The war between Hamas and Israel is constantly spreading. For those who don’t know what’s going on, you can refer to these past articles about this war.
With so many countries becoming involved in this war, many people (including Americans) have also gotten involved through protesting. There have been protests on UC (and other) campuses including UCLA, UC Berkeley, UC San Diego, UC Irvine, UC Santa Cruz, Columbia University, Cal Poly Humboldt, Yale, and USC.
One close example of the protests can be seen at UCLA. According to The New York Times, peaceful pro-Palestine protesters were in the UCLA quad, setting up barricades around themselves to block the area. Then, counter-protestors (who were wearing “pro-Israel slogans”) arrived, started to pull away these barricades and started to attack the protestors as they were trying to put the barricades back into place.
The violence didn’t stop for three hours and even when police arrived, they did not step in to help the situation for nearly one hour.
During the violence, counter-protesters set off fireworks in the quad, sprayed chemicals, and attacked others with makeshift weapons. This caused some protestors to fight back, though many stayed peaceful through the violence. (You can find more information and videos on The New York Times, but please note that there is much violence shown).
The police finally stepped in after many of the counter-protestors had left the scene. Because of the way this violence was handled, the UCLA Police Chief has been reassigned to another location. The UCLA chancellor, Dr. Gene Block, was asked to step down by many students from his position.
Not only were all classes online, but a lot of the campus was closed. UCLA currently reopened their campus and resumed on-campus classes.
“For the past two weeks, classes have become remote. They shut down all libraries during midterm week because there were protests right in the front, and we’re not allowed on campus,” says Ally Thomas, a sophomore and psychology major at UCLA.
“It’s hard to have online classes and not know what’s going on. People have said that protestors are entering the dorms on the hill and my friends are scared and trying to find off-campus housing… but it’s really hard to know what are rumors and what aren’t,” says Thomas.
Another effect of these protests is the impact on commencements. UCLA is heightening security during its
commencement, but USC got hit much harder. They first canceled the commencement speech and then canceled the commencement ceremony for USC seniors, the same seniors who had once had their high school graduation canceled because
of COVID-19. Biden also has gotten negative reactions for his commencement speech at Morehouse for including Palestine in his message.
For those who feel pressured to choose a side or react, “Take your time and really learn about the situation as there’s no easy answer. This problem goes back many decades and I encourage anyone to really learn about the full history before making such a decision [as choosing a side],” says Dr. Rudman, the AP Government teacher at Millikan.
