With eyes on US college campuses, students stress: ‘Gaza is why we’re here’

hello I'm serl vaner it's good to have you with us this is the newsour live from Doha coming up in the program this hour American universities rocked by protests against Israel's war on Gaza they've also triggered demonstrations beyond the United States spanning France the UK and Australia I'm Kristen salumi at columia University where student demonstrators have refused the administration's latest offer to try to get them to leave the campus an aid worker with the Belgian development agency has been killed by an Israeli air strike in Gaza and a sanitation and Water Crisis on the streets of Gaza we will be reporting on how diseases are spreading amid fears of chera also Ukraine issues restrictions on passports for military aged men outside the country to address a shortage of troops at home and in sport the tennis world number three Carlos alcarez has made a winning start to his clay courtt season the Spaniard who's been suffering with injury put on a dominant performance and his quest for a record third consecutive Madrid Open [Applause] [Music] title so we begin this hour with the voices of students from across the world University protests that were triggered by the war on Gaza now growing going into a chorus of disenchantment with governments and Leadership across the globe it's been a little over a week since students at Columbia University in New York began demanding that their school divest from Israel students at Colombia Harvard Georgetown MIT and George Washington University Then followed suit and protests spread from the Northeast to campuses in Michigan Texas and California and now they've gone Global at University College London in Paris at CPO University and all the way to the University of Sydney in Australia where we're going to try and bring you voices from those campuses in the US we are live in New York in Los Angeles in Washington and in Texas let's start with alzer's Kristen salumi at Columbia University the epicenter of this campus protest movement Kristen you have been speaking with representatives of the student body they are negotiating with the university leadership about their encampment about their demands what's happening that's right it is day 10 of this demonstration it's a beautiful Friday afternoon here in New York and you can see I'm right alongside of the encampment where all of the tents are set up the negotiations are ongoing uh but so is the sense of camaraderie and spirit in the camp uh over here where they are uh vowing to stay until their demands are met the students are praying on campus now there's a Muslim uh evening prayer happening right now as I'm talking to you and in a couple hours time there will be a Shabbat Jewish uh dinner this evening as well the students say there is growing camaraderie amongst the group and it's very um welcoming and not hostile not anti-semitic they're trying very hard to fight these accusations and they say for anyone who makes that accusation they should come and see what's happening here but getting to those all important negotiations the students told me that they spent 11 hours with the administration yesterday another hour here this morning there's um some possibility that those discussions will continue over the weekend there is no looming deadline at this point they have not been given a deadline to leave or face eviction uh however they haven't been promised that that won't happen either so there is a little bit of uncertainty a little unsettled uh feeling among the protesters here they don't know what's going to happen on that front the university did make some concessions or some offers I should say to the students saying that they uh they would uh agree to uh look at divestments that are being made by the university and start the process of reviewing them and talking about them with the students but the students said that's not good enough they want a commitment to divest from Israel not just a promise to look at it before they leave the encampment all Kristen thank you so much I'm going to go now to Heidi Jo Castro Heidi's at the University of Texas in Austin Heidi I believe you have a guest with you this hour just before we go uh to that to that interview though you've been explaining that the president of the University where you are has really flip-flopped on how to deal with these protests why that's right Jay Hartzel the president of the University of Texas in Austin he was taking a lot of blame after the images we saw from the first day of these protests and which police had some violent confrontations with the student demonstrators ultimately arresting 57 people almost all of them have had their charges dropped and after the outcry that came not only from protesters but even from some supporters of the University well harzel released a new message last night to the UT Community saying that it was a difficult intense stay saying that he believed at the time that this protest would follow what he said was the the national Playbook unclear exactly what that meant but apparently acknowledging that there was no violence but that the police believed there would be and then we saw those conflicts taking place and now he says he is quote grateful that that these peaceful protests at the UT Austin campus are continuing of course I want to know what the people here are thinking about that that does bring in our guest this is Dr Basu uh vasu D so so much thanks to you for joining us thank you for having me as a faculty member why is it important you to come here and what do you make of the president's statements you know it's interesting because I think the president um is making it sound now as if uh it is the campus's Free Speech policies that are allowing these protests to continue when in reality these protests have been nothing but peaceful they have been nothing but a spontaneous and organized expression of conversation of people's feelings about what's happening at a time when the university is fully repressing any conversation about Palestine faculty are scared to mention the word Palestine in their classes people don't want to talk about the genocide and there has been strong indication from the University throughout since October 7th that this is not a topic of conversation despite the formal notices and emails you know occasionally in response to events that seem to claim that the university supports free speech so I'm not at all surprised by hearts's comments but I would say in on one level they're a bold-faced liee and on another level it's kind of cowardly honestly because there was no indication there was no need to call police that day at all and there was nothing leading up to to that would suggest that what you're seeing happening today as you can tell it's a community space it's collaborative people have been praying eating um learning learning about the law learning about what it means to be students and exercising Free Speech there have been art spaces I did a class this morning the same as I would in one of my seminars and it's a beautiful space and this is exactly the program actually from two days ago so I was asked to teach two days ago and this is what it was supposed to be like and very quickly we've heard from Pro from protesters saying that they still want the central message of this protest to be about the people of Gaza and the resistance to Israel's war there talk about how that message is you're trying to ring that through absolutely we I'm part of the Austin Texas faculty and staff for justice in Palestine we are an ad hoc Coalition of Faculty who support the Palestine solidarity committee the students who are the leaders and Visionaries in the school who are really Shifting the conversation and holding the school down creating this