In the News: Campus Protests over War on Gaza Rock Capitol Hill
“Fallout from campus protests felt on Capitol Hill”
Roll Call
Justin Papp
May 1, 2024
Excerpts from the story:
As protests of the war in Gaza roil college campuses, the issue has reverberated through Congress, provoking strong emotions and political sparring.
Progressive staffers came out in support of encampments that Republicans — and some Democrats — have rushed to condemn, a day after police arrested around 300 people in New York City and opposing protesters clashed at UCLA.
“As we watch students standing up, coming together, and speaking truth to power about the bombardment and blockade of Gaza, we see a generation of unheard voices rallying for justice in the same way civil rights and anti-war protestors have throughout American history,” the Congressional Progressive Staff Association said in a statement Wednesday.
The staff group “unequivocally stands alongside these nonviolent student protesters and their efforts to raise the alarm about the complicity of both their colleges and of the United States in the War on Gaza,” the statement continues.
The protests have raised questions about free speech on college campuses. And they’ve put Democrats in an awkward political position, especially as scenes have escalated and police have cracked down.
***
Tensions between progressive congressional staffers seeking a ceasefire and their often more moderate bosses have simmered since the start of the war.
A group of staffers held a vigil on the House steps in November. And in February, an underground group of Hill aides dubbed Congressional Staff for a Ceasefire Now organized a fundraiser to support aid agencies in Gaza. Congressional staffers signed an open letter calling for a ceasefire, and administration officials have left their jobs in protest of the U.S. government’s support for the war.
Michael Suchecki, spokesperson for the Congressional Progressive Staff Association, didn’t deny that antisemitic incidents had occurred at some of the campus protests. And the group’s statement makes the point that “in these protests, as in any nonviolent movement, there is no room for hate, discrimination or threats of violence.”
But Suchecki, who said his twin brothers were at the UCLA encampment Tuesday that was attacked by pro-Israel counterprotesters, said violence and antisemitism have not been the norm.
“What we have seen is that the vast majority of these protests and these protesters have been incredibly inclusive, incredibly supportive of individuals of all nationalities and of all faiths in participating in and joining their encampment to protest the war in Gaza,” Suchecki said.