As ICC reportedly prepares war crimes charges, Israeli officials call to bomb Rafah
Alex Lantier, WSWS, May 1 2024
Yesterday, Netanyahu pledged that his troops will assault Rafah, where 1.5 million defenseless Palestinian civilians now live in refugee camps. He added that he would not under any conditions spare Rafah, whether or not a deal was reached on an exchange of hostages held by the Israeli government and Hamas authorities in Gaza. Netanyahu said:
The idea that we will stop the war before achieving all its aims is not an option. We will enter Rafah, and we will eliminate the Hamas battalions there—whether or not there is a deal—in order to achieve total victory.
The war on Gaza has exacted a truly horrific toll. At least 34,535 Palestinians have been confirmed killed, over 10k have died under the rubble of bombed-out buildings, and 77,704 have been wounded. Over 1 million Palestinians are suffering severe hunger as Israeli forces cut off Gaza’s access to food, medicine and other basic necessities. Yet Netanyahu declared that he would not under any conditions agree to Hamas’ appeals to halt the genocidal onslaught on Gaza. Netanyahu said:
Hamas insists on one thing—the end of the war, but it will not get it. I am not ready to give it. Therefore, if this is the situation, and indeed this is currently, will not happen. There may be people saying they are ready to end the war and let Hamas return. I won’t accept that.
Netanyahu’s pledge to continue the war and bomb millions of defenseless civilians in Rafah was his government’s response to reports that the International Criminal Court in the The Hague is preparing to issue arrest warrants against Israeli officials on war crimes charges. Comfortable in the knowledge that the major NATO powers support its atrocities in Gaza, it is brazenly proclaiming its intention to commit genocidal war crimes. ICC officials have warned for months that they were investigating Israeli officials’ conduct of the war and, in particular, their threats to destroy Rafah. ICC prosecutor Karim Khan wrote on Twitter:
I am deeply concerned by the reported bombardment and potential ground incursion by Israeli forces in Rafah. As I have repeatedly emphasised, those who do not comply with the law should not complain later when my Office takes action pursuant to its mandate.
Indeed, even NATO officials admit that attacking Rafah would mean committing war crimes against the Palestinian people. Yesterday, British Deputy Foreign Secretary Andrew Mitchell told the British Parliament:
Given the number of civilians sheltering in Rafah, it’s not easy to see how such an offensive could be compliant with international humanitarian law in the current circumstances.
UN officials condemned Netanyahu’s remarks, with Emergency Relief Coordinator Martin Griffiths saying:
The world has been appealing to the Israeli authorities for weeks to spare Rafah, but a ground operation there is on the immediate horizon. The simplest truth is that a ground operation in Rafah will be nothing short of a tragedy beyond words. No humanitarian plan can counter that. The rest is detail.
By Sunday, Le Monde reported, citing sources in The Hague, ICC prosecutors had obtained the signatures of three ICC judges on arrest warrants for Israeli officials. This is the last step to validate the warrants, whose publication is now “imminent,” these sources told Le Monde. Israeli media have reported that names on the warrants include those of Netanyahu, Gallant and IOF Chief of the General Staff Herzi Halevi. While the US does not recognize the ICC, the 124 countries that do, including most European countries, Japan and Australia, would be required by law to arrest any Israeli officials named on the warrants who came onto their territory. This exposes the role not only of Israel but also of the NATO powers. Both their support for the Israeli government abroad and their crackdown on anti-genocide protests are home are politically criminal.
The war and the genocide cannot be stopped with moral appeals to the NATO powers to pursue a more enlightened policy. Indeed, they are reponding to reports of potential ICC war crimes charges by doubling down in support of Netanyahu. Yesterday, French Foreign Minister Stéphane Séjourné arrived in Jerusalem for talks with Israeli officials, and US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken then arrived for talks with the Jordanian monarchy in Amman. Séjourné assured his Israeli counterpart Israel Katz of continued French backing for Netanyahu. Stressing his “support” for Israel while claiming to have unspecified “disagreements” with plans to bomb Rafah, Séjourné discussed a proposed UN peace resolution on Gaza. French diplomats told AFP:
The plan supports Israel’s strong demands, like calling Oct 7 terrorist, stressing the sexual violence committed that day but also gives parameters for a political solution to the conflict.
In Amman, Blinken claimed negotiations for an Israel-Hamas truce and hostage exchange are a path to the UN peace resolution and denounced Hamas as an obstacle to peace, for opposing the resolution. He said:
Now it’s on Hamas. No more delays, no more excuses.
When reporters pointed out to Blinken that Netanyahu had pledged to bomb Rafah even if Blinken’s proposed hostage exchange proceeded, Blinken ignored them, repeating:
A truce is the best way, the most effective way, to relieve the suffering and also to create an environment in which we can hopefully move forward to something that is really sustainable and has lasting peace for the people who so desperately need it.
The statements of Blinken and Séjourné amount to an endorsement of Israeli war aims, cynically masquerading as a peace plan. Hamas rejected the proposed UN peace resolution last month because it created conditions for Israel to permanently occupy Gaza, in defiance of international law. It would not have guaranteed that Israeli troops would leave Gaza, let civilians return to what remains of their homes, or allowed food to reach Gaza.
