University Students Defend the Rights of Palestinian Civilians. This Is Not Anti-Semitism

ČESKÁ VERZE ZDE

This is a rough translation of an article I wrote for Deník Referendum, but since I can't share it on social media in Canada, I decided to create an English version. The translation was created with the help of DeepL (an amazing tool to be used carefully), as I have very little time – I normally write better (I like to think).

Photo Spencer Platt, AFP

When I found myself in Prague's Klárov district on the evening of 6 February 2016, during a legendarily chaotic demonstration, as a representative of the fading “Sunshine” faction, at one point neo-Nazis ran against us. Immediately all illusions about my own courage left me, I turned and ran in the opposite direction. Then someone shouted, “Don't be silly, it's ours!” And someone else added cheerfully: “Oh, great, anarchists are always fun at demonstrations.”

I often feel similarly disoriented today, at a time of pro-Palestinian protests that are sweeping North America, including Edmonton, the Canadian city where I live. Demonstrations and emcampments on college campuses in support of Palestinian civilians are not in any way “pro-Hamas” – that's just what we sometimes call ourselves for trolling. But that doesn't mean I always agree 100% with the slogans being shouted.

Storm at Columbia University

The so-called pro-Palestinian demonstrations erupted pretty much immediately after the horrific Hamas attack on October 7, and while I was initially – quite in the manner of Czech Islamophobes – terrified by the crowds of Arab men shouting pro-Arab and anti-Western slogans, I am now happy to join the university protests.

After sporadic riots at several educational institutions, on 17 April students at Columbia University in New York, one of the most prestigious universities in the world, started a wave of “encampments.” Columbia University is part of the so-called Ivy League, an umbrella term for eight elite private universities in the northeastern United States. Whatever one thinks of the American education system, it is no exaggeration to say that these universities are the gathering place for the American – and to some extent the world's – social and intellectual elite. So when the university administration called the New York police on the students the very next day, the intervention caused quite a stir.

The students returned to campus the very next day. After unsuccessful negotiations with the university administration and the temporary suspension of the demonstrators, they occupied the Hamilton Building, the traditional site of student protests, on April 30. This prompted another police crackdown. Over the course of two weeks, police arrested over two hundred demonstrators. This was the first case of police intervention at Columbia University since the 1968 protests against the Vietnam War.

Wave of protests

Columbia University students were not alone in encampments. The wave of protests has spread to other prestigious and less prestigious universities in the United States and to Canada, Australia, Western Europe, and other parts of the world.

Police crackdowns on students and professors, officially justified on the grounds of protecting private property or the safety of protesters, are widely regarded as disproportionate and a violation of freedom of expression, including according to the United Nations.

Just when I was thinking “this wouldn't happen in Canada,” an encampment sprung up at the University of Alberta in Edmonton and was uncompromisingly dispersed by police at 5 a.m. on Saturday, May 11, after only two days. There are horrifying videos of the crackdown, but there were also strong moments, such as when Jewish professor Michael Litwack defended the students from police brutality.

In Europe, the protests and subsequent police crackdowns in Amsterdam and Berlin have probably caused the biggest wave of attention, but other university cities in Germany, Finland, Denmark, Austria, Ireland, and the United Kingdom are also experiencing protests.

It should be understood that North American universities are largely private institutions and as such are involved in the market economy. In addition to the general protest against the Israeli occupation and US support for the state of Israel, the students ask for abolition of the economic and sometimes academic links of their own universities with the state of Israel, with the arms industry and with companies that they believe are in some way involved in the Israeli occupation. They also call for transparency in economic ties and protest against Israeli investment in American university research.

As the protests escalate, they are now also demanding the release of detained demonstrators, the lifting of academic sanctions, and sometimes resignation of university administrators. Student victories have so far been rather symbolic, but some universities have temporarily severed problematic ties or at least promised transparency of investment in the future. Meanwhile, the only people resigning on their functions are those who don't wish to be associated with the crackdown, like Natalie Loveless (btw. also Jewish).

The danger of protests

Of course, a movement of this magnitude around a controversial topic is not without its problems. The pro-Palestinian university protests have sparked a number of protests from the other side, i.e. Jewish students and supporters of US foreign policy.

I myself deeply believe that the pro-Palestinian protests are not inherently and overwhelmingly anti-Semitic. In fact, many Jewish teachers, students and other community members are joining in the protests; the Friday Islamic prayers are followed by the Saturday Jewish prayers.

However, it would be naive to believe that anti-Semitic incidents do not occur, even though some of them are in response to aggressive behavior by pro-Israel demonstrators. It’s not surprising that some Jewish members of the academic community do not feel safe.

There have been conspiracy theories that the protests are massively funded by Hamas, Iran, or progressive millionaires. Although I think it is clear from the nature of the protests that the students have not received any significant help from anyone, in the black and white view of the world, it can be uncomfortable to see what ideological allies the movement has made. These are the “traditional enemies” of the United States, namely Russia, China and Iran.

The impact of the pro-Palestinian protests on the Iranian community illustrates the complexity of the problem. In the context of the Iranian protests under the slogan of “Woman, Life, Freedom” that erupted after the murder of Mahsa Jina Amini in September 2022, I wrote about the cohesion of the Canadian Iranian community across the political spectrum. However, it didn't last very long, and the war in Palestine deepened the ideological divide.

Advocates of black-and-white thinking openly support all of Israel's political actions and look with suspicion at Iranian participants in pro-Palestinian demonstrations as potential agents of the Iranian regime. In contrast, progressive Iranian men and especially women might suffer ostracism in their communities, misinterpretation of their own actions by the state from which they fled, and manifestations of the Islamic religion of the demonstrators that bring back traumatic memories.

As a white European woman myself, I often feel like a stranger at pro-Palestinian demonstrations and, like in Prague eight years ago, I have trouble finding my way around who “our people” actually are. I admire all the more those who oppose violence in any form, even when the protests seem to contradict their primary identity.