US protests over Israel-Hamas war persist

The recent unrest on US college campuses over the war between Israel and Hamas continued over the weekend, while at an annual news media dinner in Washington, attendees were showered with antagonistic chants as they entered the event.

A brief skirmish between pro-Israeli and pro-Palestinian demonstrators unfolded Sunday at the University of California-Los Angeles (UCLA), where a tent encampment was set up last week.

Security guards at UCLA attempted to keep the two sides separated, while campus police stood by and watched the brief clash, according to a Reuters photographer who witnessed the scene.

Protesters opposed to Israel's incursion into Gaza are demanding a cease-fire and the divestment of university assets in companies involved with the Israeli military, and an end to US military assistance to Israel.

Some 275 people were arrested on Saturday at campuses including Indiana University in Bloomington, Arizona State University in Tempe and Washington University in St. Louis. Nationwide arrests in the protests have approached 900.

Among those arrested at Washington University was 2024 Green Party presidential candidate Jill Stein.

"They are sending in the riot police and basically creating a riot in an otherwise peaceful demonstration. So this is just shameful," Stein said in a statement.

The university said in a statement that those arrested would face trespassing charges.

Other campuses that have seen protests recently are Ohio State, Yale and New York University.

Protesters also turned up at the annual White House Correspondents' Association Dinner on Saturday, and some guests hurried through the crowd.

The protesters called out US President Joe Biden for his support of Israel's military campaign. They also criticized Western news outlets for what they said was undercoverage and misrepresentation of the conflict.

"Shame on you!" shouted protesters wearing the traditional Palestinian keffiyeh, running after men in tuxedos and suits and women in long dresses holding clutch purses, as guests hurried inside for the dinner.

"Western media we see you, and all the horrors that you hide," crowds chanted at one point.

Glenn Greenwald, a prominent journalist who has been critical of crackdowns on the campus protests, wrote on X on April 26: "I don't recognize an Israel exception to First Amendment and free speech dogma. I watched Bush, Cheney and the neocons … scream 'terrorist!' to justify civil liberties abridgments — and I don't support it."

More than two dozen journalists in Gaza wrote a letter last week calling on their colleagues in Washington to boycott the dinner altogether.

"The toll exacted on us for merely fulfilling our journalistic duties is staggering," the letter stated. "We are subjected to detentions, interrogations, and torture by the Israeli military, all for the 'crime' of journalistic integrity."

Nearly 100 journalists have been killed covering the war in Gaza, according to a preliminary investigation released Friday by the Committee to Protect Journalists. Israel has defended its actions, saying it has been targeting militants.

The demonstrations at UCLA involved at least some people from outside the university, which issued a statement on Sunday saying it had allowed two groups on campus to express their views.

Members of the Harriet Tubman Center for Social Justice planned to support the right of students to protest, according to the statement, while Stand in Support of Jewish Students, in partnership with the Israeli-American Council, said it planned to oppose antisemitism on campus.

"We want UCLA to divest from corporations that are profiting from the genocide in Gaza … we are trying to get UCLA to divest because UCLA has blood on its hands," Kaia Shah, a 2023 UCLA graduate, told the Los Angeles Times.

"The Jewish students at UCLA are brilliant and resilient and they're proud and they're loud," Dan Gold, executive director of the Hillel at UCLA, told demonstrators from the pro-Israeli stage Sunday, the Times reported.

In the past two weeks, pro-Palestinian protests have spread to college campuses across the United States.

The proliferation started with the mass arrest of more than 100 people at Columbia University in New York more than a week ago, when the school's president asked the New York Police Department to enter the campus to dismantle tents set up by the protesters on the main lawn.

Representative Jared Moskowitz, a Florida Democrat, recently visited the campus in Manhattan with several other Jewish lawmakers, The New York Times reported.

He said some in the Democratic Party were downplaying the tone of some of the demonstrations.

"There are people who are peaceful, and there are not," he said. "But there's a denial from my friends on the left," a view that "'everyone's peaceful, there's no antisemitism.'"

Administrators, including those at Columbia, have said the unauthorized protests have broken school rules, disrupted learning and have led to harassment and antisemitism.

At the University of Southern California (USC) in Los Angeles, there was a heavy police presence over the weekend. The university announced last week that it would cancel its main graduation ceremony for security purposes.

On the USC campus, the words "Say No to Genocide", were spray-painted Saturday on the Tommy Trojan statue, named for the school's mascot.

Earlier this month, USC, citing safety reasons, called off the valedictory speech by a Muslim student, who said she was being silenced.

At Emory University in Atlanta last week, two professors were among 28 people arrested, with one — economics professor economics professor Caroline Fohlin — being forcefully taken to the ground by police, in widely viewed video posted to social media.

Another faculty member, Noelle McAfee, chair of the philosophy department, is shown being led away by Atlanta police.

The Council on American-Islamic Relations chapter in Georgia on Thursday condemned the "use of force" in the campus arrests.

"Protesters shared a day of cultural learning and community despite which Emory deployed excessive use of force, tear gas, and rubber bullets," the organization said in a statement, CNN reported.

Agencies contributed to this story.

hengweili@chinadailyusa.com