LOS ANGELES/PARIS: College campuses across the United States braced for fresh protests by pro-Palestinian students Thursday, extending a week of increasingly confrontational standoffs with police, mass arrests and accusations of “anti-Semitism”. The Zionist war and humanitarian crisis in Gaza has lit a match of shock and divisive outrage in American universities from New York to California. More than 200 protesters were arrested Wednesday and early Thursday at universities in Los Angeles, Boston and Austin, Texas where a fresh rally was scheduled for midday.

The spreading protests began at Columbia University in New York, where a midnight deadline set by college officials was fast approaching for students to remove an encampment that has become a symbolic epicenter of the movement after more than 100 demonstrators were arrested there last week. Visiting the campus on Wednesday, top Republican leader House Speaker Mike Johnson condemned the nature of the protests and suggested it could be necessary to call out the National Guard.

Student protesters say they are expressing solidarity with Palestinians in Gaza, where the death toll has topped 34,305, according to the health ministry, and are calling on universities to divest from companies with ties to the Zionist entity. The protests pose a major challenge to university administrators who are trying to balance campus commitments to free expression amid complaints that the rallies have crossed a line into intimidation and fueled a surge in “anti-Semitism”.

Demonstrations flared at the University of Southern California’s (USC) Los Angeles campus, where 93 people were arrested for trespassing, and at the University of Texas (UT) in Austin, where 34 were arrested, according to authorities. USC said on social media site X at around midnight that the protest had ended and the campus would remain “closed until further notice”. “Students, faculty, staff, and people with business on campus may enter with proper identification,” the university said.

Los Angeles police officers went to the campus on Wednesday afternoon and “assisted the university in effecting trespass arrests” when protesters refused to leave, Captain Kelly Muniz told reporters. The LAPD said there were no reports of injuries and patrols would remain in the area on Thursday. At Emerson College in Boston, local media reported that classes were canceled Thursday after police clashed with protesters around 2 am, tearing down a pro-Palestinian encampment and arresting 108 people.

In Washington, students from Georgetown and George Washington University (GW) established their own solidarity encampment on the GW campus Thursday morning, student magazine the Georgetown Voice said, with a walkout planned for the afternoon at Georgetown. Protests and encampments have sprung up at universities from coast to coast, including at New York University and Yale — both of which also saw dozens of students arrested earlier this week — Harvard, Brown University, MIT, the University of Michigan and elsewhere.

Demonstrators, including a number of Jewish students, have disavowed instances of “anti-Semitism” and criticized officials equating it with opposition to the Zionist entity. On Sunday, US President Joe Biden denounced “blatant anti-Semitism” that has “no place on college campuses”. But the White House has also said that the president supports freedom of expression on US campuses.

Meanwhile, students in Paris protested again Thursday after police broke up a pro-Palestinian solidarity demonstration the night before at one of France’s most prestigious universities. Students at Sciences Po have accused management of calling in police to break up a pro-Palestinian protest by dozens of students gathered on a central Paris campus on Wednesday night.

“The director has crossed a red line by deciding to send in the police,” Ines Fontenelle, a member of the Student Union at Sciences Po, told AFP as 150 students gathered again Thursday. “Management must take steps to restore a climate of trust.” Union spokeswoman Eleonore Schmitt said the students would continue to mobilize “despite repression”.

The union earlier said the decision by university officials to call in the police was “both shocking and deeply worrying” and reflected “an unprecedented authoritarian turn”. On Wednesday evening, dozens of pro-Palestinian demonstrators occupied the amphitheater outside one of the university’s campuses in the French capital’s 7th district.

In a statement to AFP, university officials said the demonstration added to “tensions” at Sciences Po. After discussions with management, most of the protesters agreed to leave but “a small group of students” refused to do so and “it was decided that the police would evacuate the site,” the statement said. Sciences Po said it regretted that “numerous attempts” to have the students leave the premises peacefully had led nowhere.

Students had set up around 10 tents. When members of law enforcement arrived, “50 students left on their own, 70 were evacuated calmly from 0:20 am” and the police “left at 1:30 am, with no incidents to report,” the police said. The protesters demanded that Sciences Po “cut its ties with universities and companies that are complicit in the genocide in Gaza” and “end the repression of pro-Palestinian voices on campus”, according to witnesses.

The protest was organized by the Palestine Committee of Sciences Po. In a statement on Thursday, the group said its activists had been “carried out of the school by more than 50 members of the security forces,” adding that “around 100” police officers were “also waiting for them outside”. Sciences Po management “stubbornly refuses to engage in genuine dialogue”, the group said. The organizers have called for “a clear condemnation of (the Zionist entity’s) actions by Sciences Po” and a commemorative event “in memory of the innocent people killed by (the Zionist entity)”, among other demands. – AFP