WASHINGTON — Pro-Palestinian protests continued into their second day in the heart of the nation’s capital, where students, professors, and others have converged on George Washington University to call for divestment in Israeli-related companies, as the school pledges to punish those who continue to violate its rules.
Protesters at the unsanctioned encampment blew through a 7 p.m. curfew on Thursday, where the university requested those involved to remove themselves and their tents from University Yard. However, the school appears to be taking a more hard-line approach today, telling the Washington Examiner the remaining students in the camp “are trespassing on private property and violating university regulations.”
University spokesman Josh Grossman also said, “We will pursue disciplinary actions against the GW students involved in these unauthorized demonstrations that continue to disrupt university operations.”
The school’s response could lead to a clash with protesters as Moataz Salim, a Palestinian American second-year doctorate student in a clinical psychology program, who is one of the few remaining inside the encampment, told the Washington Examiner, “We’re not leaving unless they force us out.”
By the Friday afternoon, only about 20 protesters appeared to remain inside the encampment, though they received support from around 200 persons outside the barricades. Since the morning, students appeared to have been leaving the encampment, leaving a mostly empty space of tents behind. In a 4 p.m. social media post on Friday, the Washington, D.C., Maryland, and Virginia metropolitan area Coalition of Students for Justice in Palestine called on students to turn out in support.
The GW campus has become the demonstration ground for many DMV metropolitan area schools to converge, as students, professors, and others from Georgetown University, American University, University of Maryland, and George Mason University were in attendance. Police presence appeared to have been moderate, with both university police and the Metropolitan Police Department growing in numbers as the day progressed.
Grossman said the school is aware of the non-GW students on campus, adding, “We continue to work with the MPD to ensure the safety and security of our campus.”
The Washington university protest comes as similar pro-Palestinian encampments have formed on campuses across the country in protest of U.S. support for Israel in its war against Hamas in Gaza. The protests have spread against the backdrop of tensions at elite universities over antisemitism, free speech, and selective enforcement of school rules.
According to a social media post from the GW Student Coalition for Palestine, the school threatened students in the encampment with interim suspension, which the group said puts students at risk for losing all class credits and housing for the semester. “GW is trying to leave their students houseless for peacefully protesting,” the post said.
Organizers’ demands are not unlike the demands of students behind similar protests and encampments at other schools. Salim said they are looking for the school to disclose the organizations that are funding it, including endowments and investments. They are also looking for the school to “divest from any Israeli companies involved in tech that’s used to surveil and intimidate Palestinians, or Israeli weapons manufacturers,” Salim said, adding that the organizers want GW to end all academic partnerships it has with Israeli universities.
“GW has a history of cracking down on any sort of pro-Palestine speech, on Palestinians themselves, myself included,” Salim explained, noting that the school had suspended pro-Palestinian organizations, including Students for Justice in Palestine, and refused to use the word “Palestine” in school communications. “It’s a form of erasure, like they don’t see us as human beings,” Salim said.
Protests such as the one at GW have been criticized by many as being antisemitic and sometimes violent. At the GW protest, a picture of one unidentified man holding a sign referencing the “Final Solution,” a genocidal term used by the Nazis during the Holocaust, caught fire on social media, prompting widespread criticism.
Salim rejected the “antisemitic” and “pro-Hamas” labels applied to the protesters by many critics, drawing a distinction between criticizing the Israeli government for committing what he believes is a “genocide” and hatred toward Jewish people.
“I think they’re ridiculous accusations [that are] rooted in some level of racism,” he said. “When they say we’re pro-Hamas, that’s a horrible, horrible allegation.”
“Before I was even outspoken as a Palestinian, I have been called a terrorist, a terrorist sympathizer. It’s a form of dehumanization and racism that they use against us, especially as Arabs,” Salim said. “It’s a very ugly stereotype, and in terms of like saying that we’re antisemitic, we’ve made it very clear time and time again, that first and foremost, we’re here in solidarity with Gaza, and we’re here to oppose the Zionist Israeli state. That has nothing to do with the Jewish faith.”
When asked how he responds to Jewish students saying they feel unsafe when protests such as these pop up on their campuses, Salim said, “There’s a difference between safety and comfort.”
CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER
“I think to say that they feel unsafe, maybe they feel a level of discomfort, which is maybe understandable, because part of the Israeli state’s propaganda is that it co-opts the Jewish faith into its whole creation,” Salim continued. “What they’re doing is not at all aligned with the Jewish faith, which calls for peace, for love for all, for acts of service to the world, not genocide, including over 15,000 children and mass graves with over 300 bodies. That state claims to represent the Jewish faith; I mean, I would certainly hope not.”
The protesters have at times chanted chanted “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free,” which is widely viewed as the eradication of Jews in Israel.