Dave Stockton, Workers Power Britain
The movement against the United States‘ support for Israel’s geocide in Gaza reached a new peak of intensity over the May Day period. Across the country, Gaza solidarity encampments had sprung up, following the example of Columbia students who started their protest on April 17. Dozens of college campuses have seen encampments demanding an end to the genocide, an end to US arms transfers to Israel, and an end to their colleges‘ investment in that country’s businesses, including its arms industry.
Police attacks
On the night before May Day, peaceful protest camps from New York to Los Angeles were subjected to attack by police, using pepper spray and stun grenades, knocking students to the ground and dragging them away in plastic wrist ties. 282 arrests were made at Columbia and City University of New York, (CUNY), campuses. Similar events have occurred at Tulane University, New Orleans, the University of Dallas, Texas, University of Tucson, Arizona and the University of Wisconsin, Madison.
The most shocking events occurred at the University of California Los Angeles (UCLA) where masked pro-Israel thugs from off campus, wielding baseball bats, threw fireworks, tried to tear down barricades and assaulted protesters with metal pipes, mace and pepper spray.
Anna, a spokesperson for the encampment, told Al Jazeera on May 1 that the attack lasted from late Tuesday night into the early hours of Wednesday morning. She added, “The police did nothing. … They were coming at us with metal pipes. Numerous people went to the hospital because of how badly they were injured. One person left in a wheelchair. Another had their hand completely smashed.”
Nevertheless, she added “ …this isn’t about us as students, this is about how we as students can bring attention to the plight of the Palestinians and to the genocide in Gaza. What has brought so many people to this camp is our love for Palestine, for the life and dignity of freedom of Palestinians.”
Members of the UCLA Radio News Department reported,
“As students were being relentlessly harassed by counter-protesters, the campus security and the University of California Police Department (UCPD) continued to watch and not engage. No efforts were made to protect the students of UCLA” they wrote. “Additionally, when LAPD and the California Highway Patrol were called to the scene, they did not intervene with the violent protesters for an hour.”
But outrageous scenes will only increase the motivation of people who will not stand by and see a 21st century genocide committed in Rafah. Nor will it stop this magnificent movement in the US from inspiring the growth of the movement in Britain and other countries in Europe and beyond.
Solidarity!
We will not be diverted by the charade of ceasefire negotiations going on in Qatar and Cairo and the attempt by the US and Britain to present Hamas as the obstacle to such a ceasefire. It is even more vital that the pro-Palestinian movement is not intimidated from exposing Israel’s crimes. In the US, the movement has drawn support from unions on campus, and it is to the labour movement in every country that we must turn, calling on them to throw their weight behind demands to stop arming genocide by joining the demonstrations, by supporting BDS and by taking direct action in support of Palestine.
In Britain, we must put pressure on the Labour Party to abandon Keir Starmer’s disgraceful pro-Israeli position and to mobilise within the unions and the workplaces to force the leaders, who have hitherto ignored the repeated pro-BDS positions passed at their conferences, to live up to their promises and support action to block Israeli arms sales, and blockade the BAE Systems and Elbit factories, bringing some sort of relief to the suffering and besieged people of Gaza.