As Netanyahu’s call to bomb Rafah and continue the war make undeniably clear, responsibility for the war lies not with Hamas but with the Israeli regime and its NATO allies. The NATO powers are spending billions of dollars or euros on arming Israel for the genocide in Gaza. They hysterically attack protests against the genocide, because they fear mass opposition not only to their complicity in Israeli policy, but all the imperialist wars they have waged across Eastern Europe and the oil-rich Middle East in recent decades. This emerged in Republican US House Speaker Mike Johnson’s outburst Monday, denouncing the ICC’s investigation of Israel. Johnson said:
Action by the ICC would directly undermine US national security interests. If unchallenged by the Biden administration, the ICC could create and assume unprecedented power to issue arrest warrants against American political leaders, American diplomats, and American military personnel, thereby endangering our country’s sovereign authority. The Biden administration must immediately and unequivocally demand that the ICC stand down. It must use every available tool to stop the ICC.
Shortly afterwards, the Biden White House indeed attacked the ICC, with spokeswoman Karine Jean-Pierre stating:
We do not support it. We don’t believe that they have the jurisdiction.
These events are exposing the criminality of imperialism, which is reaction all down the line. Stopping the Gaza genocide requires mobilizing the full strength of the working class, in the US, Europe and across the Middle East, in an international, socialist anti-war movement to halt the arming of the Israeli state for genocide and oppose the governments complicit in it.
As NYPD conduct mass arrests, LAPD abet right-wing rampage on UCLA encampment
WSWS, May 1 2024
A right-wing mob attacked the Gaza Solidarity Encampment at UCLA after midnight
In a coordinated state attack with the massive police-state crackdown against Columbia and City College of New York (CCNY) students which saw the arrest of nearly 300 protesters Tuesday night, beginning at around midnight at the University of California Los Angeles (UCLA) Gaza Solidarity Encampment, a gang of over 100 Zionists and fascists, many masked, assaulted the anti-genocide encampment on campus causing significant injuries to a number of students.
Students and faculty at the UCLA organized the encampment at Royce Hall on Thursday Apr 25 in unity with over 100 other college encampments across the United States, and internationally, calling for their respective administrations to divest all economic and political ties with Israel. In response to the peaceful protests, which follow months of marches against the mass murder in Gaza, Democratic and Republican politicians have smeared students and faculty as “antisemitic” and “terrorists” for months. Emboldened by the backing of capitalist politicians and the police, a group of Zionist and fascist thugs assaulted the UCLA encampment shortly after midnight. Video shows them swinging clubs, spraying chemical agents, shooting fireworks, kicking and bludgeoning protesters. Videos of the attack quickly spread on social media soon after it began.
Despite the extremely violent nature of the assault on peaceful protesters at a major US public university, LAPD were not dispatched to the campus by Democratic Mayor Karen Bass until well after 1 am. Once the LAPD did arrive, they did nothing to stop the rampage for another hour. Instead, the police provided the right-wing thugs ample opportunity to injure and beat more students and anti-war supporters. In total, violent right-wing thugs were permitted to attack and assault college students for nearly three hours. The role of the police in suppressing democratic rights is instructive. The LAPD did nothing to intervene even as observers were attacked. Reporters with the student newspaper the Daily Bruin wrote they were “slapped and indirectly sprayed with irritants. Despite also being students, they were offered no protection.” After 2:20 am local time, police finally began to make an attempt to separate the two groups. Violent fascists who spent the last two hours assaulting students were allowed to leave the campus without harassment, much less arrest, from the police.
While the LAPD took a “hands-off” approach to the rampage at UCLA, legions of NYPD riot police conducted mass sweeps and arrests of the anti-war encampment at Columbia and the City College of New York (CCNY) Tuesday night. On Wednesday morning, the NYPD released a statement saying they had arrested 109 people at Columbia and 173 at CCNY.
The brutal attack on anti-war protesters at UCLA on Wednesday, was not the first time students, faculty and other anti-genocide supporters on campus were attacked by pro-Israel fascists. On Sunday Apr 28, Zionist counter-protesters led by the Israeli American Council and backed by the ADL held a pro-genocide rally across Royce Hall with loudspeakers and a large screen facing the student encampment. A GoFundMe account to pay for the massive audio and video system used by the provocateurs raised well over $90k in just over 4 days. An independent reporter photographed a Zionist waving the flag of the fascist JDL, an ultra-nationalist group founded by convicted terrorist Meir Kahane, at Sunday’s rally.
Speaking at the pro-genocide rally at UCLA on Sunday, Jonathan Greenblatt, CEO of the ADL, slandered anti-genocide protesters as “antisemitic.” Video and photos uploaded to social media showed pro-Israel/far-right counter-protesters spitting on peaceful protesters, using profanity, and in some cases, physically assaulting them.
In an interview with CNN’s Anderson Cooper the next day, Greenblatt said nothing about the attacks on students by pro-Israel elements, but instead, called for an escalation of police violence against the anti-war protesters. Greenblatt complained:
Number one, they do need to re-institute law and order…you need to make sure these students understand they got to play by the rules. No full face masking. I just don’t think it’s appropriate, and it doesn’t impinge on your freedom of speech, that you shouldn’t dress up like an ISIS fighter, like they’re in Al-Qaeda.
