berichtet der Arzt, was ihm am Berliner Flughafen widerfahren ist, eindringlich blicken seine Augen durch die großen, dunkel gerahmten Brillengläser.
The charity said that Israeli forces had made these demands on Saturday via a drone speaker as it launched smoke bombs to encourage staff to leave the facility.
It added that one of the injured Palestinians left in al-Amal hospital was also shot dead by Israeli forces.
Israeli jets on Sunday launched several strikes near the Shifa Hospital, which largely stopped functioning following the November raid. After claiming that Hamas maintained an elaborate command center there, Israeli forces months ago exposed a single tunnel leading to a few underground rooms.
Hardly any aid has been delivered in recent weeks to northern Gaza and Gaza City, where Shifa is located.
Israeli forces killed 50 Palestinians and detained 180 people during a raid on Gaza‘s al-Shifa hospital on Monday, according to Israel‘s military.
The military said that those killed were fighters, and those arrested were suspected members of Hamas. It did not provide any evidence of those claims. Israel has repeatedly accused Hamas of operating inside hospitals – a charge which the Palestinian group has consistently denied.
The Israeli army has launched a new attack on al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza, raiding and opening fire on the facility where thousands are taking shelter.
Mohammed Eliwa, a journalist reporting from al-Shifa hospital, told Al Jazeera Arabic that Israeli forces are shooting anyone moving in the courtyards.
Hamadah Abdel Hadi, an activist also inside the hospital, said Israeli forces broke into the hospital and immediately targeted Al Jazeera staff.
The Israeli military said soldiers had conducted a „precise operation“ based on intelligence that the hospital was being used by senior Hamas leaders, and were fired upon when they entered the compound.