Hundreds of Pro-Palestine students have taken control of a central courtyard at Princeton University, demanding their university to divest from companies profiteering from the Israeli occupation of Palestine, on Thursday.
The students vowed to remain there until the university take a divestment decision, repeating chants and slogans that support Gaza such as, “We will not stop, we still not rest” and ‘Resistance is justified when people are occupied”.
The protests also witnessed Students, faculty and community members bringing blankets, books, laptops, and blank canvasses to the lawns across the university’s chapel in the McCosh Courtyard and setting up a “Popular University for Gaza”.
The pro-Palestine activities took place with a view to push back at the Princeton administrators’ decision, on Thursday morning, to shut down the anti-war encampment at the University.
“We were just a few minutes into setting up the tents when they started arresting students,” one of the acitivists said.
Others added that two students were subsequently arrested and immediately evicted from student housing and barred from campus following the shutdown.
Participants said they were demanding the academic and cultural boycott of Israeli institutions and the end of all research on “weapons of war” funded by the US Department of Defense.
In addition, they called on the university to divest from companies that “profit from or engage in the State of Israel’s ongoing military campaign” in Gaza.
To make their protests visible and effective, the students painted, passed out leaflets, and set up a mobile library with books ranging from the works of Frantz Fanon to Rashid Khalidi. They also called on passersby to join and chant to make their presence felt.
Over the past week, students in more than 30 other universities across the US have been raising their voices and speaking up for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza.
On Thursday, hundreds of students at the Harlem campus of City College of New York (Cuny) established its own encampment for Palestine, becoming the fourth to do so in New York City, joining Columbia, New York University, and The New School.
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