On Monday Apr 29, reporters with the WSWS interviewed a faculty member who participated in a rally at UCLA in support of the Gaza Solidarity Encampment. Speaking on the violence that occurred over the weekend, he said:
I’m really proud of students in the encampment who redirected their attention to their demands and the discussion of what’s going on in Gaza and through discipline were able to ignore these provocations and continue their protest. From my own personal observations over the past four days I haven’t seen any antisemitism in the encampments and I’ve been really proud of students’ efforts to clarify that this is a movement of support for Palestine from many different faiths including Jews who are leaders of this movement.
Hannah, another faculty member who participated in the rally also spoke on the Zionist attacks that occurred at UCLA over the weekend. Hannah said:
The thing that has been most difficult to me about the mainstream press coverage that I’ve seen so far, is the idea that when there is escalation there is this kind of both sides-ism. I was in the encampment on Thursday and Friday. The students have done a really good job in deescalating and occasionally they would call faculty members in to support deescalation and so I myself was on the receiving end of that vitriol coming from the outside protesters and they are so clearly trying to instigate violence. The students have done such an extraordinary job of deescalating and not engaging, so then to see in the media that “Oh, things are getting heated,” the only thing that is heating things up are the outside agitators coming in and the students are doing an extraordinary job of deescalating and I’m so proud of them.
Kaia, a UCLA student participating in the Gaza Solidarity Encampment, told the WSWS:
We are fighting for UCLA to divest from corporations that are actively profiting off of the genocide in Gaza. The conflation of anti-Zionism and antisemitism is just the go-to tactic of the Zionist agenda. You know, if I had to estimate, there are more Jewish people inside our encampment than Palestinian people. And our rhetoric is not antisemitic.
At around 9 pm Tuesday night, hundreds of NYPD riot police descended on Columbia University to conduct mass arrests of students protesting the ongoing genocide in Gaza.
Video shared on social media shows heavily armored police arresting students and faculty attempting to block their access to the university.
In order to prevent objective documentation of their brutality, police forced legal observers, press and medics to leave the campus area, and even public streets nearby, before they began their assault. As of this writing it is unclear how many protesters have been arrested and the extent of their injuries.
The police brutality witnessed at Columbia Tuesday night was replicated across the country. At the University of South Florida in Tampa, riot police were recorded firing tear gas and rubber bullets against unarmed and peaceful protesters.
The coordinated and violent assaults on non-violent student encampments have been ordered from the White House. On Tuesday, the Biden administration issued a series of statements doubling down on the lie that anti-Gaza genocide protests continuing to spread across US university campuses are antisemitic, signaling its support for stepped-up police attacks and arrests of peaceful protesters.
Students at Columbia University before the police assault, Apr 30 2024.
In response to the occupation of Columbia University’s Hamilton Hall by pro-Palestinian students in the early morning hours of Tuesday, White House Deputy Press Secretary Andrew Bates declared:
President Biden has stood against repugnant, antisemitic smears and violent rhetoric his entire life. He condemns the use of the term “intifada,” as he has the other tragic and dangerous hate speech displayed in recent days. President Biden respects the right to free expression, but protests must be peaceful and lawful. Forcibly taking over buildings is not peaceful. It is wrong. And hate speech and hate symbols have no place in America.
Biden’s lead was taken up by New York Mayor Eric Adams, a former cop, who said “external actors” were behind the Columbia occupation and demanded that all protesters “leave the area now.” He added that the occupation “must end now.” The occupation of the classroom building came in response to the university’s announcement that it had begun suspending students who defied its order that a protest encampment set up two weeks ago be disbanded. The administration effectively placed the entire campus on lockdown. This followed the mobilization of NYC police to attack and arrest hundreds of protesters, who courageously refused to end their protest demanding that the university divest from Israel as part of the fight to stop the US/Israeli slaughter of Palestinians, which has already taken the lives of more than 34k defenseless civilians, mainly women and children. Following the occupation of Hamilton Hall, the university announced that it would expel students who refused to leave the building.
The hypocrisy of the White House statement defies description. Biden and his accomplices in both parties and all branches of the government are supplying the fascistic government of Benjamin Netanyahu with the bullets, bombs, tanks, missiles and war planes that are being used to murder and starve Palestinians, while providing political cover for the murderous Zionist regime. Along with its imperialist and NATO allies around the world, the US is defying mass demonstrations all over the world demanding a halt to the greatest war crime since the Nazi Holocaust against the Jews during WW2. In doing so, it is working with real antisemites and fascists in the Republican Party and far-right parties and organizations around the world. Meanwhile, it is seeking to extradite WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, whose only “crime” is to reveal to the public the truth of the crimes of American imperialism around the world, in order to put him in prison for life.
The direct attack on the Columbia protesters marks an escalation of the campaign by Biden and the Democratic Party to mobilize right-wing forces and unleash the police for increasingly violent attacks on peaceful protests on college campuses across the US. This reflects the fear in the ruling class that the stand of students and young people against mass murder abroad will merge with the growing opposition of workers to layoffs, speedup, wage cuts and government austerity policies. Exactly 56 years ago, on Apr 30 1968, Columbia students protesting against the Vietnam War and racism were occupying Hamilton Hall and other buildings when police violently cleared the campus. Over 700 people were arrested and almost 150 people were injured. The statements from the White House and a growing list of Democratic politicians signal support for similar attacks today. Bates’ sanction of state violence against the students was followed by similar remarks from Biden’s national security communications adviser, John Kirby, who told reporters:
The president believes that forcibly taking over a building on campus is absolutely the wrong approach. That is not an example of peaceful protest. And, of course you’ve rightly noted, hate speech and hate symbols also have no place in this country.
