Demonstrations against Israel have been spreading across US college campuses, echoing the protests of the 1960s against the Vietnam War. These protests have resulted in over 400 arrests in just one week, starting from April 18 when around 100 young people at Columbia University in New York began demonstrating. The demonstrations have now spread to other campuses, from California to Georgia, from Boston to Florida.
Students on these campuses are demanding that universities sever ties with companies that do business with Israel. They have organized encampments, sit-ins, and demonstrations. Protests are ongoing at schools such as Columbia University, Harvard, New York University, and UC Berkeley. In Atlanta, the chair of the philosophy department at Emory University, Noelle McAfee, was handcuffed and escorted off campus by an officer.
These pro-Palestinian protests have been met with resistance from law enforcement agencies who have been confronting demonstrators and making arrests at various universities including Emerson College in Atlanta, the University of Southern California, the University of Texas at Austin, and in Washington DC at Georgetown and George Washington University. Democratic congresswoman Ilhan Omar of Minnesota, a naturalized American Somali elected to Congress in 2019, also showed up at Columbia University to support the protesters. Her daughter, Isra Hirsi