The university campus protests against Israel are gaining momentum. Infact they have now spread to universities in Europe, putting further pressure on their respective administrations to crack down on them.
But the American university administrations have failed to suppress the protests, despite all tactics adopted by them. It can also be gauged from the handling of the demonstrations by the Columbia University president, Minouche Shafik, who invited the New York city police to crack down on the protest camps, but it did not deter the protesters. Hundreds of students were arrested as a result. Instead, Ms Shafik received widespread condemnation for her act from many human rights groups, students and faculty members, and is also likely to lose her job over her handling of the demonstrations. She has received flak from all sides, including politicians.
As per the latest development, a pro-Palestinian American group has filed a federal civil rights complaint against Columbia University following the arrest of anti-Gaza war protesters. Meanwhile on the other side of the Atlantic, the situation in universities is also changing.
The anti-Gaza protests are also spreading in Europe, with students agitating in France and United Kingdom. A number of universities are witnessing student anger, which the West is trying to paint as antisemitic despite the fact that many Jewish students are also taking part and expressing solidarity with the people of Gaza.
These protests are unprecedented. Never before have the western universities seen demonstrations at this scale, except may be the US, when universities there were rocked by strikes against the Vietnam war in the early 1970s. So agitated Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is over the protests that he has openly criticised the university administrations for failing to control what he alleged were antisemitic protests.
His public statement over the situation in the US just shows how perturbed Israel is over the protests. By his public condemnation, he is giving “ammunition” to Republican leaders, as per The New York Times.
The Republicans and their supporters are dead against the sit-ins and have accused the universities as well as the Democrats of failing to protect the Jewish students from the attacks.
But if we go by the reports, not one Jewish student has been attacked by the protesters. If they had, the administrations would have gotten an excuse to go after them with as much force as they can.
The Biden administration should therefore open its eyes. Its blind support of Israel should end. It is high time the US and the West stop playing at the hands of the Zionist regime.