There is virtually no evidence of “hate speech” or “hate symbols” among the protesters, a large portion of whom are Jewish. Rather, the entire political and media establishment now routinely equate defense of the Palestinians and their right to resist nearly a century of displacement, ethnic cleansing and repression, and opposition to Zionism, with antisemitism.
Also on Tuesday, two New York Democratic Party liberals, Reps Jerry Nadler and Adriano Espailla, called on Columbia to “move quickly and swiftly to remove the students who have engaged in unlawful activity.” In a joint statement, they wrote that students engaged in acts of “vandalism” such as occupying buildings “should be held accountable.” On the opposite coast, House Democratic Caucus Chair Pete Aguilar and Vice Chair Ted Lieu, both from California, issued a joint statement denouncing the Columbia occupation. Aguilar wrote:
I do not support taking over a building, that is not appropriate and that should be addressed.
Lieu added:
You have the right to free speech in America, you can protest, but the First Amendment does not give you the right to break windows to vandalize buildings, to take over private buildings, and to make students who happen to be of Jewish descent feel unsafe…
While unleashing the police against peaceful anti-war, anti-genocide protesters, the Democrats have formed a virtual coalition in Congress with far-right, neo-fascist politicians who support the expanding global war overseen by the Biden administration, as codified in last month’s bipartisan passage of the administration’s $95 billion supplemental military appropriation. Following a House Democratic Caucus meeting on Tuesday, Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries, Democratic Whip Katherine Clark and Democratic Caucus Chair Pete Aguilar released a statement pledging to supply the votes needed to keep Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson in office, should Rep Marjorie Taylor Greene follow through on her threat to seek Johnson’s removal by means of a “motion to vacate.” Johnson is an Evangelical Christian fascist and virulent opponent of the right to abortion and other democratic rights. Just last week he staged a provocation on the Columbia University campus, where he taunted protesting students and demanded that they be physically ejected.
Meanwhile, police attacks are escalating on US campuses. On Saturday, police assaulted and arrested Green Party presidential candidate Jill Stein on the campus of Washington University in St Louis. They crushed Stein’s ribs in the course of the attack, forcing her to seek medical attention after she was released from jail. The same day, police threw Southern Illinois University Edwardsville history professor Steve Tamari, a Palestinian American, to the ground as they attacked protesters at Washington University, arresting scores of students and supporters.
University of California, Irvine, Apr 29 2024.
On Monday Apr 29, students at University of California, Irvine (UCI) southeast of Los Angeles set up about 15 tents to start a pro-Palestine encampment by the Physical Sciences buildings to demand that the university divest its financial ties with Israel. The peaceful crowd of students, alumni, faculty and supporters grew throughout the day and culminated in a rally in the afternoon.
University of California, Irvine, Apr 29 2024.
They shouted chants of “Biden, Biden, you’re a liar. We demand a ceasefire!” “Israel bombs, US pays, how many kids did you kill today?” “Money for schools and education, not for wars and occupation!” “Raise your fist, raise your fist, Palestine will exist!” Organizers and supporters of the encampment included Yalla Indivisible, UCI Divest, Students for Justice in Palestine and Orange County Jewish Voice for Peace. Following the recent violent police mobilizations at UCLA and USC, UCI administration called for police to stand by. Besides campus police, there was a large Orange County Sheriff’s Department bus and 30 OC deputies carrying batons and face masks. Cops were also diverted from the nearby cities of Irvine, Costa Mesa, Westminster and Newport Beach. By late afternoon most police had left. The WSWS interviewed people supporting the encampment. Edwin, a freshman, spoke about how the democratic right to free speech is being attacked.
Another student, Antonio, said:
The police mobilization was kind of scary because you don’t know what they’re going to do. Earlier in the morning, campus police attempted to prevent the protesters from bringing in water and supplies to the site, but the students stood their ground. There are videos of them completely denying them access to public restrooms and stuff like that. I don’t agree with the Biden administration. In support of a foreign country, they are willing to suppress our rights as citizens.
Also earlier in the day, after hearing that the school might ask them to leave, the protesters called on UC Irvine Chancellor Howard Gillman’s office to “politely and firmly demand” a stop to what they termed a “heavy-handed” plan. They also asked that students who have been protesting not be punished. The prior Friday, hundreds of students held a demonstration demanding divestiture. Em Wang, a senior English major and leader of the protest, told Southern California News Group:
We want to stand our ground. We’re going to stay until the university addresses our demands.
Lulu Hammad, a community organizer and co-founder of Yalla Indivisible, said many of the students come from communities in Palestine directly affected by the Israeli genocide. Carlos, a senior at UCI studying computer science, told the WSWS about the Israeli genocide:
It’s awful! Like there are no other words to describe it. It’s just terrible. It’s getting to the point where I’m pessimistic about there being a real change from the politicians that we have in power. They’re just doing absolutely nothing.
