Pro-Palestinian demonstrators are detained at Yale, while classes are canceled at Columbia

At Yale University on Monday, hours after Columbia University suspended in-person courses to defuse tensions on its New York campus after police swept down on a tent encampment last week, scores of individuals were arrested during a pro-Palestinian march.

Video footage posted on social media shows that protesters on Monday obstructed traffic outside Yale’s campus in New Haven, Connecticut, demanding the university withdraw from makers of military weapons. This led to police making arrests.

Police reportedly arrested about forty people, according to the student-run news website Yale Daily News. Officials from Yale University could not be contacted for comment.

The most recent phase of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, which started on October 7 with a deadly cross-border raid by Islamist militants affiliated with Hamas and Israel’s ruthless response in the Hamas-controlled Gaza enclave, sparked protests at Yale, Columbia, and other universities across the country.

Since October 7, human rights activists have seen a broad increase in prejudice and hatred directed at Jews, Arabs, and Muslims. Since the Jewish festival of Passover began on Monday, there has been especially cause for anxiety in recent days.

Nemat Minouche Shafik, the president of Columbia University, said in a statement on Monday that courses would not be held in person. She also decried antisemitic remarks and acts of intimidation and harassment that she claimed had lately taken place on campus.

Following the arrest of over 100 protestors, some of whom erected dozens of tents in what the school said was an unlawful demonstration that interfered with school operations, the decision was made to cancel classes on the New York campus.

“Those who are not affiliated with Columbia who have come to campus to pursue their own agendas have exploited and amplified these tensions,” stated Shafik, who last week testified before a U.S. House of Representatives committee in support of the university’s response to protesters’ alleged antisemitism. “We need a reset.”

Pro-Palestinian camps of a similar kind were also established at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in nearby Cambridge and Emerson College in Boston.

In a statement released on Sunday, President Joe Biden said that his administration has committed the whole weight of the federal government to defending the Jewish community.

“We’ve even witnessed calls for violence against Jews and harassment of them in recent days. He said, “This overt antisemitism is disgusting and dangerous, and it has no place on college campuses or anywhere in our nation.”

According to local media, Elie Buechler, an Orthodox rabbi at Barnard College, an associate of Columbia University, informed students via an online message that neither the city police nor the campus police could ensure the safety of Jewish students.

Before the start of Passover over the weekend, Buechler sent a WhatsApp message to hundreds of people saying, “It deeply pains me to say that I would strongly recommend you return home as soon as possible and remain home until the reality in and around campus has dramatically improved.”

In response to accusations made by the White House that the pro-Palestinian demonstrations on campus were antisemitic, student leaders from the Columbia University encampment reacted. They said that certain “inflammatory individuals” did not represent their cause and that they were being misidentified.

Through the Institute of Middle East Understanding, a pro-Palestinian advocacy organization, the anti-war demonstrators in Columbia published an email message saying, “We are frustrated by media distractions focusing on inflammatory individuals who do not represent us.”

According to the student activists, their demands include the school’s divestment from companies that benefit from Israel’s operations in Gaza, financial transparency, and amnesty for staff and students who have been reprimanded for advocating for Palestinian freedom.

Officials from Columbia University could not be contacted for comment.