24 hours ago it became known that our very own, Alcinoos Ioannidis, who is on tour in the USA, will not give the concert planned at Columbia University because of the incidents that took place there by young students for the war in Gaza from Israel.
“I saw the “occupation” of the campus by the students, I also saw the non-stop, 24-hour demonstrations inside and outside the university, with the slogans, the Palestinian flags and headscarves that you see everywhere in the city, while today there was a protest rally of hundreds of professors” he wrote in a related post on social media, the artist who, as he said, lives very close to the university, while apologizing for the cancellation of the concert.
It is true that the images from the episodes went around the world in the previous days. A large number of students, not only at Columbia, but also at other US universities, such as Texas and South Carolina, were reacting to Israel’s aggressive actions in Gaza and the support of the US government in Tel Aviv, proceeding with sit-ins, demonstrations and pro-girling of professors resulting in the need for the intervention of police forces for their temporary dissolution.
Meanwhile, police have arrested hundreds more protesters across the US as protests against the war on Gaza intensify on college campuses. About 108 arrests were made at Emerson College, Boston police told the BBC’s US partner CBS News.
Earlier, 93 people at the University of Southern California (USC) in Los Angeles were taken into custody on trespassing charges. Protesters and police also clashed at the University of Texas at Austin. Authorities said 34 people were arrested there as well.
Video of the incident at the University of Texas:
#BREAKING 🇺🇸| Mass chaos breaks out at college campuses across the #UnitedStates as pro-Palestine protests intensify. #Columbia, #Harvard, #USCUniversity of #Texas at #Austin and others are getting swarmed by protesters.
Texas state troopers have been deployed. pic.twitter.com/Xa00ib3WGK
— South Today (@SouthToday5) April 25, 2024
The Financial Times, with its analysis signed by Joshua Caffin, attempts to outline the phenomenon reminiscent of the anti-war movement of the 60s. The FT visited the “Gaza Solidarity Camp” on Columbia’s campus where they spoke to students and protesters who denounce what they say is genocide being perpetrated in Gaza by “the violent, Zionist settler entity.” “We are united in our struggle. We are building community. We eat together. We keep each other safe and warm. We put our principles into practice,” said W.
One of the demands of those gathered was for Columbia to divest from companies that benefit from Israel, including Microsoft, Boeing and GE. “We will continue to occupy the western lawn until our demands are met,” Kyhmani James warned.
Hours later, Columbia President Minouche Shafik gave protesters until midnight to vacate the encampment, and New York City police officers made preparations to enter. On Wednesday morning, the two sides agreed to another 48 hours of dialogue.
The “Gaza Solidarity Camp” has had an eventful life, reconnecting a new generation of Columbia student activists with their predecessors who made the university a center of protest against the Vietnam War when they occupied buildings in 1968. It has also activated similar anti-Israel protests in other US universities, from New York University to the University of California, Berkeley.
Video of the events in Columbia, Harvard, Texas:
#BBCNews #FoxNews @Columbia @UTAustin We did Nazi this happening. I’d never, ever, buy a Muskmobile. I will buy an electric car on my next purchase,will never do business with he never figures it out. #MurdochGutterMedia #msnbc #cnn #ToriesOut #morningjoe pic.twitter.com/oz2RXL59Yr
— Town Post (@MendacityAbout) April 25, 2024
It has also plunged Columbia into a crisis over the limits of free speech and harassment and tarnished the school in the eyes of many Jewish alumni as a hotbed of anti-Semitism. “Having our students protesting for Hamas, the Houthis and Iran – it’s not a good image for the university,” one of them said.
Since his criminal trial in lower Manhattan, former President Donald Trump has sought to link President Joe Biden to “chaos” at the nation’s universities. “What’s happening is a shame for our country and it’s all Biden’s fault,” he said.
Biden, on the other hand, said ahead of the Jewish holiday of Passover that “blatant anti-Semitism is reprehensible and dangerous – and has absolutely no place on college campuses or anywhere in our country.”
At the center of it all is the camp, which is about the size of a football field, full of signs and banners, where its young inhabitants were not characterized as a single entity. Depending on one’s orientation, they were either sincere or foolish, admirable campaigners or useful idiots, writes the Financial Times. “Think what you want about the cause, but it’s nice to see people care about something and have a cause that they think is worth sacrificing for,” said one law student, as she looked out over the smoking camp.