He agreed with the WSWS’s call for turning to the working class and urging labor actions to stop the production and transport of war materiel to Israel.
Dr Brook Haley, a Humanities Core professor, said only a few UCI professors have come forward so far and he hoped more would join the protests. He pointed to the events in Paris in May-Jun 1968 when students and workers united against the Vietnam War. It was a similar situation that led to a general strike by the French working class.
I think seeing Palestinians suffering so widely broadcast in the media allows academics and working class people to see conditions of living in a physical way that are atrocious. They’re seeing perhaps a less extreme version but nevertheless something similar to what Palestinians are experiencing in terms of mobility limitations, in terms of inadequate healthcare, in terms of state violence, police violence. All those things are experienced around the world, and we’re seeing it crystallized and magnified in Gaza. And I think that now the student-worker alliance is possible here.
Gaza Solidarity Encampment, University of California-Irvine, April 29, 2024.
In a statement issued on Friday Apr 26, the University of California system said it opposed calls for divestment from Israel.
Northwestern University, Apr 25
On Monday afternoon, organizers of the student encampment at Northwestern University (NU) in the north suburb of Chicago reached an agreement behind closed doors with the university administration and shut down the protest against the genocide in Gaza. The move was widely denounced by students and supporters. One student wrote:
Were your demands a space for MENA/Muslim students? Really? in the middle of a genocide??
Another person added on the joint working groups between the student organization and Northwestern:
I was part of working groups in undergrad. THEY DO NOTHING. They’re waiting for all you troublemakers to graduate in four years and keep the working groups trudging until everyone is tired.
It is critical that students at Northwestern and across Chicago oppose this sellout agreement. The strategy, program and perspective of anti-war protests are increasingly critical questions. Behind the coordinated crackdown and repression of students at campuses across the country is the Biden administration and the Democratic Party, deeply nervous that the student protests against war will fuse with the struggles of the working class against intolerable levels of exploitation.
On the morning of Apr 29, 21 Democratic lawmakers issued a threatening public letter to the Trustees of Columbia University demanding they take “action now” to disband the anti-war encampment on campus, which they lyingly claimed was constructed by “anti-Jewish activists.”
Columbia University campus, Monday, April 29, 2024, in New York.
If the trustees were not willing, or able, to call in riot police, or perhaps the National Guard, to violently deal with college students and their professors peacefully protesting the university’s, and US government’s, complicity in the genocide in Gaza, the representatives demanded the trustees’ resignation. The authoritarian letter was signed by several prominent Democrats, including Maryland Rep Steny Hoyer, the most senior member of the Democratic House, having been in Congress since May 1981. Until Jan 2023, Hoyer served as the Majority Leader in the House for over two decades, second-in-line to then-Speaker Nancy Pelosi. Other prominent Democrats who signed the letter include Senate candidate and current California Representative Adam Schiff, Debbie Wasserman Schultz (FL), Josh Gottheimer (NJ) Dan Goldman (NY) Henry Cuellar (TX), as well as Haley Stevens (MI). In the letter, the Democrats expressed their “disappointment that, despite promises to do so, Columbia University has not yet disbanded the unauthorized and impermissible encampment.” Echoing fascistic Speaker of the House Mike Johnson, the Democrats repeated the “big lie” that protesting the mass slaughter of over 40k Palestinians, a majority women and children, was “antisemitic.” The Democrats wrote:
The encampment has been the breeding ground for antisemitic attacks on Jewish students.
To back up their bogus claims of “antisemitism” the authors of the letter cited Biden’s Apr 21 statementwhich also repeated the slander. At the same time the Democrats’ letter was released, Columbia President Minouche Shafik also released a statement claiming the encampment had created an “unwelcoming environment for many of our Jewish students and faculty.” She demanded students “voluntarily disperse.” Shafik’s statement was accompanied by a packet distributed to protesting students at the encampment warning them to disband and leave before 2 pm or face suspension/expulsion.
Unfazed by threats from the Democrats or administration officials, it appears none of the students took them up on their offer to voluntarily disband. Instead, prior to the 2 pm deadline, dozens of Columbia faculty members joined the encampment and formed a human chain.
The faculty were joined by up to 1k other students. As of this writing, the encampment remains, but it appears the university has begun suspending students. In a statement to the NYT, Ben Chang, a spokesman for the school said:
We have begun suspending students as part of the next phase of our efforts to ensure the safety of our campus.
Since Apr 17, students at Columbia University, ranging from a few dozen to several hundreds, have occupied a section of the lawn. Despite the peaceful character of the protests, the university called in the riot police the following day, leading to the arrest of 108 people. Massive police repression did not prevent the encampment from reconstituting on Columbia grounds, and spreading to other universities in the US and internationally, including in France, Germany, Spain, England and Australia. In addition to student encampments, protests against the ongoing genocide in Gaza have continued throughout the world, including in Tokyo, where students in construction helmets resisted riot police while chanting “No more!” “Free Palestine” and “Workers, unite!”
In the US, despite the police repression, several new encampments and protests in solidarity with Gaza have emerged on major college campuses. In response, several colleges have called in police to violently disperse them. At the University of Texas-Austin, which saw mass protests and arrests last week, hundreds of riot police were called in by the administration to disperse a reestablished Gaza Solidarity Encampment on the South Lawn of the campus. Video shows riot cops assaulting students sitting on the grass before zip-tying and arresting them. Local reporters estimate that “dozens” have already been arrested.
