Photos of pro-Palestinian camps at universities

PPalestinian encampments have begun on more than a dozen American college campuses, including New York University (NYU), Yale University, and Columbia University. Dozens of students were arrested or suspended for participating in these protests.

On Monday night, the NYPD arrested more than 100 protesters at NYU, including professors – who formed a human chain around the camp to protect students. Police charged the students with trespassing after they set up the camp outside the Stern School of Business.

“It was extremely violent; (The police) started throwing furniture in the yard,” says an NYU graduate student, who asked not to be identified for fear of retaliation from the university. Student says encampments “spread like wildfire” after Columbia President Minouche Shafik invited police officers to campus. “Columbia was definitely the precedent,” adds the student. The NYU camp has now been cleared by authorities.

Others are in progress. Anti-war protesters have started encampments at UC Berkeley, UNC Chapel Hill, Washington University at Saint Louis, University of Michigan, The New School, MIT, Emerson College, Tufts University, University of Pittsburgh, University of Rochester, University of Minnesota and the University of Maryland.

Some Jewish students said they feel unsafe on college campuses with camps. Some organized counterprotests, although they were much smaller. Other Jewish students are part of the protest movement. Student organizers denied accusations of anti-Semitism. The protesters’ main demand is that their universities divest from companies that benefit from the Israeli occupation. The cost of waiting is too high, they say.

Here are photos of the camps: