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Pomona College Faculty Condemn Arrest of Anti-Zionist Protesters, Continuing Attack on Black Officials Who Resist Anti-Israel Pressure
Anti-Zionist protesters being arrested at Pomona College on April 5, 2024. They had taken over an administrative building. Photo: Screenshot/Students for Justice in Palestine via Instagram
The faculty at Pomona College in Claremont, California have censured their school for calling the police to arrest nearly two dozen anti-Zionist students who illegally occupied an administrative building to protest Israel’s military offensive against Hamas, the campus’ official newspaper reported over the weekend.
“The faculty condemns the present and future militarization and use of police on the campus,” said a resolution passed with the approval of 92 professors, while 39 voted no and four abstained. “It insists that the college immediately drop criminal charges and reverse the suspensions and all related consequences against student protesters for their actions of civil disobedience.”
The faculty’s volley of criticism came after dozens of students, many of whom were members of the anti-Zionist campus group Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP), began occupying Alexander Hall on campus earlier this month. At least 18 of the students commandeered the office of Pomona College president Gabrielle Starr.
According to Starr — the first African American in the history of the school to hold the position — the students spoke impertinently to their superiors and, along with refusing to provide identification, uttered an “anti-Black racial slur in addressing an administrator.”
In total, 20 students, including one who allegedly attempted to stand in the way of a police officer escorting a student in custody, were arrested and later released.
The demonstration was reportedly prompted by the administration’s dismantling of an “apartheid wall” that activists mounted earlier that week — SJP partisans have cited that as the reason the group unlawfully occupied Alexander Hall and disparaged Black administrators.
Since the incident, numerous campus groups have criticized Starr’s method of restoring order on campus, which included levying suspensions against any student who participated in the demonstration. SJP has demanded that Starr, who is African American, resign from her position, and the school’s student government, Associated Students of Pomona College (ASPC), has accused her of violating the students’ right to due process by “circumventing” a disciplinary process in which students render the final judgement. The Middle East Studies Association (MESA), which supports the boycott, divestment, and sanctions (BDS) movement against Israel, has maintained that the students acted peaceably but did not mention Starr’s accusation of anti-Black racism, which progressives in higher education have previously described as tantamount to violence.
“We ask you to refrain in the future from bringing the police to campus to coercively [sic] suppress student activism,” MESA said in a statement. “Finally, we urge you to publicly and vigorously reaffirm Pomona College’s commitment to respecting the right of your students and all other members of the college community to freedom of speech and assembly, and to academic freedom, including with regard to advocacy for Palestinian rights and divestment by means of peaceful protest and civil disobedience.”
This is not the first time that anti-Zionists have hurled abuse at a Black figure who refused to be browbeaten by anti-Zionist protesters.
Last week, an SJP spinoff group at George Washington University (GW) in Washington, DC handed out pamphlets accusing US Ambassador to the United Nations Linda Thomas-Greenfield — who was on campus to give a talk encouraging Black youth to pursue careers in foreign affairs — of being a “puppet” because she has vetoed UN Security Council resolutions calling for a ceasefire to the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza. They also compared Greenfield to Black enslaved persons who had been assigned, against their will, to work as overseers of other enslaved persons on cotton plantations, arguing that she represents “Black bodies as puppets to carry out repression and dissent.” The students also surrounded a Black GW dean, Colette Coleman, screaming that she should resign while one student clapped their hands in her face.
US colleges and universities are taking action against students who hold unauthorized demonstrations in defiance of school rules, reversing a decades-long trend of lax enforcement of rules governing such student protests.
Earlier this month, Vanderbilt University suspended and expelled anti-Zionist students who participated in occupying an administrative building last month. Several had “assaulted a Community Service Officer” to gain access to the building and others “pushed” officials who suggested having a discussion about their concerns, according to the school’s administration. Those students also verbally abused a Black official, shouting, “Shame on You!” at him and insisting that this racial identity demanded his becoming an accessory to their action.
On the same day, Columbia University president Minouche Shafik confirmed that up to six student members of an anti-Zionist organization that invited a terrorist to campus have been suspended. According to The Columbia Spectator, their scholarships have been cancelled and they are evicted from campus housing.
Follow Dion J. Pierre @DionJPierre.
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Netanyahu Says Israel Will Make Own Decisions on Self-Defense After Meeting With Allies to Discuss Iran Attack
Israel’s military displays what they say is an Iranian ballistic missile which they retrieved from the Dead Sea after Iran launched drones and missiles towards Israel, at Julis military base, in southern Israel, April 16, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Amir Cohen
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowed on Wednesday that Israel will make its own decisions about how to defend itself after meeting with the British and German foreign ministers to discuss how the Jewish state plans to respond to a recent direct attack by Iran.
“During the meetings, Prime Minister Netanyahu insisted that Israel preserve the right to self-defense,” Netanyahu’s office said in a statement. “The Prime Minister thanked the Foreign Minister of Great Britain and the Foreign Minister of Germany for their unequivocal support and for the countries’ standing in an unprecedented defense against Iran’s attack on the State of Israel.”
Netanyahu echoed that message in a subsequent meeting of the Israeli cabinet. The premier said that while he appreciated the “suggestions and advice” from David Cameron of the UK and Annalena Baerbock of Germany, Israel would “make our own decisions, and the State of Israel will do everything necessary to defend itself.”
The top British and German diplomats traveled to Israel to meet with Netanyahu as part of a coordinated effort to prevent confrontation between Iran and Israel from escalating into a regional conflict.