To justify the mass arrest of peaceful anti-war protesters, UT-Austin issued a statement before the arrests began claiming they found “rocks strategically placed within the encampment” and that the school had received “extensive online threats from a group organizing today’s protest.” The university did not disclose the nature of the alleged “threats.” Video from Austin posted later in the afternoon showed students backing police down from the campus.
At the University of Georgia in Athens, several students, many with Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP), were arrested less than two hours after establishing an encampment. The Atlanta Community Press Collective (ACPC) reported that 16 people were arrested and charged with criminal trespass.
After being arrested in the morning, many of the anti-genocide protesters returned to the campus in the afternoon to participate in a pro-Palestinian protest.
ACPC reported protesters demanded that the university divest from companies involved in the genocide in Gaza and that the university divest from companies supporting the construction of “Cop City” in Atlanta. In Cleveland, Ohio at Case Western University, police were quickly called to disband an encampment established by students outside the library Monday morning. Local reports indicate roughly 50 people initiated the encampment, which was quickly surrounded by police who removed all of the tents. Roughly 20 people were briefly detained by police while the encampment was cleared.
Major protests and walkouts have occurred on several other campuses. At UCLA in California, hundreds of students and faculty walked out of class on Monday in support of Gaza. After holding a brief rally, students and faculty marched around the campus chanting, “We will not stop, we will not rest, disclose, divest.”
Hundreds of students at Whitman College, a liberal arts school in Walla Walla, Washington, walked out of class in solidarity with Gaza and other students.
At the University of Chicago, students established an encampment on campus. A few hours north, in Madison, Wisconsin, hundreds of students have been protesting for several hours and tents have been set up.
At the University of Indiana, Bloomington, hundreds of students and many senior faculty professors held a rally where they demanded the immediate resignation of IU President Pamela Whitten after she ordered state and local police to clear a peaceful encampment last Thursday.
Students at Ireland’s biggest university protest Nancy Pelosi’s visit and honorary degree
Basil Miller, WSWS, May 1 2024
On Apr 22, students at Ireland’s biggest university, University College Dublin (UCD), were joined by a large gathering of healthcare workers in a demonstration denouncing the visit of former Democratic Party speaker of the US House of Representatives Nancy Pelosi, who had been invited to receive an honorary degree. UCD president Prof Orla Feely had refused to cancel the award to Pelosi, which was opposed by the UCD Student Union (SU) and many students. Feely said in an email:
Were it to be our practice to take an institutional position on geopolitical matters, we would be inhibiting the freedom of members of our community to express their individual positions and suppressing our ability to sustain and respect a diversity of views.
Student Union president Martha Ní Riada denounced Feely’s position, saying:
Essentially, she doesn’t want to take sides. Our demand is for a ceasefire in Gaza, which is not taking sides, but the bare minimum.
Ní Riada was present at the ceremony by invitation but was assaulted by police and UCD security and dragged from the O’Reilly Hall when she interrupted proceedings by denouncing Pelosi as a “Zionist and a war criminal”. Two plainclothes police wearing Garda pins seized her, assisted by UCD security, and dragged her out of the room as she shouted, “Israel is NOT in our DNA” and “What about Palestinian women?” in a reference to Pelosi’s supposed feminist credentials. She suffered abrasions and bruising to both arms. Ní Riada later told reporters:
I had a few more lines that I wanted to say, expressing the students’ position and that we denounce this doctorate and this isn’t representative of what our students wish. We don’t want people like this to be celebrated. But then I only got a sentence in and two guards came and forcibly removed me, with excessive force. Universities are constantly talking about academic freedom and protecting freedom of speech, but if the speech is something that they disagree with, there’s no protection of it. That’s a worrying trend. I think it’s a similar thing to when I was thrown out of the Pelosi event because I was stating a view that was unpopular with the administration but supported by the students. I think universities are in a dangerous place at the moment, where if this can be accepted, then academic freedom means absolutely nothing.
Outside, as well as those organised by the Student Union, demonstrators were joined by UCD’s BDS organisation, the Union of Students in Ireland, and healthcare workers, mostly from a nearby hospital, in support of their Palestinian colleagues being targeted by the Zionist occupation forces. Pelosi was recently condemned for calling on the FBI to investigate pro-Palestinian protestors she said may be “connected to Russia.” This was described as “unsubstantiated smears” by the Council of American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), targeting “those who seek an end to the slaughter of civilians in Gaza.” Speakers pointed out that Pelosi had been an integral part of the US Government, which provides an estimated 69% of Israel’s foreign-sourced weapons. As “shame” was written across the window of UCD’s O’Reilly Hall and many waved Palestinian flags and shouted “shame on you” and “war criminal,” Pelosi was awarded an honorary doctorate in law, along with the Sutherland Leadership Award and the James Joyce Award, from a student society. Peter Sutherland was a former Irish attorney general and director-general of both the World Trade Organisation and The General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade.