Inside, a few hundred students were gathered around dozens of tents as Arabic music played. One banner read: “Demilitarize Education.” Someone was beating a drum. Every now and then, someone else grabbed a megaphone and the shouts and responses began, including slogans that many interpreted as calls for Israel’s elimination: “Intifada revolution… From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free… Glory, glory for our martyrs!”
An elderly woman who was a continuing education student at Columbia described the youths as “creepy, heretical.” An Israeli student asked why fellow students calling for free and open debate were “hiding their faces” with medical masks or the ubiquitous keffiyeh scarves that have become a symbol of Palestinian nationalism.
James, the team’s media liaison, insisted this was being done to ensure student safety. But a short walk away, students cuddled on manicured lawns and posed under cherry blossoms in their graduation gowns.
James backtracked when asked about the group’s stance on Hamas, which killed an estimated 1,200 Israelis on Oct. 7, according to Israeli officials — including hundreds of youths at a music festival. Other protesters dismissed allegations of anti-Semitism as a “Zionist” tactic to divert attention from the war in Gaza, where Israel’s offensive against Hamas has killed more than 33,000 people, according to Palestinian authorities.
Shafik also came under pressure from prominent donors, including Robert Kraft, the billionaire owner of the New England Patriots football team, who called his alma mater unrecognizable. Last Thursday, after a second day of protests, he backed down and asked New York police to evacuate the camp, resulting in the arrest of more than 100 students.
The crackdown may have backfired: the students defied the president by simply jumping a fence and building a new camp on the site next to the original one, thus creating the conditions for today’s confrontation.
Calling the police was also considered an unforgivable sin for those who still honor Columbia’s tradition of activism. Hundreds of teachers walked out in response. The sentiment was captured in a message scrawled on the back of one protester’s denim jacket: “Mi-nouche Sha-fuck you!” in a pun on the president’s name.
Meanwhile, tensions escalated over the weekend. In one example of anti-Semitism, a protester held a sign with an arrow pointing at students waving an Israeli flag and reading: “Al-Qasam’s next targets,” referring to the military wing of Hamas. Other groups of protesters, unaffiliated with the university, besieged it outside its gates.
Many students were suspicious of journalists and the mainstream media. And many are new to the movement. One student described herself as a gay rights activist who had only joined the Palestinian struggle after learning about it at Columbia from other activists. He stood and watched the encampment as other students arrived to carry bags of food and supplies over the barricade. There are even Jews among the protesters.
“It’s a beautiful, beautiful thing,” one Jewish student, wrapped in a keffiyeh and wearing a Star of David charm, said of the camp. She had been arrested days earlier and, like many others, refused to give her name.
One young man, his head wrapped in a keffiyeh, described the camp as a communist idyll, where work was shared, everyone’s needs were met and “the federal government is trying to destroy us.”
There was a sense of kibbutznik enthusiasm for building a community in the real – and not the online – world. The camp has its own medical teams, as well as students who process food deliveries and date them for freshness. “De-escalators” in high-visibility vests are on hand to defuse tensions with pro-Israel students who occasionally enter the venue. (Forcibly removing them would violate the camp’s principles of non-violence).
#BREAKING 🇺🇸| Mass chaos breaks out at college campuses across the #UnitedStates as pro-Palestine protests intensify. #Columbia, #Harvard, #USCUniversity of #Texas at #Austin and others are getting swarmed by protesters.
Texas state troopers have been deployed. pic.twitter.com/Xa00ib3WGK
— South Today (@SouthToday5) April 25, 2024
There have been Palestinian dance lessons. In one corner, on a tarp, school children painted Palestinian flags Monday afternoon under the direction of older protesters. For relief, the nearby Lerner Hall student center, named after a Jewish graduate and philanthropist, offered restrooms, sushi boxes and cell phone charging.
Meanwhile, a daily appeal for supplies issued by the camp on Tuesday asked for, among other things, coffee, portable chargers, tops and shorts and keffiyehs.
As they stopped outside the barricade to survey the scene, two young men from the American South seemed exhausted by it all. It’s exam time and bleachers have already been set up in the square for the graduation ceremony, scheduled for May 15. A week earlier they had sunbathed on the same lawn.
Read also:
Kalavryta: Positive development for Odontotos, itineraries from Holy Week
When will we have Easter: All the predictions for M. Week
Konstantinos Floros is in court to apologize for the episode in Parliament
Yannis Kallianos: EDE for the death of his father ordered ATTIKON
Today Patras welcomes the Olympic Flame, the stations and the traffic regulations
#Chaos #Gaza #prestigious #university #protesters
