In Atlanta, Georgia, the institution requested the intervention of the police to stop the demonstration that started at Emory University.
According to the protesters, they occupied part of the university's territory because the institution is "considered to be complicit in genocide and the militarization of the police." The pro-Palestinian cause of the Atlanta rally was linked to a protest against a local police and fire training center. They also claimed that the "genocide against the Palestinians" and the construction of the so-called Cop City were both the result of "American imperialism".
An official from the university's rector's office called the organizers of the demonstration activists whose aim is to disrupt students' academic work, and added that vandalism and other crimes will not be tolerated.
On Thursday, a demonstration against Israel began at the fourth institution in just over a week in New York,
this time, students marched at the City College of New York – CUNY buildings.
New York City police leaders have made it clear in connection with the police actions and mass arrests that have taken place over the past week that they will not allow the kind of occupation of public space that happened in the summer of 2020 during the so-called BLM riots in the city of Seattle, where protesters took part of the city " was declared an autonomous zone. City Police Patrol Chief John Chell said he can guarantee that such an attempt will end quickly.
In the capital, Washington, on Thursday, several neighborhood universities started a joint demonstration by setting up tents on the grounds of George Washington University downtown. According to their announcement, they want to show their strength together, as well as demand to distance themselves from - in their words - the "Zionist state", and their goal is to end the "racist oppression of pro-Palestinian students".
On the west coast of the United States, in Los Angeles, the management of the University of Southern California (University of Southern California) announced on Thursday that the area of the institution will remain closed "until further notice". During Wednesday's demonstrations at the university, the police had to detain almost 100 activists.
More than half of the 50 largest universities in the United States have had pro-Palestinian protests in the past week, according to Wednesday's tallies. As a result of the protests, hundreds of people were detained by the authorities for illegal activities and violations of private land.
The police intervention in New York was condemned on Thursday by Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, a representative of the left wing of the Democratic Party, who called it a "terrible decision" that the administration of Columbia University called the police on its own students.
At the same time, billionaire entrepreneur Robert Kraft, a former student and influential financial supporter of the institution ranked among the leading universities in the United States, wrote in a statement published in the press on Thursday that he "must deny" the former place of his studies, and expressed his shock at slogans such as which protesters shouted, such as "Kill all Jews!" and "October 7th ten thousand more times!".
The Jewish businessman announced this week that he was ending his support for Columbia University due to overt anti-Semitic expressions at the protests.
MTI
Cover image: Illustration by Amir Hamja/The New York Times