As guests including former prime ministers Bertie Ahern and Enda Kenny were ushered into the venue by police, they were met with chants of “Shame on you,” “Palestine will be free” and “While you’re dining, kids are dying.” To disrupt the dinner, three megaphones were programmed to play a high-pitched siren outside. Incoming SU president Miranda Bauer told the crowd:
It is incredibly disrespectful of the university to completely negate the feelings of the wider student body.
Protestors were joined by pseudo-left parliamentary deputy Richard Boyd Barrett, who said:
If not for the weapons and the political support and the impunity provided to Israel by the US, the “genocidal massacre that has been inflicted on the people of Gaza could not happen, would not have happened. Pelosi could not even bring herself to say the word ‘ceasefire.’ Pelosi and her associates are not just complicit with genocide, they are guilty of genocide.
In line with the perspective of all the pseudo-left groups, Boyd Barrett sought to restrict opposition to the genocide to placing moral pressure on the capitalist states. He said:
People advocating on behalf of the Palestinian people have been begging Western governments to end the impunity of Israel long before the recent horror.
Boyd Barrett also attacked the presence of former prime ministers Bertie Ahern and Enda Kenny at the event, noting that throughout their time in government “they did nothing” for Palestine. This wasn’t the first pro-Palestine event at UCD since October. There have been a number of protests and speeches on campus and Ní Riada said that a group of students briefly occupied the Tierney administrative building. She said:
Back in October, we asked for the university president to call for a ceasefire and we also asked for the college to outline links they had with Israeli institutions. At that time, Feely said they had no links with Israeli institutions. But then later the University Observer, one of the student newspapers, researched it and found that UCD actually has links with 12 institutions. So then the college retracted that statement, and we updated our calls then for them to call for a ceasefire and also to cut ties with Israeli institutions.
These calls were ignored. Support for Palestine is strong in Ireland, both for historical reasons and present-day. The Irish have suffered dispossession, invasion, and attempted genocide in the form of an engineered ‘famine’ in the mid-19th century, at the hands of the British over centuries of their history and recognize all of these in Israel’s behaviour towards the Palestinians. Hundreds of thousands have regularly attended demonstrations called by the Ireland-Palestine Solidarity Committee (IPSC); with as many as 200k occupying the centre of the capital, Dublin, to demand a ceasefire, Israeli withdrawal, and action by the government to implement two laws on imports from the occupied territories passed by the legislature but not implemented by the state. Hundreds of actions and events take place across the country. A poll last November showed that 84% of Irish people already supported an immediate ceasefire, while 71% agreed that Israeli rule over the Palestinians is apartheid.
The three-party right-wing government has responded to this enormous popular pressure with fine words but has done little of substance to stop the Israeli assaults. The Occupied Territories Bill, which would ban trade with and economic support for illegal settlements, has already been legislated, but the government has blocked implementation. Another piece of legislation it has failed to progress is the Illegal Israeli Settlements Divestment Bill 2023, designed to compel the Ireland Strategic Investment Fund to terminate its investments in companies operating in Israeli settlements in East Jerusalem and the West Bank. The government has not even joined in the South African legal action against Israel at the International Court of Justice in The Hague.
Academic arrested for “statements against Zionism” as Israel intensifies anti-genocide crackdown
Jean Shaoul, WSWS, Apr 30 2024
This month, Israeli police arrested and detained for questioning Professor Nadera Shalhoub-Kevorkian, a leading Palestinian legal academic, over comments made on a podcast weeks earlier. Shalhoub-Kevorkian holds a chair in law at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem and another at Queen Mary University of London. The police said:
The detainee is suspected of making serious incitement against the State of Israel and for having said statements against Zionism and even claims that Israel is currently committing genocide in the Gaza Strip.
They added that they had found posters and pictures in her home depicting IOF soldiers as an occupying army. Freedom of political expression in relation to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict has always been restricted and there have been widespread detentions of Palestinian citizens of Israel who have publicly criticised the war in Gaza. But this is the first time an academic has been targeted over opposition to Zionism, possession of posters against the occupation and claims of Israeli genocide in Gaza—statements that pose no “security threat,” let alone any “incitement” to violence, terror and racism. Since the attorney general’s office must approve all prosecutions relating to freedom of speech, Shalhoub-Kevorkian’s detention was greenlighted not just by the police but at the very heart of government. Her detention is part of a broader crackdown on dissent and the targeting of Israel’s critics by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s fascistic regime, aimed at intimidating and silencing Israel’s Palestinian citizens who make up 20 percent of the population. Netanyahu’s strategic goal of annexing Palestinian territory illegally occupied since the 1967 Arab-Israeli war and establishing an ethno-religious regime between the River Jordan and the Mediterranean Sea means the “only democracy in the Middle East” eliminating even the tattered, democratic façade of the Israeli state.
The police confiscated books and posters from Shalhoub-Kevorkian’s home and questioned her extensively about her academic work, including articles published years ago, even though academic writing is afforded special legal protections in Israel. In her 60s, she was strip-searched, handcuffed so tightly it caused pain, denied access to food, water and medication for several hours, and held overnight in a cold cell without adequate clothing or blankets, conditions her lawyers described as “terrible” and designed to humiliate. While she was released on bail the next day, after a magistrate and a district court judge both ruled she posed no threat, days later she was summoned for further questioning. Her lawyer, the director of the human rights organisation Adalah, Hassan Jabareen, said:
This case is unique. This is not only about one professor; it could be a [precedent] for any academic who goes against the consensus in wartime. They could have asked her to come to the police station for two or three hours to discuss, investigate. To carry out the arrest like that, as if she was a dangerous person, shows the main purpose was to humiliate her. It was illegal, that’s why the magistrates court accepted my argument that she should be released and the district court confirmed it.