space where it's possible to even have these conversations and you know I mean I think for us as faculty we have a commitment we have an obligation and as people as humans who are living through a genocide this is no war this is a genocide it is very clear and it is clear from Scholars of genocide it is clear from human rights law that across every measure of what constitutes a genocide and ecocide and it's colas acide a killing of all universities of Faculty of knowledge production that is what is happening and and it is Our obligation as Scholars this is what we do I do this day in and day out and it's my job to teach about this thank you Dr vas and those are the words that are being shared here are really conversations in fact there are some Israeli supporters who have also come to dialogue with these Pro Palestinian supporters here on the University of Texas Austin campus we're seeing a peaceful protest going forth and they say this is really in defiance of the crackdowns and the unwarranted claim of anti-Semitism that the university leadership has tried to stick to these protesters zero all right Heidi thank you very much we're going to take it back to the east coast Alan fiser is at George Washington University in Washington DC Alan I wonder what you're seeing how the how George Washington uh University is dealing with the student protests there and also whether they're engaging with the substance of the protest on any level which is Israel's war on Gaza what has happened here is that the protesters who were in the the the college yard many of them are still there but the numbers are down significantly but there's still a tented encampment there but there's a large protest in the street just outside the college yard as you can see here there was about a couple of hours ago maybe about 100 people here that number has now swollen over the last couple of hours to close on 300 and they're having people speak and give their own views of what is happening in Gaza uh joining me live here now is uh hanar badi who is an activist who's someone who has been involved in protests outside Anthony blinken's house the Secretary of State here why are you here what what brought you to this because you have protested outside the Israeli Embassy outside Tony blinken's house why is this so special to you I think the power of encampments and the power of consistent endurance and protest is extremely important we are at a very critical moment in Shifting the public opinion in the United States holding accountable institutions that enable and support and whitewash Israel's crimes and crimes against humanity and also showing the world that we are no longer afraid we are no longer afraid to step into our advocacy into the power of the resistance and saying enough of the inhumanity enough of the violations of international law we've had encampments now in front of blink's home today is day 93 of our encampment in front of the home of the US Secretary of State and we are at day 60 of our 247 encampment also in front of the Israeli Embassy and we are so proud to have been joined by so many students many of whom are currently camping in this yard uh right here that have been with us from the beginning and we are here to show solidarity we are here to support the students movements it is extremely powerful when students start to step up and say we are no longer afraid to risk our careers we are not afraid to speak the truth and we are going to put apply put into applications everything that we're learning about in textbooks that the schools somehow are so afraid of them to do and and that's why people go to school they go to school to learn critical thinking to learn how to hopefully make the world a better place and the fact that it's being stopped is ludicrous and a lot of the critic iism has been that that you're cranks you're you're representing a minority view that you're troublemakers that you're anti-semitic not that we've seen much evidence of any of that here but do you genuinely feel a shift in American public opinion driven by the young people I definitely feel a shift we've been on the streets now uh you know as a collective group for 10 today is 87 days um and when we started we were getting a lot more vile commentary a lot of of just disgusting rhetoric being called terrorists racists rapists I have been called so many things been spit on been slapped um and what we're seeing now is more and more people saying I wish I knew more your presence your persistence people being on the streets is encouraging us to learn we want to know why you are so enraged and why you feel so passionately to put your lives on pause to do this full-time and that's making people curious it makes people want to go and learn more about what's happening the calls of you know people being anti-semitic I have not been in a single protest where people have been uh saying things that are anti-semitic I think the dehumanization of the Palestinian people the dehumanization of activism the dehumanization of people calling for justice and freedom for all needs to end and needs to stop and we are hoping that you know we will continue to put pressure to end that by showing Who We Are by showing the true faces of peace and love and Justice and the fight for Freedom you've been a human human rights activist for a long time do you see any parallels here with 68 with the you know the protests that that helped Drive the end of the Vietnam War or even the 1980s were there were protest against the par in South Africa absolutely I I think what we're seeing now is the endurance of the movement we are seeing you know they waited for us to tire out we are currently in the epicenter of what is enabling and supporting Israel's crimes the United States of America specifically Washington DC and so many people that occupy the buildings all around us are benefiting and have been benefiting financially economically socially politically from their support and endorsement of Israel's crimes uh and atrocities over the last 76 years and I think what we're seeing now is that people are saying we're no longer willing to accept it we're no longer willing for that to be the status quo and the norm um and we're seeing a huge shift in public opinion of of people actually saying that I'm not afraid to be called an anti-semite because I know I am not one I know I am not one and that shift is happening um and it's very important specifically in places like Washington DC where you know the city pulls people that are interested in policy the city pulls people that are interested in human rights that are interested in philanthropy and the various institutions that unfortunately we are seeing are way too dominated by Zionist ideologies that do not humanize Palestinians and our fight for freedom and Justice our fight is not one that should be controversial and we see in Vietnam and you see you know for from all these other protest movements it's when the masses start to stop allowing the dehumanization of our causes when we start to own our power and step into it when we start to say that we are willing to sacrifice our security our freedom our um you know Comfort to say enough this needs to end enough that's when the S starts to change because then you start to have endurance I know for a fact they were waiting for us to tire out I know for a fact we've heard that repeatedly from Secret Service during our protest oh I'm sure you guys will be gone next week oh I'm sure three weeks we sat through the snow through the rain through the hail through the wind through the flooding through it all and we're not going anywhere I know you're incredibly busy I appreciate you taking the time to speak this live

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Length: 15min 9sec (909 seconds)

Published: Fri Apr 26 2024