The student 'uprising' is spreading
University of Sydney students set up Gaza solidarity camp
Students and activist staff at Australia’s University of Sydney (USyd) have set up a Gaza solidarity encampment in support of Palestinians and similar student-led protests in the United States.
According to the university’s student newspaper, Honi Soit, the camp was established on the university’s campus on Tuesday when tents were pitched “emblazoned with graffiti reading ‘Free Palestine’ and ‘from the river to the sea’”.
Students form several Australian universities were in attendance for the launch of the encampment, which was inaugurated with a student activist “speak out” on the subject of the war on Gaza and the demand for USyd management to drop any ties to the state of Israel.
According to the student newspaper: “Many chants that were used on US campuses in the past week were repeated at the encampment tonight like “disclose, divest, we will not stop, we will not rest” followed by “Albanese/Sydney Uni you will see, Palestine will be free”.
Are ‘rogue provocateurs’ trying to hijack US pro-Palestine protests?
A large street protest in New York City’s borough of Brooklyn is the latest pro-Palestine demonstration to be shut down by police with arrests for disorderly conduct and officers restraining those who refused to move with zip ties.
Several demonstrators attributed off-campus incidents to “rogue provocateurs” trying to hijack the protests’ message.
The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) also criticised the use of police force to stifle dissent, saying it undermined freedom of speech.
“So does defaming and endangering Jewish, Muslim and Palestinian … students based on suspiciously inflammatory remarks that a few unidentified, masked individuals have made outside of campus,” Afaf Nasher, executive director of CAIR in New York, said in a statement.
What are US colleges’ financial ties to Israel?
Student protests across the United States are targeting financial ties between universities and Israel. But information about these links isn’t clear-cut.
- The US Education Department requires colleges to report gifts and contracts from foreign sources, but a lot of underreporting takes place, with institutions dodging reporting requirements by steering money through separate foundations that work on their behalf.
- According to an Education Department database, about 100 US post-secondary schools have reported gifts or contracts from Israel totalling $375m over the past two decades.
- As one example, some student protesters allege the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) has accepted more than $11m from Israel’s Defense Ministry over the past decade to work on projects related to drone navigation and missile systems.
- Students at the University of Michigan cite investments in companies that produce drones or warplanes used in Israel, as well as surveillance technology used at checkpoints into Gaza. University of Michigan officials, however, say they have no direct investments with Israeli companies.
‘They’re protesting new horrors every day’
Wadie Said, a professor of law at the University of Colorado, says escalating demonstrations and sit-ins in the US over Israel’s war on Gaza have now turned into a battle for constitutional rights.
“The First Amendment is the hallmark of freedom that America puts forth as how it sees itself in the world – the home of freedom of speech. You see that being curtailed based on viewpoint discrimination, which is something not supposed to be allowed under the First Amendment,” Said told Al Jazeera.
US university administrators are “selectively applying” restrictions on pro-Palestine supporters, he said.
“The response by the students has been to double down and insist on their right to protest in solidarity. After all, what they’re protesting is, in fact, a genocide where new horrors appear every day. The fuel for this is the war on Gaza, and administrators don’t seem interested in allowing students to express their views.”
Protesters project a banner on the Brooklyn Public Library
