Bruh.

Last night, several very blood boiling things happened at various college campuses across the U.S. As anybody who reads my blog posts will know, I regularly talk about Palestine and the pro-Palestine student protests that have been taking place at colleges across the country. Yesterday, students at Columbia University occupied Hamilton Hall, a building that has been occupied before (it was occupied back in 1968 by students protesting against the Vietnam war and again in 1985 by students demanding that the university divest from Apartheid South Africa). They were unfortunately only able to occupy it for one day before hundreds of police officers clad in riot gear broke into the building last night and arrested 109 people. The police officers also tore down Columbia University's Gaza Solidarity Encampment, which lasted for 13 days. Keep in mind that even though some property was damaged when the students broke into Hamilton Hall to occupy it, no people were harmed by the protesters (as far as I'm aware). 

Meanwhile, at UCLA, peaceful pro-Palestine student protesters were attacked by a mob of violent pro-Israel counter-protesters. The mob threw fireworks into the students' encampment and attacked a couple of people. The police, who have been very eager to show up in riot gear to arrest random pro-Palestine students (and teachers) at their encampments, were nowhere to be seen while these counter-protesters attacked the pro-Palestine students. This is exactly why I don't trust the police. They will always protect fascists and bigots, yet will always be eager to arrest, injure, or kill those fighting for their rights. The police exist to protect capitalism (at least in the U.S. and other Western countries), property, imperialism, systemic racism, colonialism, and those who benefit from all of these things and more. They do not exist to protect the average person. Some police officers also get their training from the IDF, so it makes sense that they would be attacking pro-Palestinian protesters.

I know that the occupation at Hamilton Hall and the various encampments that have sprung up around the country are technically illegal, but to me that doesn't matter. Anybody who is focusing on the legality of these encampments and the legality of the Hamilton Hall occupation is losing sight of why the students escalated their protests in these ways. Let me remind everyone reading this, first and foremost, that 34,000 Palestinians have been brutally massacred by the Israeli military. Let me also remind everybody that it is the fault of every university everywhere that the protests have gotten this "bad" (I don't think they're bad, but the mainstream media has been trying to paint them as antisemitic and hateful). If every university had accepted the students' demands for them to divest from companies that support Israel, then none of these protests would have had to happen. If the U.S. had prevented Israel from continuing to abuse and massacre Palestinians, none of these protests would have had to happen. If Israel hadn't bombed Gaza's own universities- as well as its houses, hospitals, mosques, churches, and historical sites- to smithereens, none of these protests would have had to happen. 

Shame on Israel, shame on the U.S., shame on the higher ups at various universities, and shame on the police. Free Palestine.

P.S.

Pro-Palestine protests have only gotten violent in recent days because cops and pro-Israel agitators have provoked the students protesting Israel's genocide. Most protests are peaceful up until the cops arrive. ACAB.

P.S.S.

I couldn't help but notice that most of the pro-Israel counter-protesters who attacked those at UCLA were white. In recent days, videos have surfaced of various pro-Israel protesters (all white) weaponizing their tears and their feelings of being unsafe (being unsafe and feeling unsafe are two totally different things) against pro-Palestinian protesters. When watching videos of white pro-Israel agitators, I can't help but recognize how connected the pro-Palestinian struggle is to the struggle for Indigenous sovereignty and the abolition of systemic racism. The campus protests have been made up of very diverse groups of people, including many people of color (some of whom are Palestinian), LGBTQ+ people, and Jewish people. Meanwhile, the pro-Israel movement is majority cisgender, heterosexual, and white.

Here are two very embarrassing videos of pro-Israel people acting out in public:

https://youtu.be/QgV-BGfIbtQ?si=cxZ1RBgsYUaKlkxM (the tactic she's using here is very similar to tactics that have been used by white women who have called the police on Black men for simply being Black and having fun and/or chilling around.)

https://www.reddit.com/r/IsraelCrimes/comments/1cbvnxg/a_prooccupation_woman_who_went_to_yale_university/

Edit: One more thing I would like to mention is that pro-Palestinian students have been doxxed and harassed for being pro-Palestinian, yet the mainstream media continues to focus on how pro-Palestinian protests are supposedly unsafe for Jewish students (even though, as I have mentioned before, there are plenty of pro-Palestinian Jewish people participating in these college protests across the country). One supposed "attack" on a pro-Israel student by a pro-Palestinian student was debunked after video evidence proved that this attack didn't happen. Here's a video on that: https://youtu.be/t1nXTlNpNkI?si=JTrda6leVzEQn92c (ignore the extra talking, just focus on the part of the video where the "evidence" of this attack is put on screen).