This time, Yale University was the latest top university in the country to outlaw a pro-Palestine organization in response to protests against the visit of far-right Israeli National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir.
Ben-Gvir’s visit to a “food and aid depot” in the Palestinian territory on Wednesday sparked outrage as protesters criticized the minister’s support for mounting attacks on Gaza and, most recently, his calls to bomb “food and aid depots” in the country.
Raed Jarrar, the advocacy director at Democracy for the Arab World Now (DAWN), described Ben-Gvir’s silence and subsequent crackdown on protesters as “not just a moral contradiction – it’s a moral and legal failure” in an interview with Al Jazeera.
The demonstrations started on Tuesday night when protesters gathered on the university and set up tents in a fading camp. The event, which lasted just a few hours, was similar to the encampment protests that swept across US universities last year, frequently causing administrators to make policy changes and crackdowns.
The encampment had violated its policies, according to a statement from Yale the day before, and students who had been warned or punished in previous incidents would be subject to “immediate disciplinary action.”
Without providing any further information, the university stated that it was looking into “concerns about disturbing anti-Semitic conduct at the gathering.”
The administration also threatened to sue Yalies4Palestine, a student organization, for sending “out calls over social media for others to join the event” and later for claiming credit for the event.
A group of pro-Palestine protesters denied that the event was connected to any group in a statement to the Yale Daily News, a student newspaper.
The protests continued on Wednesday night when Ben-Gvir arrived for a speech at the Shabtai, a private Jewish organization that claims to be “based at Yale University” despite not being formally affiliated with or based there.
According to video of the event, Ben-Gvir briefly made fun of the protesters by using what his office claimed was a “victory sign” gesture as he was met by “shame on you” chants.
Later, according to his office, he was unharmed when a water bottle was thrown at him from the crowd, which included both students and nonstudents.
Attacking students won’t save Yale, according to the saying.
The administration of President Donald Trump has launched a wider pressure campaign on top universities with the latest punishment for pro-Palestine protesters at Yale.
The Trump administration has stepped up the response while former president Joe Biden was widely criticized for supporting crackdowns on pro-Palestine protests.
The Trump administration has attempted to deport noncitizen protesters protesting the constitution of Palestine, and it has threatened to freeze or freeze federal funding for several top universities, including Harvard University in Massachusetts and Columbia University in New York, if they do not consent to a number of policy changes.
Organisers of the protest movement have repeatedly refuted the notion that such demonstrations are anti-Semitic, noting the regular involvement of Jewish students and noting the odd number of anti-Jewish statements made at frequently publicly accessible demonstrations.
Pro-Palestine protesters at Yale accused administrators of retaliating against the Trump administration in a statement released by the student newspaper.
Harvard or Columbia were saved by a combination of attempt for students and hostile community members. They claimed that Yale won’t be saved.
Yale declined to comment on whether concerns about a Trump administration response informed its disciplinary actions or whether it had any plans to respond to Ben-Gvir’s visit.
The assistant attorney general of the Department of Justice’s Civil Rights Division, Harmeet Dhillon, responded to a video on X in which students refused to break a human chain and let students march through their ranks on campus.
The article stated that “Jewish students aren’t allowed to walk through Yale’s campus anymore”!
According to Dhillon, her office is “responding to the concerned students at Yale” and is “tracking the concerning activities there.”
Some observers said the dissonance on display at Yale was especially striking despite criticisms that pro-Palestine protesters have become a common practice in the US.
An Israeli court found Ben-Gvir guilty in 2008 of supporting a “terrorist” organization, the founded Kach group, which supported the Palestinian territories’ annexation and ethnic cleansing.
UN experts have already stated that Israel is engaged in “genocidal acts,” so he has demanded a no-holds-barred military operation in Gaza.
He has urged Israel to carry out war crimes in Gaza in accordance with international law. He most recently stated on X that he had previously told “senior Republican officials” at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida that Israel should bomb “food and aid depots.”
“Deepest contradiction,”
The University of Chicago’s Eman Abdelhadi, a sociologist, claimed that Yale’s silence regarding Ben-Gvir’s speech at a university “exposes the deepest contradictions in our society and in these institutions that are supposed to be dedicated to truth seeking and critical thought.”
Ben-Gvir, she said, “has no red lines.” However, “people who protest can suffer severe consequences.”
In this situation, universities are fighting for their lives and trying to convince the public that their reputation is worth protecting in the face of Trump’s assault, she said. They nevertheless exhibit no moral uptitude.
