Pro-Palestine Harvard protesters announce they’re ending campus encampment after demands were ignored – and have now demanded the college reinstate them
Harvard’s pro-Palestinian protesters have announced they will end the campus camp after three weeks because their demands were ignored.
The group leading the protests, Harvard Out of Occupied Palestine, said Tuesday that it had voted to end the encampment at Harvard Yard in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
“The encampment survived the last day of classes, finals week and moving weekend: a testament to the tenacity of our movement,” the group said.
“But when the students left, the police became the dominant presence on campus. Interim chairman [Alan] Garber was willing to go to any lengths to neutralize and expel our organizers in treacherous ways without due process.
‘The campus is being evacuated and the gates remain closed to the outside world. There is no liberation in isolation. In reassessing the strategic value of our encampment, we have concluded that this tactic has outlived its usefulness in relation to our requirements.”
Harvard’s pro-Palestinian protesters have announced they will end the campus camp after three weeks because their demands were ignored. The encampment will be visited on Monday
Students protesting the war in Gaza and passersby walking through Harvard Yard are seen at an encampment at Harvard University on Thursday, April 25.
Spokesman Jonathan Swain said Ivy League interim President Garber plans to meet with the student protester to further discuss the war in Gaza.
However, the pro-Palestinian group said of the meeting: “We are under no illusions: we do not believe that these meetings are a victory for divestment… These side agreements are intended to calm us away from full disclosure and divestment . Rest assured, that won’t happen.’
According to The New York Timesthe school also agreed to quickly reinstate suspended students.
Protests against the war between Israel and Hamas have spread across American college and university campuses in recent weeks, leading to disruptions and arrests.
Some demonstrations expanded into weekend graduation ceremonies, though they were muted compared to the encampments and rallies that roiled campuses and resulted in nearly 2,900 arrests of students and other protesters.
Dozens of Duke University’s 7,000 graduates left their seats Sunday in protest against pro-Israel speaker and comedian Jerry Seinfeld during commencement in Durham, North Carolina.
Some waved the red, green, black and white Palestinian flag and chanted “Free Palestine” amid a mix of boos and cheers.
Spokesman Jonathan Swain said Ivy League interim president Garber plans to meet with the student protester to further discuss the war in Gaza.
A group of pro-Palestinian protesters wearing keffiyehs raised a large Palestinian flag over the monument of Harvard founder John Harvard last month.
Seinfeld, whose decade-long eponymous show became one of the most popular in American television history, was there to receive an honorary doctorate from the university.
The stand-up comedian and actor has publicly supported Israel since it invaded Gaza to dismantle Hamas after the organization attacked the country and killed about 1,200 people in southern Israel on October 7.
More than 35,000 Palestinians have been killed in the ensuing war, according to the Hamas-controlled Health Ministry in Gaza.