Pro-Palestinian protests that have reached a fever pitch across the U.S. in recent weeks have now spread globally, with students at universities across the Middle East, Europe and Australia occupying central locations on campuses this week to call for an end to the war in Gaza, as well as divestment by their universities from companies that do business with Israel. (Washington Post)
It was immediately clear when the war in Gaza began that the conflict would have an intensely polarizing effect, as every flare-up of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict has, particularly in the West. Not only has that been the case, but the war has also had a profound impact on U.S. domestic politics. Pro-Palestinian protests have divided the left while galvanizing the right, which has characterized them as antisemitic and called for police crackdowns on the rapidly spreading student encampments.
The protests have created a conundrum for U.S. President Joe Biden, in particular, for two reasons. To begin with, he can’t afford to further alienate the largely pro-Palestinian progressive wing of the Democratic Party if he is to win the U.S. presidential election in November. But beyond that, the crackdown on campus protests seen across the U.S. in recent weeks undermines his own rhetoric about the importance of freedom of expression in the defense of democracy abroad.
Meanwhile, it is notable that the campus protests in the U.S. have found an echo in the Middle East and around the world. As Daniel Drezner pointed out, this now marks the second time in just four years that protests in the U.S. have gone global, with the previous example being the wave of Black Lives Matter protests in 2020 that quickly spread internationally. Both cases highlight the centuries-long two-way dialogue between U.S. progressives—and particularly the abolitionist and Black civil rights movements— and the broader anti-slavery and anti-colonial movements internationally.
There are key differences between today’s pro-Palestinian protests and the Black Lives Matter protests four years ago, though. In 2020, there was much more consensus regarding the substance of the grievances that fueled the protests, even if there was disagreement about specific issues, such as whether or not iconic statues should be removed. The current wave of pro-Palestinian protests have been much more polarizing, as we noted at the outset, and governments have responded to them differently. Most European states have repressed pro-Palestinian protests since the war in Gaza began, and the U.S. and Middle Eastern states are beginning to do so more intensely now.
The latter crackdown marks a significant shift from the beginning of the war, when many Middle Eastern governments were highly critical of Israel and expressed solidarity with the Palestinian cause, which has broad popular support across the region. Now, though, the same governments have begun to repress pro-Palestinian protests, out of fear they will become uncontrollable, but also at times to avoid the inconvenient truth of these states’ normalization goals with Israel.
For Palestinians and the pro-Palestine movement, the crackdowns across the region mark the latest in a long history of betrayals, with even governments that nominally support Palestinian statehood repressing protests in support of the same cause. It underscores that, despite enjoying popular support globally, Palestinians are still broadly alone in their struggle for self-determination.