Pro-Israel activists set up a large screen and loudspeakers at UCLA to play a taped loop of images from the Oct. 7 Hamas onslaught on Israel. The video aimed to counter pro-Hamas chants that seeped into pro-Palestinian and anti-Israel protests on campus.
🚨BREAKING: An anonymous group has built a giant screen with loudspeakers outside the UCLA protest showing footage from October 7 on a loop.
Genius!
👉 FOLLOW @ShirionOrg for updates. pic.twitter.com/HeikTKtXZt
— Shirion Collective (@ShirionOrg) April 29, 2024
Meanwhile, Columbia University on Monday began suspending pro-Palestinian student activists who refused to dismantle a protest camp on the New York City campus after the Ivy League school declared a stalemate in talks seeking to end the polarizing demonstration.
University President Nemat Minouche Shafik said in a statement that days of negotiations between student organizers and academic leaders had failed to persuade demonstrators to remove the dozens of tents set up.
The crackdown at Columbia, at the center of Gaza-related protests roiling university campuses across the US in recent weeks, occurred as police at the University of Texas at Austin arrested dozens of students at a pro-Palestinian rally.
Columbia sent a letter on Monday morning warning that students who did not vacate the encampment would face suspension and become ineligible to complete the semester in good standing.
"We have begun suspending students as part of this next phase of our efforts to ensure safety on our campus," said Ben Chang, a university spokesperson, at a briefing on Monday evening.
"The encampment has created an unwelcoming environment for many of our Jewish students and faculty and a noisy distraction that interferes with the teaching, learning, and preparing for final exams," Chang said.
Earlier, Shafik said Columbia would not divest from finances in Israel, a key demand of the protesters. Instead, she offered to invest in health and education in Gaza and make Columbia's direct investment holdings more transparent.
Jewish groups have said that anti-Israel rhetoric frequently delves into or feeds overt forms of anti-Jewish hatred and calls for violence, and thus should not be tolerated.
Protests, and arrests, flared anew on the Austin campus on Monday.
Campus police backed by Texas state troopers attempted to break up a large student protest using pepper spray and flash-bang charges, arresting at least 43 people, according to defense attorney George Lobb, who said he confirmed the number with court and jail staff processing the detentions.
At Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond, police and protesters clashed as officers moved in after nightfall to break up an encampment. Local TV aired footage of police in riot gear dousing demonstrators, many of whom the university said were not students, with what appeared to be pepper spray, and making arrests.
Some 150 miles to the west, officials at Virginia Tech said on Monday that 91 protesters arrested on Sunday night at a student-led encampment had been charged with trespassing.
