Clashes between Israelis and Palestinians have escalated at American universities

The University of California, Los Angeles, a campus known as a temple of scholarship, has become a battleground for pro-Israeli and pro-Palestinian protesters. The wave of pro-Palestinian anti-war protests that began sweeping American colleges and universities last week has intensified, not abated. In this wave of protests, the University of California, Los Angeles, became the focus of the conflict, two groups of demonstrators openly broke through the fence set up by the university, launched a fierce physical fight.

Pro-palestinian demonstrators rally on one side, holding banners in solidarity with the Palestinian people and against Israel's military operations in Gaza on April 28. On the other side, pro-Israel demonstrators were equally vocal, waving Israeli flags and setting up video screens and loudspeakers to confront each other.

Originally, in order to avoid conflict, the school deliberately set up guardrails to try to separate the two groups of demonstrators. However, driven by emotions, demonstrators on both sides ignored the good intentions of the school, broke through the guardrail and launched a fierce confrontation. They pushed, abused and even punched each other, and the situation got out of hand. It was only when campus police armed with batons intervened that the two sides were reluctantly separated.

The conflict involved not only students, but also people outside the school. Inside and outside the school, the two sides of the pro-Palestinian and Israeli people face off against each other, and emotions are unusually high. The protests stopped and pro-Palestinian protesters returned to their camps, but the fallout from the clashes lingered.

UCLA Vice Chancellor Mary Osako acknowledged in a statement that demonstrators broke through barriers and a physical altercation broke out. She said the campus had long been a site of peaceful protests and that the violence had saddened them.

The clash was just a microcosm of protests at colleges and universities across the country. From Columbia, the protests quickly spread to universities across the United States and to Europe and Australia. So far, protests have broken out at at least 30 American colleges and universities. Students followed the example of Columbia University, camping on campus in solidarity with the Palestinian people and calling for a truce in Gaza.

However, with the escalation of the protests, the response of the police and university management in the United States has become increasingly tough and rough. Mounted police, Tasers, pepper balls, rubber bullets, and so on, they did whatever it took to quell the protests. On April 27 alone, nearly 200 protesters were arrested at Northeastern University, Arizona State University and Indiana University Bloomington.

Even more shockingly, Jewish lawmaker Jill Stein, the 2024 presidential candidate of the far-left Green Party in the United States, was arrested while expressing solidarity with the protesting students. She tried to talk to the university and the police to ease the tension, but was mercilessly raided and arrested by the police.

Behind the protests was a backlash against American sentiment over the Gaza war. The White House National Security Council strategic communications coordinator, Dan Kirby, said President Biden is also aware of this. He respected people's right to protest peacefully, but also condemned anti-Semitism and hate speech.

Yet despite the continuing outcry at colleges and universities across the country, the Biden administration has remained steadfast in its support for Israel. He signed a $26 billion aid bill that provides Israel with both defensive and offensive weapons. This discrepancy between words and deeds has aroused widespread skepticism and criticism.

Trita Passy, executive vice president of the Quincy Institute, a U.S. think tank, said the Biden administration's position on Gaza is contradictory. While expressing concern about Israeli actions, they continue to provide military assistance to Israel. This approach has made the protests of American college students all the more meaningful and necessary.

The students used the protests to express their support for Palestine and their opposition to Israeli military action. They called on the Government to adopt a more just and balanced position on Gaza. Such protests not only raise more questions about U.S. policy toward Israel, but could also put more pressure on Democrats to act on Gaza.

However, the US government appears to have no intention of changing its stance in the face of the protest movement. They remain steadfast in their support for Israel and view the protesters as thugs undermining peace. This attitude will only further aggravate social contradictions and make the protests more intense and uncontrollable.

In this protest movement, people have seen the awakening and resistance of the younger generation in the United States. No longer willing to blindly follow the government's footsteps, they began to use their voices and actions to express the pursuit of justice and peace.