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Pro-Palestinian protesters at UCLA tussle with Israel supporters
As the size of the pro-Palestinian encampment at the University of California at Los Angeles expanded in recent days, counter-protesters have become increasingly vocal and visible on the campus, although both sides remained peaceful until Sunday.
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A pro-Israeli demonstrator (left) is separated by another one as he argues with a pro-Palestinian demonstrator on the campus of the University of California Los Angeles (UCLA), in Los Angeles on April 28, 2024. (AFP/Etienne Laurent)
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rotests at US universities showed no sign of slowing over the weekend, with more arrests on campuses across the country and skirmishes between pro-Israeli and pro-Palestinian demonstrators at UCLA, where a tent encampment was set up last week.
As the size of the pro-Palestinian encampment at the University of California at Los Angeles expanded in recent days, counter-protesters have become increasingly vocal and visible on the campus, although both sides remained peaceful until Sunday.
That changed when some demonstrators broke through a barrier that the school had set up to separate the two factions, Mary Osako, UCLA's vice chancellor for UCLA strategic communications, said.
Members of both factions shoved one another and shouted slogans and insults, and in some cases traded punches. Pushing and shoving persisted for some time among pockets of demonstrators, but campus police armed with batons eventually separated the sparring groups.
"UCLA has a long history of being a place of peaceful protest, and we are heartbroken about the violence that broke out," Osako said in a statement.
Chanting had ceased by around 3:30 p.m. local time and pro-Palestinian protesters trickled back to the encampment, according to the Reuters photographer at the scene.
Los Angeles police were not involved in quelling the disturbance, a representative of the campus police said, and no arrests had been made.
The dueling demonstrations on the UCLA campus involved at least some people from outside the university, according to an earlier statement by the university, which said it had allowed two groups on campus to express their views.
Members of the Harriet Tubman Center for Social Justice planned to support the right of students to protest, according to the statement, while Stand in Support of Jewish Students, in partnership with Israeli-American Council, planned to oppose hatred and antisemitism on campus.
The White House insisted Sunday that pro-Palestinian protests that have rocked US universities in recent weeks must remain peaceful, after police arrested around 275 people on four separate campuses over the weekend.
"We certainly respect the right of peaceful protests," National Security Council spokesman John Kirby told ABC's "This Week."
But, he added, "we absolutely condemn the anti-Semitism language that we've heard of late and certainly condemn all the hate speech and the threats of violence out there."
The wave of demonstrations began at Columbia University in New York but they have since spread rapidly across the country.
While peace has prevailed in many campuses, the number of protesters detained -- at times by police in riot gear using chemical irritants and tasers -- is rising fast.
They include 100 at Northeastern University in Boston, 80 at Washington University in St Louis, 72 at Arizona State University and 23 at Indiana University.
Among those arrested at Washington University was Green Party presidential candidate Jill Stein, who faulted police for aggressive tactics she said provoked the sort of trouble they are meant to quell.
"This is about freedom of speech... on a very critical issue," she told CNN shortly before her arrest Saturday. "And there they are, sending in the riot police and basically creating a riot."
Protesters at Yale University established a new encampment on Sunday, the school's independent student newspaper reported, after a previous site was taken down by police days earlier, when dozens were arrested and charged with trespassing.
College administrators have struggled to find the best response, caught between the need to respect free-speech rights and the imperative of containing inflammatory and sometimes violently anti-Semitic calls by protesters.
With final exams coming in the next few weeks, some campuses -- including the Humboldt campus of California State Polytechnic University, have closed and instructed students to complete their classes online.
The activists behind the campus protests -- not all of them students -- are calling for a ceasefire in Israel's war with Hamas, and want colleges to sever ties with Israel.
