Only a week has passed since the Columbia University encampments in favour of Palestine were forcefully moved and the number of protests along with the number of campuses where students are protesting has increased drastically. As much as the campus administrations are calling in troopers to take control, it seems the protests will spread to even more universities across the United States. Pro-Palestine demonstrations have not erupted out of the blue. Across Europe and even the United States, regular rallies have been organised since October 7 – some 3100 across Europe and 2700 in the United States alone.

What is, however, very striking about this current wave is the locality, the community which is now the epicentre of protests. Some twenty universities are already under the sweeping wave of protests against Israel, with students calling on the administration to cut off ties with funding agencies and counterparts in Israel. The protests are erupting from very influential campuses – the University of Southern California, Emory University, Brown University, Emerson College, George Washington University, Indiana University, and the University of California in LA, to name a few. The optics from Emory, police knocking down two professors, have alerted the whole world on the condition of democracy in the US.

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A notable point here is that while US universities are in the limelight after the Columbia incident, we are far less aware of the intense situation emerging in some other prominent European Universities. In SciencesPo, France the administration’s move to call police to disperse only 50-60 students is an early sign of the repression. Likewise, students disrupting a major conference in Turin, Italy alongside calling for cut-off scientific cooperation with Israel on various campuses is another sign that the heat is reaching Europe. The University of Sydney, Australia is another campus where the protests have reached outside the US.

Whether or not Biden’s genocidal administration will back off from supporting Israel, students in the US and Europe are making themselves heard. At the least, this is a strong message of solidarity that is reaching Palestine in real-time. At the least, students are making sure they record themselves on the right side of history. This wave of protests gives enormous hope to everyone supporting Palestine right now. When students speak, their voices carry more weight than any other influential person’s voice. When they speak collectively, their will weighs heavy over whatever conventional wisdom and prejudice the power elites are holding onto. When students speak, the tides turn.

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