Iran launched an unprecedented direct attack against the Israeli homeland on Saturday. Israel, with the help of allies including the US and Britain, repelled the massive Iranian drone and missile salvo.
World leaders, especially in the US and Europe, have been urging Israel to show restraint in its response and to de-escalate tensions. The US, European Union, and G7 group of industrialized nations all announced plans to consider additional sanctions on Iran.
From his meetings, however, Cameron said it was “clear that Israel has decided to respond to the Iranian attack. We hope that Jerusalem will act in a way that will cause as little escalation as possible.”
Baerbock argued that escalation “would serve no one, not Israel’s security, not the many dozens of hostages still in the hands of Hamas, not the suffering population of Gaza, not the many people in Iran who are themselves suffering under the regime.” She also told Israel officials that “we won’t tell you how to act, but think about the future of the region. Act wisely.”
Leading up to Saturday’s attack, Iranian officials had promised revenge for an airstrike on Iran’s consulate in Damascus, Syria last week that Iran has attributed to Israel. The strike killed seven members of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC), a US-designated terrorist organization, including two senior commanders. One of the commanders allegedly helped plan the Hamas terrorist group’s Oct. 7 massacre across southern Israel.
Israel has neither confirmed nor denied involvement in the incident.
The escalating tensions between Iran and Israel risk spreading an already explosive situation in the Middle East amid the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza. Iran has been Hamas’ chief international sponsor, providing the Palestinian terror group with weapons, funding, and training.
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UN Security Council to Vote Friday on Palestinian UN Membership
PA President Mahmoud Abbas gestures during a meeting in Ramallah, in the West Bank August 18, 2020. Photo: REUTERS/Mohamad Torokman/Pool
The United Nations Security Council is scheduled to vote Friday on a Palestinian request for full UN membership, said diplomats, a move that Israel’s ally the United States is expected to block because it would effectively recognize a Palestinian state.
The 15-member council is due to vote at 3 pm (1900 GMT) Friday on a draft resolution that recommends to the 193-member UN General Assembly that “the State of Palestine be admitted to membership of the United Nations,” diplomats said.
A council resolution needs at least nine votes in favor and no vetoes by the US, Britain, France, Russia, or China to pass. Diplomats say the measure could have the support of up to 13 council members, which would force the US to use its veto.
Council member Algeria, which put forward the draft resolution, had requested a vote for Thursday afternoon to coincide with a Security Council meeting on the Middle East, which is due to be attended by several ministers.
The United States has said that establishing an independent Palestinian state should happen through direct negotiations between the parties and not at the United Nations.
“We do not see that doing a resolution in the Security Council will necessarily get us to a place where we can find … a two-state solution moving forward,” US Ambassador to the UN Linda Thomas-Greenfield said on Wednesday.
The Palestinians are currently a non-member observer state, a recognition that was granted by the 193-member UN General Assembly in 2012. But an application to become a full UN member needs to be approved by the Security Council and then at least two-thirds of the General Assembly.
The Palestinian push for full UN membership comes six months into a war between Israel and Palestinian Hamas terrorists in Gaza, and as Israel is expanding settlements in the West Bank.
Israel‘s UN Ambassador Gilad Erdan said earlier this month that “whoever supports recognizing a Palestinian state at such a time not only gives a prize to terror, but also backs unilateral steps which are contradictory to the agreed-upon principle of direct negotiations.”
A Security Council committee on the admission of new members — made up of all 15 council members — met twice last week to discuss the Palestinian application and agreed to a report on the issue on Tuesday.
“Regarding the issue of whether the application met all the criteria for membership … the committee was unable to make a unanimous recommendation to the Security Council,” the report said, adding that “differing views were expressed.”
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Hezbollah Attack Hits Community Center in Northern Israel, Injuring 18
An Israeli soldier looks on at a scene, after it was reported that people were injured, amid ongoing cross-border hostilities between Hezbollah and Israeli forces, near Arab al-Aramashe in northern Israel, April 17, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Avi Ohayon
Fourteen Israeli soldiers and four civilians were injured on Wednesday when Hezbollah fired drones and missiles at northern Israel, escalating tensions along the border between the Jewish state and the Iran-backed terrorist group in Lebanon.
Some of the military projectiles hit a community center in the Bedouin town of Arab al-Aramshe near the Israel-Lebanon border. Soldiers may have been using the building as a gathering space.
The victims were taken to Galilee Medical Center in Nahariya. According to the hospital, one was listed in critical condition and four others were seriously wounded, while the remaining victims were moderately and lightly hurt. The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said that all five victims who were in critical and serious condition were soldiers.
Hezbollah claimed responsibility for firing anti-tank guided missiles and explosive-laden drones from Lebanese territory toward northern Israel, saying the attack was in response to the killing of three of its members, including two commanders, in Israeli strikes in southern Lebanon a day earlier.
Video posted to social media showed what are called “suicide drones,” which go directly toward the target and blow up as opposed to dropping a payload — hitting the community center. A nearby car was also struck.
Israel said it responded by targeting the launch sites of the attack.
Tensions have been escalating between Israel and Hezbollah for months, fueling concerns that the war in Gaza — the Palestinian enclave ruled by Hamas, another Iran-backed terror group, to Israel’s south — could escalate into a regional conflict.
Tens of thousands of Israelis have been forced to flee their homes in northern Israel due to constant Hezbollah attacks.
Israeli leaders have said that while they do not seek war with Hezbollah and hope for a diplomatic resolution to the escalating tensions, they are prepared to use significant military force to combat the terror group and allow evacuees to return to their homes in northern Israel.
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