The pro-Palestinian protest that started at Columbia with only seventy students, where they pitched more than 50 tents on the lawn in what they called a “Liberated Zone” on April 17th 2024, has now spread both nationally and internationally. What started as the Gaza solidarity encampment at Columbia University, has since spread all over the US. The uprising many say has joined the ranks of Occupy Wall Street and the 1980s anti-apartheid movement, some even link it to the protest against the Vietnam War.But these pro-Palestinian protests are not limited to the US,they have further spread to universities from Italy and France to Australia. This is happening despite a stringent crackdown on the protesters, and arrest in hundreds. The movement is calling on universities to cut financial ties with Israel and divest from companies they say are enabling its brutal war against the Palestinians.
Calling it a war or a war between Israel and Gaza or Israel and Hamas are to shrink its magnanimity, its Israel’s war on humanity and an onslaught on the world’s global order. The blatant American support to Israeli forces makes it possible. The United States of America has vetoed four times in seven months to allow this massacre to continue unabated. The ululation of the dying falls on the dead conscious of those in the corridors of power. Observers say that the students led protests have been both peaceful and largely respectful. However, they faced both heavy-handedness and charges of anti-semitism. The Republican Governor of Texas Greg Abbott said that the protesters........