Protest over Palestine: Just Annoying Teens?
The American student movement supporting Gaza goes global meeting censorship or worse head on in the US and Europe.
It all started with some tents. In fact a year ago we all might have assumed HippieCore was trending on Tik Tok and college campuses were conducting a tattoo and piercing challenge. But no. The kids, our kids, were practicing a sincere symbol of resistance to settler colonialism. Palestinian Liberation Zones have sprung up across US university campuses. Students are occupying green spaces around their schools. They are shouting support for the economic BDS movement. Their demands are for their institutions to cut any ties with Israel and pull investment in Israeli companies. Chants of Free Palestine ring through the campus greens.
They’ve taken a page from the campus protests of the 60’s and 80’s against the Vietnam war and with the Anti-Apartheid movement. Of course, there are some differences from then to now. Back then they were threatened with truncheons today they are threatened with doxing and black marks on their CVs. Hedge funds and big banks have said they won't hire anyone involved in a protest. Schools are being threatened with the pulling of donations and a Republican congress (ignoring the anti-semitism practiced by some of its own members) are calling for university presidents to be fired - again...
Accusations of antisemitism are suddenly being tossed around like snowflakes in a storm. Zionism and Judaism are being conflated. Hamas is not Nelson Mandela. The river to the sea is not a call for a two state solution. A Palestine ruled by Hamas or an Israeli-occupied Gaza are not places any free thinking person would want to live. Open discussions on a university campus should be what the university experience is all about.
But then, everything exploded when the cops were called. Seemingly dialling up the violence?!
On April 18, Columbia University President Minouche Shafik proved to be a total buzzkill. After barely surviving questions by a congressional committee she invited cops onto the grounds of Columbia for the first time since 1968. Although it's important to note the cops were ordered onto the Columbia campus by the Governor in the 60’s. Today it was Columbia’s own (English Peer on Hiatus) President Shafik who invited them in. On that first raid 113 students were arrested, and the police attempted to disperse the encampment. Kind of like January 6th in reverse.
This achieved two things - 1. A whole lot of wealthy, super-privileged white students faced their first experience of the American police state. And 2. The aforementioned police completely failed to disperse the encampments. Not only did the Columbia encampment quickly reform, encampments spread like a dark matter rash in solidarity across the United States.
But most everyone at this point knows about the drama of the student protests in the US. Due to the nature of everything being bigger, and louder, across the Atlantic, we have seldom discussed the way the Israel-Gaza war is being protested in Europe, and more importantly, how Europeans are approaching censoring those protests.
While US universities have turned to police violence, and the US government has passed a bill formalising that Anti-Zionism ought to be treated as Anti-Semitism, European universities and governments have been more subtle with their approaches. You know, Euro-style.
In European universities, many students are taking part in similar encampments, largely in solidarity with the American movement, and facing little to no resistance from their university's leadership. In the UK, equally no one is responding presumably because they’re all fully accustomed to an endless legion of strikes and protests by nurses, doctors, train staff, (the list goes on) that occur about as regularly as a scheduled train. And, of course, strikes by lecturers and professors render a somewhat dubious moral authority when breaking up the encampments/protests. Not that being hypocritical is normally much of a problem in Britain’s high society.
But even so, the marches and protests in support of Palestinian liberation have become the topic of much ire to some Conservative politicians. For example, one former MP, now an exiled member of the Conservative Party refers to London as "controlled" by "Islamists", and as "Londonistan".
Nevertheless, these protests have been allowed to take place.
However, the political momentum of European protest has been much less successful than in the United States. (Does Tik Tok work better over there? Oh, wait…) I mean it seems the US protests have led to Biden warning Netanyahu that if he entered Rafah (Something Israeli forces had of course, already done by then) the US would stop giving Israel some offensive weapons. In fact, he even stopped... 1 ... shipment to prove his point.
In the UK on the other hand, the Labour party is still a bit twitchy about being labelled as anti-Semitic due to scary flashbacks of former Leader Jeremy Corbyn, whose support for Palestine led the British media to label him the greatest hater of the Jewish people in Europe. Which, let’s face it, was saying something…
Meanwhile the Tories seem to be gradually migrating to the no-doubt deeply thought out idea of being the anti-Americans, with David Cameron, famously not a particular fan of keeping kosher, insisting that the Biden's line over weapons will somehow arm HAMAS.
This might present a clue as to why the local elections in the UK revealed that neither party was actually on the path to an outright majority, as urban and Muslim centres throughout the country turned away from the Labour party, who have been the government in waiting for about 3 years at this point. Interesting timing.
In mainland Europe protests have been dealt with more virulently (for Europe). A major event designed to protest the German government's support of Israel's Gaza campaign was shot down after Germany banned many of the protest leaders from entering the country.
Among the banned was Glasgow University's Palestinian Rector. Because he has spent years becoming a world renowned expert on war injuries - healing them that is - and had recently been working in Gaza's hospitals?? Mind you, at the same event Germany barred entry to Yanis Varoufakis, the former Greek Finance Minister, although that might be because he’s been slightly annoying ever since the Greek debt issue blew up a decade ago…
Even the kitschiest of talent shows, the Eurovision Song Contest refused to ban Israel as they did Russia after the Ukrainian invasion. Even so the contest seemed more concerned than ever about how the public might respond to Israel participating so they used a new AI technology to edit out the vehement booing of the live audience when Israeli performed or votes for it were announced. ChatGPT4-o’s API in splendid action.
Next the competition banned the entry of Palestinian flags into the arena, frustrating attendees who were allowed to bring any other nation's flag, included those uninvolved with the competition, as well as Israeli ones.
Finally, and most interestingly, the competition once again forced the European public to refuse to vote for the British entry. Or was it just the dirty bathhouse set and awful song choice that ensured Britain received no points. Brexit reverse-fever plus ca change!
The US has become the model for violent protests and police clashes with its response to the student movement for Palestine, but across the Atlantic, as we can see, similar frustrations over the West's support for Israel are being felt. Only in Europe the US tradition of police-power-with-baton is undercut by governments effectively preventing protests from happening at all.
It looks like the desire for US style protests exports as easily as blue jeans, yet Europeans cross the line at using police action to bully the protesters. They just ignore them or cancel the protest before it even starts. A bit like using weed killer ahead of the growing season. Perhaps the future might be disappearing protesters before they can get in any way squeaky-bum uncomfortable. Liberty shrugged indeed…
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