Her arrest follows months of political attacks orchestrated by the Hebrew University, which likes to present itself as a model of liberalism and inclusion, in the run-up to her detention. The rector had called on her to resign in late 2023 after she signed a letter calling for a ceasefire in Gaza and describing Israel’s campaign as genocide, and she was briefly suspended over a podcast in which she discussed the tragic events of Oct 7 and the subsequent destruction, death, and starvation in Gaza. He had objected to her calling for Zionism to be abolished and casting doubt about some aspects of the Oct 7 attack, particularly reports of sexual assaults. More than 100 academics at the Hebrew University published an open letter backing Shalhoub-Kevorkian, criticising the university for not supporting her. They wrote:
Regardless of the content of Nadera’s words, their interpretation and the opinions she expressed, it is clear to everyone that this is a political arrest, the whole purpose of which is to gag mouths and limit freedom of expression. Today it is Nadera who stands on the bench, and tomorrow it is each and every one of us.
Queen Mary University of London has not condemned the arrest, but more than 250 academics there published an open letter supporting Shalhoub-Kervorkian, calling on the university to stand by her and condemning the sustained attack on academic freedom in Israel.
Shalhoub-Kevorkian’s arrest follows the arrest and detention of hundreds of Israel’s Palestinian citizens because of social media posts or comments condemning Israel’s genocidal war. Others have lost their jobs or access to education. More than 160 university students, mostly Palestinian Israelis, have been referred to disciplinary committees, accused of supporting terror, supporting terrorist organizations or incitement to terrorism. Others have been doxed and threatened with violence, facing chants of “Death to Arabs” from extremist Jewish students, some with the cooperation of student unions and university administrations. In October, Professor Nurit Peled-Elhanan, a lecturer at a college in Jerusalem, was suspended and threatened with the sack over her response in a faculty WhatsApp group raising the context of the Oct 7 attack. While she was later allowed to keep her job after a severe reprimand, other university lecturers at different institutions have also been summoned to hearings. A Ministry of Education directive has demanded universities immediately suspend any student or employee expressing themselves in a manner that constitutes “support for terrorism” or “support for the enemy,” while far-right groups scan social media and serve as informants to the universities.
Netanyahu has given his far-right cabinet ministers free rein to silence what remains of Israel’s left, as well as human rights groups, peace organisations and Palestinian citizens, and to introduce measures to eliminate them, including banning calls for a boycott of settlement goods, declaring six of the most prominent Palestinian NGOs “terrorist organisations” and outlawing the commemoration of the Nakba. Since October, legislator Simcha Rothman, who chairs the Knesset’s Constitution Committee, has pushed hard to restrict freedom of expression under the rubric of “combating incitement to terrorism.” He has demanded the police and prosecution office loosen restraints and allow more investigations, arrests and the delegitimization of critics of the war and those demanding peace. He summoned the Deputy State Attorney, Alon Altman, to a committee session and reprimanded him for “tampering” with cases and investigations of crimes of incitement to terrorism. National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, a former supporter of the outlawed, racist Kach movement and a convicted racist, has set up a task force to monitor alleged Palestinian incitement to terrorism on the internet. He and his fellow cabinet ministers, public officials, retired generals and journalists regularly make calls for the IOF to “erase Gaza” or carry out a “second Nakba” with impunity.
On Friday, the police raided the offices of the largely Palestinian Hadash Party and the Communist Party of Israel in Nazareth, a day before a scheduled march opposing the war, and arrested two activists preparing displays and flags. It followed a similar police raid on the Hadash branch office in Nazareth in November aimed at preventing an anti-war rally. A far-right mob attacked the home of left-wing journalist and activist Israel Frey for expressing his sorrow for the Israeli casualties of Oct 7 and the thousands of innocent civilians, the women and children killed in Gaza, forcing Frey to flee his home and live in hiding. Frey reported that the police spat at and physically assaulted him, accusing him of “supporting Hamas” as they escorted him away from his home. The police have taken to disseminating photographs showing Palestinian detainees, suspected or accused of protesting against Israel or the war, with their hands tied and against the background of a huge Israeli flag, in an effort to humiliate them. The authorities have banned demonstrations in solidarity with the Palestinians in Gaza, violently dispersed rallies in Haifa, Jerusalem, Umm al-Fahm and elsewhere and arrested dozens of demonstrators. The Israeli media is subject to military censorship and provides little coverage of the 34k Palestinian killed, the 10k missing presumed buried under the rubble, or the 1.7 million made homeless by the war, focusing almost exclusively on the Oct 7 attack and fuelling a sense of existential crisis and national trauma. The Israeli military has killed at least 175 journalists reporting and filming the atrocities in Gaza. Earlier this month, the Knesset passed the Al Jazeera Law, which gives the government temporary powers to prevent a foreign news network from operating in Israel if the security agencies deem it “harmful to national security.”
Niqnaq 