Palestinian Flag Raised At Harvard As Anti-Israel Protests Swell: 10 Facts
Pro-Palestine protests at US universities, triggered by Israel’s war against Hamas, spread over the weekend as police crackdowns and arrests continued into another week.
Protesters at Harvard University raised a Palestinian flag at the Ivy League school in a spot usually reserved for the US flag. They also unfurled an enormous Palestinian flag from a top-floor window at the Washington Hilton Hotel, the venue of the annual White House Correspondents’ Association dinner.
Police arrested around 275 people on four separate campuses. They include 100 at Northeastern University in Boston, 80 at Washington University in St Louis, 72 at Arizona State University, and 23 at Indiana University.
Clashes between pro-Israeli and pro-Palestinian demonstrators were reported at UCLA, where a tent encampment was set up last week.
The nationwide protests have caught the attention of President Joe Biden with the White House saying the demonstrations must remain peaceful.
The campus activists are calling for a ceasefire in Israel’s war with Hamas and want colleges to sever ties with the country and with companies they say profit from the conflict in Gaza.
The protests pose a major challenge to university administrators who are trying to balance commitments to free expression with complaints that the rallies have veered into anti-Semitism and hate speech.
Joe Biden spoke on Sunday with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and “reiterated his clear position” on a possible invasion of the Gaza border city of Rafah.
The Israel-Hamas war broke out after Hamas operatives staged an unprecedented attack on Israeli towns on October 7 and left around 1,170 people dead. They also took roughly 250 people hostage.
Israel’s retaliatory offensive has since then killed more than 34,00 people in Gaza.
