Demonstrations: Pro-Palestine protests at US universities are expanding

In the USA, the pro-Palestinian demonstrations at universities have spread to other parts of the country and in some cases intensified. In the west coast metropolis of Los Angeles, the police arrested 93 people on Wednesday evening (local time) who are said to have invaded the grounds of the University of Southern California during demonstrations, as the US broadcaster CNN reported.

Accordingly, demonstrators are said to have set up tents on the campus of the private university, among other things. One person was also arrested for assault with a deadly weapon, Kelly Muniz, spokeswoman for the Los Angeles Police Department, said, according to the broadcaster, without giving further details. There were therefore no injuries.

Leaving lectures in protest

Hours earlier, according to media reports, there had been aggressive scenes in Austin, Texas. Police in riot gear arrested at least 34 protesters at the University of Texas on the orders of Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, the Washington Post reported. Previously, hundreds of students walked out of lectures and seminars to demand that the school divest from companies that do business with Israel. There were also scenes of scuffles and reports of several arrests at Emerson College in Boston in the northeast of the country.

Some of the protesters are accused of anti-Semitism and trivializing the Islamist Hamas, whose goal, among other things, is the elimination of the state of Israel. Hamas triggered the Gaza war with its massacres and hostage-taking in Israel on October 7th last year.

Since the outbreak of the Gaza war, the elite universities in the USA have been epicenters of the social debate on the Middle East conflict and a symbol of the country’s division on the issue.

Republican Johnson booed on Columbia campus

A visit by Mike Johnson, the Republican chairman of the US House of Representatives, to Columbia University in New York, which has been surrounded by pro-Palestine protests for days, also caused a stir. Johnson wanted to meet with Jewish students there on Wednesday and, among other things, speak with the university president Nemat “Minouche” Shafik, who is under pressure, as CNN reported.

At a subsequent press conference on the edge of campus, he was interrupted and booed several times by the crowd. Johnson demanded that Shafik act immediately to restore order on campus – or otherwise resign. Columbia University is currently continuing to negotiate with students and has already extended ultimatums to disband a protest camp that was set up there.

Arrests for unauthorized protests

Several elite universities in the USA have been taking action against protests surrounding the Gaza war for days. Initially, the New York universities of Columbia and New York University (NYU) as well as Yale University in the US state of Connecticut were particularly affected. More than a hundred demonstrators were arrested for refusing to end unauthorized protests.