NEW YORK — A fake protest camp set up for a TV filming on a New York college campus provoked a real backlash from pro-Palestinian activists, who organized their own demonstration against the filming, a newspaper reported Wednesday.
The scenario played out Monday and Tuesday at Queens College, where the CBS drama “FBI: Most Wanted” was filming an upcoming episode involving a climate change protest, The New York Times reported.
Like some of the camps that formed in college campuses in the USA It is in another place This spring, to protest Israel’s actions in its war against Hamas, the televised protest featured tents, sleeping bags and handmade banners.
Members of some pro-Palestinian groups, Within Our Lifetime and Students for Justice in Palestine, were offended and organized their own protest on the sidelines of the fictional one, the Times reported. Production shut down earlier than expected on Monday after protesters showed up, and a group of about 15 protesters returned on Tuesday, the newspaper reported. It was not clear whether any of them were students.
The newspaper said the protesters refused to speak to a reporter. However, in chants and pamphlets, they called the filming “propaganda” and the use of the campus “a clear attempt to simultaneously demonize and profit from the student movement.”
The show’s producers declined to comment, the Times said.
Queens College said in a statement that the “campus community” was informed in advance about the TV filming, including its “focus on a protest against climate change/environmental issues at a fictional college.”
Filming wrapped as planned at noon Tuesday, according to the Times.
This year’s Gaza-related student protest movement was triggered by a demonstration at Columbia University in New York, then swept many other US campuses. Camps have popped up at some schools, though not at Queens College.
Although many protests were peaceful, there were more than 3,200 arrests. Some campuses saw interruptions, strikes or cancellations of graduation ceremonies. Some schools acted complaints received about anti-Semitic and anti-Palestinian harassment.
The war started when Hamas militants attacked Israel on October 7, taking hostages and killing 1,200 people, most of them civilians. In Gaza, more than 39 thousand Palestinians were killedaccording to the territory’s Ministry of Health, which does not distinguish between combatants and civilians.
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