After riots

Palestine protest camp in Los Angeles is evacuated

The demonstrators stood in the way of the police. But they made short work of them.

(Bild: APA/AFP/Etienne LAURENT)

The Californian police have now also cracked down on the pro-Palestinian demonstrators. The protest camps on the campus of the University of California in Los Angeles were cleared. Barricades were torn down and dozens of people arrested.

The riot police took action with batons, shields and pepper spray. Activists tried to stop the police. They chanted "push them back". Some held makeshift shields and umbrellas in their hands, others armed themselves with helmets, goggles and breathing masks, as can be seen on TV footage (see video above).

The arrest of a protester in Los Angeles

(Bild: APA/AFP/Etienne LAURENT)

The demonstrators stood in the way of the police. But they made short work of them.

(Bild: APA/AFP/Etienne LAURENT)

The university management had previously ordered the camp to be dispersed. Violent clashes broke out on Wednesday night when a masked group of presumably pro-Israeli counter-demonstrators attacked the tent camp with sticks and poles. University representatives blamed unspecified "instigators" for the riot and announced an investigation. Until the incident, the activists at the tent camp set up last week had largely behaved peacefully.

(Bild: APA/AFP/Etienne LAURENT)

New York police had already broken up a pro-Palestinian protest camp on the campus of the elite Columbia University late on Tuesday evening. The mayor of New York City, Eric Adams, spoke of a total of around 300 arrests at Columbia University and at City College in the US metropolis. In Dallas, police took at least 20 people into custody during the clearing of a protest camp on the grounds of the University of Texas, who were to spend the night in prison, as reported by Fox4.

The protesters' demand
The reason for the protests and clashes is the war in the Gaza Strip between Israel and the militant, radical Islamic Palestinian organization Hamas. Among other things, the protesters are demanding an end to US support for the war in the Gaza Strip and a halt to cooperation between their universities and Israeli institutes and companies.

Critics accuse the radical part of the protest movement in particular of anti-Semitism and trivializing Hamas - which denies Israel's right to exist and triggered the Gaza war with an unprecedented massacre on 7 October. They are countered by protests in many places that show solidarity with the Israeli side and demand the release of the hostages still being held captive by Hamas.

US Congress: definition of anti-Semitism to be expanded
The wave of protests in numerous major US cities has led to the US House of Representatives voting in favor of expanding the legal definition of anti-Semitism. On Wednesday, the House of Representatives voted in favor of a bipartisan bill that provides for the Department of Education to use the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance's (IHRA) definition of anti-Semitism in the future. According to this definition, anti-Semitism is "a certain perception of Jews that can express itself as hatred towards Jews. Anti-Semitism is directed in word or deed against Jewish or non-Jewish individuals and/or their property, as well as against Jewish communal institutions or religious organizations."

It is also a form of anti-Semitism to deny the Jewish people the right to self-determination, for example "by claiming that the existence of the State of Israel is a racist endeavor", according to the IHRA definition. Critics of the proposal, including the civil rights organization ACLU, warn of a restriction on freedom of expression. Republican MP Matt Gaetz even warned that "some passages of the Bible" could now fall under it.