Anti-Israel protest encampments have emerged on at least eight American universities in emulation of the Columbia University campus occupation, following National Students for Justice in Palestine and several other pro-Palestinian groups calling to do so on Saturday night.
In addition to the Columbia encampment that had started on Wednesday, encampments were started at Yale University, University of Michigan, New York University, The New School, Tufts University, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Emerson College, and Rutgers University. An encampment was also established on Friday at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, but the local SJP chapter said on Instagram on Monday that they had moved from the location.
In a social media post by NSJP entitled “campuses in revolt,” the organization promised that more encampments would be established.
“Over the last 72 hours, the Students for Justice in Palestine chapters across the country have erupted in a fierce display of power and pressure targeted at their universities for their endless complicity and profiteering off the genocide on Gaza and the colonization of Palestine,” said NSJP on Sunday. “The encampments transform mass mobilization into long-term sustained occupation, leveraging our tangible power as students to give our institutions no other option but to divest.”
NSJP said in a Monday statement that there would be no classes or compliance with the administration until their demands to adopt Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions policies and support Palestinians were met.
More than 40 arrested at Yale
“We will seize control of our institutions, campus by campus, until Palestine is free.”
Yale anti-Israel activists claimed on Monday that over 40 students were arrested that morning by police at the behest of the administration. American Muslims for Palestine Connecticut put the number at 49 activists.
While the encampment was removed by the police, students have continued to protest and have demanded the return of their protest materials.
“We will not stop, we will not rest until we have disclosure and divestment,” said AMP.
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