NEW YORK: Protests against Israel filled streets in Brooklyn and escalated at universities across United States, some of which included Jewish Passover Seders, as demonstrators demanded an end to civilian casualties in Gaza.

Growing protests follow mass arrests of demonstrators at some East Coast universities in recent days and show deepening dissatisfaction in United States, historically Israel’s most important ally, with course of war with Hamas.

Pro-Palestinian protests have followed President Joe Biden, self-declared “Zionist,” for months. At universities, protests have recently grown to encampments that draw students and faculty of various backgrounds, including of Jewish and Muslim faiths that host teach-ins, interfaith prayers and musical performances.

Large Brooklyn street protest reached standoff when New York police began to arrest people over disorderly conduct, restraining those who refused to move with zip ties.

Council on American-Islamic Relations criticised use of police force to stifle dissent, saying it undermined academic freedom.

“So does defaming and endangering Jewish, Muslim and Palestinian-students based on suspiciously inflammatory remarks that few unidentified, masked individuals have made outside of campus,” Afaf Nasher, executive director of CAIR in New York, said in statement.

“There are no universities left in Gaza. So we chose to reclaim our university for people of Palestine,” said Soph Askanase, Jewish Columbia student who was arrested and suspended for protesting. “Antisemitism, Islamophobia and racism, in particular racism against Arabs and Palestinians, are all cut from same cloth.”

Milton Zerman, 25, second-year student at Berkeley’s law school, who is from Los Angeles, said Jewish and Israeli students have suffered from hateful harassment.

In Brooklyn, about 2,000 people occupied plaza near Brooklyn home of US Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, staunch Israel supporter and highest-ranking Jew in US government, chanting, “Stop arming Israel,” “Stop funding genocide” and “Let Gaza live.”

Published in The Daily National Courier, April, 25 2024

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