Pro-Palestinian Campus Protests (2023- )

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      For American Jews, Biden’s Speech on Antisemitism Offers Recognition and Healing

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      While his message resonated with many Jewish leaders, the president’s remarks drew criticism from Republicans and supporters of Palestinians on the left.President Biden, standing in front of six candles symbolizing the six million Jews killed during the Holocaust, delivered on Tuesday the strongest condemnation of antisemitism by any sitting American president.For Jews monitoring a spike in hate crimes and instances of antisemitic rhetoric amid pro-Palestinian protests on college campuses, Mr. Biden’s speech at a Holocaust remembrance ceremony at the Capitol was both fiercely necessary and fiercely appreciated. The Anti-Defamation League, which has been tracking antisemitic incidents since the 1970s, says the number of such episodes has reached all-time highs in four of the last five years.“In an unprecedented moment of rising antisemitism, he gave a speech that no modern president has needed to,” said Jonathan Greenblatt, the chief executive of the Anti-Defamation League. “There has not been a moment like this since before the founding of the state of Israel. We have said it will never get worse, but then it has.”Still, if the president thought he might change minds with his emotional and deeply personal speech — recalling his father’s discussions about the Holocaust at the dinner table and taking his grandchildren to former concentration camps — there were few signs he had caused many to reconsider their views. Instead, initial reactions fell along ideological lines.Republicans dismissed his comments as meek, while supporters of Palestinians on the left attacked him for conflating criticism of Israel with antisemitism.Warren David, the co-founder of the Arab America Foundation, an advocacy group, said it was disappointing that Mr. Biden has not spoken more forcefully against anti-Arab racism and the death toll in Gaza.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      In Europe, Police Arrest Protesters and Clear Encampments at Universities

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      Clockwise from top left, pro-Palestinian demonstrators at Oxford University, Cambridge University, the Free University in Berlin and the University of Amsterdam.In countries across Europe, students have staged their own pro-Palestinian sit-ins and protests on the lawns of their universities. And in several instances, the authorities are taking a similar approach to their U.S. counterparts: shutting them down.At the University of Amsterdam on Tuesday, the police arrested about 125 students who had fortified their protest camp with wooden barricades. And in Berlin, the German police cleared a similar encampment at the city’s Free University, which included several hundred pro-Palestinian protesters. Both demonstrations had begun on Monday, days after mass arrests swept through protests at U.S. campuses.In Amsterdam, university officials said the demonstration had begun peacefully, but devolved into “an unsafe and grim situation” overnight, when fireworks were launched, physical attacks took place and an Israeli flag was burned. The city’s public prosecutor and mayor made the decision to deploy the police, university executives said in a statement. “We deeply regret that it had to turn out this way,” they said. Many demands coming out of European universities reflect common cause with protesting students in the United States. Among them: for universities to disclose their investment streams and divest from those that support Israel in its war against Hamas in Gaza.Tent cities, similar to those in America, have appeared in Britain at Oxford and Cambridge Universities, where protesters have declared “liberated zones” on campus; demonstrations have also been held in Bristol, Leeds and Manchester. At France’s Sciences Po, one of the country’s most elite universities, students occupied a campus building last week and refused to leave. Dozens of them were removed by the police on Friday.In Ireland, at Trinity College, Dublin, a student encampment prompted the university to close its popular exhibition on the Book of Kells, the medieval illuminated gospel manuscript that is one of the most famous works of its kind, on the eve of a busy tourist season. After talks with student protesters this week, Trinity officials said they would begin the process of divesting from certain companies that operate in the “Occupied Palestinian Territory.” More