Following their counterparts in the U.S., students across Europe are occupying their encampments to demand an end to Israeli bombardments in Gaza.
ByDr. Farah Naz | June 2024
Genocide in Gaza has entered its ninth month and taken a new turn, with students across the world protesting against the war. According to the Guardian, protest encampments have been set up on more than 80 campuses across the US, with unrest flaring at some point after police moved in to clear out protesters. Tensions are boiling over on university campuses across the US as student protests in support of Palestinians continue to grow and are increasingly met with police violence despite students and faculty insisting the demonstrations have been peaceful. Here, the question that comes to mind is whether police action is justified against students taking part in pro-Palestine protests in US colleges or not, keeping in mind democratic principles of freedom of speech, rights, and liberty.
To answer the above question, it is important to look into the nature of student protests against the ongoing war in Gaza with no end in sight. The students demand ‘hands-off Rafah’ and claim ‘Long live the student intifada.’ They share that before the Israel genocide in Gaza, around 2,75,000 people lived in Rafah. Since Israel’s onslaught and designation of Rafah as a ‘safe zone,’ 1.5 million Palestinians have fled there, causing severe human rights/security issues for people. Currently, Israel is sending messages to the desperate people who have taken shelter in Rafah that ‘flee or be massacred’. Looking at the nature of the threat and potential of Israel, hundreds of thousands have already fled Rafah, with Israel cynically telling Palestinians that remaining in Rafah ‘puts your lives in danger’. Israel has seized the Rafah crossing and prevented aid trucks from providing food to the starving, leading to over 1 million Gazans facing ‘catastrophic hunger’ according to the World Food Program. The genocide in Gaza massacred at least 35,000 Palestinians since October 7, 2023, 14,500 of whom are children, many more injured, and around 10,000 remain missing under the rubble.
The US is blamed for providing weapons to Israel to continue its war in Gaza. The US has concluded that it is “reasonable to assess” that US weapons provided to Israel have been used in Gaza in violation of international humanitarian law. However, in the same report, the US said that Israel’s assurances that it is not using US arms to commit abuses are “credible and reliable,” which allows Washington to continue sending weapons to its key ally in the Middle East. Also, the White House has said that it is “firmly on record rejecting” the “proposition” that Israel’s war on Gaza constitutes a genocide. However, is not this apparent contradiction showing that the US is willing to go to extraordinary lengths to continue arming Israel?
In response, the demonstrations that began at Columbia University on April 17 with students calling for an end to the Israel-Palestine war have escalated beyond the US. Pro-Palestinian demonstrations and sit-ins continue to spread at universities around the world. Granada University students demonstrated in front of the institution’s presidency at the Royal Hospital of the city in southern Spain. An encampment has now been set up on a lawn in the center of Italy’s University of Naples Federico II, one of the world’s oldest academic institutions. From the University of Sydney, Australia, encampments have sprung up at colleges in major Australian cities as participants protest over the Israel-Hamas war in solidarity with student demonstrators in the United States. Students have also demonstrated outside La Sorbonne University in Paris. The demonstration came on the heels of protests in May at another Paris-region school, Sciences Po. French police managed to remove the pro-Palestinian students from the courtyard of Sorbonne University in Paris. In Canada, Quebec Premier Francois Legault said the encampment at Montreal’s McGill University should be dismantled as more students erected pro-Palestinian camps across some of Canada’s most prominent universities, demanding they divest from groups with ties to Israel. Students also set up encampments at Canadian schools, including the University of Toronto, the University of British Columbia, and the University of Ottawa. Asked to comment on the encampments, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s office pointed to his statement: “Universities are places of learning, they are places for freedom of expression ... but that only works if people feel safe on campus. Right now ... Jewish students do not feel safe. That’s not right.”
The university students are protesting and demanding their universities to cut ties with Israel as it helps Israel normalize its apartheid and regime of genocide in Gaza.
Here, the alarming question arises: Is this student movement becoming the phenomenon highlighting Israeli atrocities? If so, what kind of reaction could these have?
The university students are protesting and demanding their universities to cut ties with Israel as it helps Israel normalize its apartheid and regime of genocide in Gaza. The students believe that it is disgraceful that their universities are still willing to send students on exchange to universities directly involved in this genocidal project in Gaza. However, they have nothing to say about the destruction of every Palestinian university in Gaza. The students also demand that their respective governments must stop supplying arms, ammunition, and intelligence to the IDF so the slaughter in Palestine can be controlled.
On the other hand, the government and universities are looking for ways to undermine the enchantment and shut them down. They want to ban the chant ‘from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free’ under the bogus guise that the chant is anti-Semitic because it is a call for the destruction of Israel. Many Western leaders believe that the chant is supposedly ‘extremely violent.’ The students believe that the extreme violence is the genocide that Israel is inflicting on Gaza with the support of the US and its allies. The leaders are seeking to mute the solidarity with Palestine being shown on university campuses. The university staff supports the academic boycott of Israeli universities and calls for cutting ties with weapon companies as well as passing a motion of support for the enchantment and defending it if necessary. However, can the state authorities silence these voices? If they can, then what is the status of democracy in those states?
The writer is associated with the National University of Sciences and Technology, Islamabad as an Assistant Professor at Department of Government and Public Policy. She can be reached at farahnaz@s3h.nust.edu.pk
Genocide in Gaza has entered its ninth month and taken a new turn, with students across the world protesting against the war. According to the Guardian, protest encampments have been set up on more than 80 campuses across the US, with unrest flaring at some point after police moved in to clear out protesters. Tensions are boiling over on university campuses across the US as student protests in support of Palestinians continue to grow and are increasingly met with police violence despite students and faculty insisting the demonstrations have been peaceful. Here, the question that comes to mind is whether police action is justified against students taking part in pro-Palestine protests in US colleges or not, keeping in mind democratic principles of freedom of speech, rights, and liberty. 
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