400+ ARRESTS IN 4 STATES: PRO-PALI PROTESTS SPREAD, EVEN IN FACE OF MASS ARRESTS
MORE THAN 400 ARRESTED IN BOSTON, ST. LOUIS, ARIZONA AND INDIANA SINCE FRIDAY. TEXAS PROSECUTOR DROPS CHARGES AGAINST EVERYONE ARRESTED BY TEXAS STATE POLICE IN AUSTIN.
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This is a developing report. Check back for additional news.
A national, student-led revolt against America's unquestioning military support for Israel as it kills thousands of Palestinians continued to gather momentum even in the face of the mass-arrests of 100s of protesters.
Almost 200 student protesters were arrested at Northeastern University, 72 were arrested at Arizona State University, more than 80 at Washington University in St. Louis and 23 were arrested at Indiana University Bloomington since Friday. That's on top of the 33 arrested there on Thursday.
There have been at least 53 protest camps or sit-ins staged at colleges since Columbia University had the NYPD arrest 108 pro-Palestinian student protesters on Apr. 18. Saturday's arrests bring the total number of student protesters arrested to more than 700 on 18 campuses in 14 states.
During the arrests at Arizona State University, the school's police chief cut protesters' tents with a knife, video obtained by the local ABC affiliate station, Channel 15, showed. When an observer confronted the police chief, Michael Thompson, and asked him if he had cut tents, Chief Thompson admitted "I sure did."
Then Chief Thomspon slapped the cell-phone out of the observer's hand.
Arizona State University Police did not respond to an invitation to comment.
Officials at Northeastern originally claimed it asked Massachusetts State Police to arrest protesters because someone shouted "Kill the Jews." But video capturing it showed it was a pro-Israel counterprotester who shouted it.
That didn't matter to Northeastern officials, Rebecca Nyul, the school's vice president for communications, responded. The fact that it resulted in the arrest of 200 of the school's students, instead of the person actually responsible for shouting it, did not bother Nyul or the school.
A Daily Beast headline sufficiently summed up the injustice: “Pro-Israel Agitator Shouts ‘Kill the Jews,’ Gets Everyone Else Arrested.”
Meanwhile the arrests at Northeastern mark the second mass-arrest of student protesters in Boston in three days. More than 100 were arrested at Emerson University by order of Boston Mayor Michelle Wu (D) on Thursday.
At Indiana University's Bloomington campus, the arrests were based on a brand-new rule college administrators devised specifically to crackdown on pro-Palestinian protest camps, the student newspaper there, the Indiana Daily Student, reported.
"The new policy claimed the change was approved by 'the Ad Hoc Committee,' but the IDS spoke with several faculty members who were unaware of such a committee," the newspaper revealed.
At Cornell University, where student protesters established a camp Thursday morning, school administrators suspended four of the student protesters. At first, Cornell announced they would be evicted and banned from the dining hall, but the school appeared to have backtracked in the face of more protests from even more people, reportedly including faculty.
Nick Wilson, one of the students, wrote in an open letter that one of the charges was for the Orwellian charge of “[leading] or repeat[ing] chants throughout the day.”
Matthew Van Houten, the Tompkins County District Attorney whose jurisdiction includes Cornell, told The Appeal he "will not prosecute students, faculty, and other demonstrators who are arrested during protests.”
Nationwide, hundreds of college students have been suspended, put on probation and even expelled, the Associated Press reports. Jack Petocz, 19, a Vanderbilt University freshman, was expelled when more than two dozen students occupied the Vanderbilt chancellor’s office for a few hours on March 26.
Petocz was at Vanderbilt because he’d won a scholarship for activists and organizers.. His application essay detailed his experience organizing walkouts in rural Florida to oppose Gov. Ron DeSantis’ anti-LGBTQ policies.
“Vanderbilt seemed to love that,” Petocz said. “Unfortunately, the buck stops when you start advocating for Palestinian liberation.”
Pro-Palestinian protest camp at Cornell University on Fri. Photo credit: JB Nicholas.
In Texas, the prosecutor whose district includes the University of Texas at Austin where 57 protesters were arrested on Wednesday after Gov. Greg Abbott (R) deployed the State Police, dropped all the charges against everyone.
With student protests seizing news headlines, even white voters in rural Trumplandia are questioning America’s continued bankrolling of bombs to Israel while it kills Palestinians by the 1000s. Since Oct., Israel has killed almost 35,000 people—most of them, about two-thirds, women and children.
“There is a big problem, I think, with people looking at Gaza and just being disgusted that we’re paying for that,” Violet Hill, 76, a resident of Dodgeville, Minnesota, said. “I’ve never voted for a Republican, but I’m having a real hard time with the idea of voting for Biden.”
Trish Henderson, 75, echoed Hill's remarks.
“We are liberals. We are progressives. Our whole ideology is to help one another and to take care of one another," Henderson said. “So often we see on TV the children suffering and starving.”
“So we can’t ignore it," she added. "We just can’t.”
According to the latest and long-respected polling by Gallup, released on Friday, Pres. Biden is the least popular president in 70 years. He's currently hated more than disgraced former president Richard M. Nixon and even Donald N. Trump.
Back in Washington, D.C. on Saturday night, hundreds of pro-Palestinian protesters surrounded the location of the White House Correspondents’ Dinner—an exclusive, red carpet event for the nation’s elite journalists and other celebrities. Protesters were there to remind guests that Israel has murdered at least 97 Palestinian or Arab journalists in last six months.
Guests, some escorted by police, were forcing them to walk a gauntlet of protesters yelling protest slogans and waving Palestinian flags.
When Pres. Joe Biden’s motorcade arrived, hundreds of people repeatedly shouted in unison: “Fuck Joe Biden! Fuck Joe Biden!"
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