Pro-Palestinian student activists continued protests at colleges across the country, as demonstrations spread to more campuses Thursday and students from California to Georgia, Boston to Florida, redoubled efforts to draw attention to the war in Gaza. Police continued to confront protesters on some campuses, and more demonstrators had been arrested at Emerson College, the University of Southern California and the University of Texas at Austin. At campuses across the nation, students who want their schools to cut ties with corporations doing business with Israel were organizing encampments, chanting, and holding demonstrations. In Atlanta, police officers disrupted an encampment at Emory University on Thursday morning, confronting protesters as they attempted to clear the area. An officer deployed a stun gun at a protester who was being restrained, according to social media video examined by the Washington Post. The campus newspaper said officers used gas and arrested protesters, while social media videos appeared to show officers pinning someone to the ground as people screamed. The Washington Post could not immediately verify the student newspaper’s reporting.

Why campus protests against Israel probably won’t be effective

why would throngs of protesters be crowding the campus to protest actions more than 5,000 miles away? The short answer is that they are advocating for a cease-fire in Gaza, for an academic boycott of Israeli universities, and for the administration to “divest all of Columbia’s finances, including the endowment, from companies and institutions that profit from Israeli apartheid, genocide and occupation in Palestine,” as one of the organizing groups put it. The longer answer is that American progressive activism, including Gaza activism, has become quite centered around college campuses. While this might boost its influence among college-educated professionals, it often weakens the wider cause. Divestment has become a popular idea on campus, meant to wound companies that offend protesters in various ways, from running private prisons to manufacturing firearms to producing fossil fuels. Many of these activists appear to have been inspired by the late 20th-century global campaign of boycotts, divestment and sanctions against South Africa, which is often credited with helping end apartheid in that country.

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