UCLA

2024-05-05

A Chabad flag flying during a pro-Israel protest at the University of California Los Angeles (UCLA) earlier this week left CBS reporters confused as to what it could represent. While covering the , the CBS crew noticed the yellow flag with the blue inscription and crown which read “Moshiach.” The standard was clearly unfamiliar to the CBS crew. “First I’ve seen of this. I’ve never seen this flag before or this logo,” the commentator said. “I don’t know if that’s what this group is. We've been trying to get a clear view of what that says,” he added, struggling to pronounce the word “Moshiach.” CBS trying to decipher the Moshiach flag makes for some incredible journalism . The flag clearly piqued the commentator's curiosity. “I’m totally unfamiliar with what that is, I’ve never seen that flag flying but that is a new thing that all of a sudden someone has brought to the front line," he noted. Law enforcement officials clash with demonstrators, as they try to enter the protest encampment in support of Palestinians at the University of California Los Angeles (UCLA), May 2, 2024 (credit: REUTERS/AUDE GUERRUCCI) The incident comes amid pro-Palestinian students protesting at UCLA, with encampments being installed on site. Skirmishes subsequently erupted who attempted to remove the encampments. Earlier this week, . Following the violence that ensued, police entered the premises to disperse the multitudes. Danielle Greyman-Kennard and Jacob Gurvis contributed to this article.  ...قراءة المزيد

الكلمات المفتاحية المذكورة في المقال:

2024-05-05

African-American University of California Los Angeles (UCLA) student Milagro Jones had his passage blocked on campuses and was told to leave the grounds by pro-Palestinian protesters last week, according to American media. American media further stated that during one of the altercations with the students, Milagro reportedly accused the pro-Palestinian protesters and discrimination, arguing a “white man” was telling him to leave. “They wouldn’t let me move, period. They had me completely surrounded,” he told CNN. “They were saying I was an Israeli agitator, I don’t even know what that is,” he added. He noted that as an African-American, he is opposed to “any type of discrimination.” “I stand for zero tolerance for antisemitism on the campus,” Jones emphasized. The event comes amid pro-Palestinian protests at UCLA last week, which saw who attempted to remove the encampments that had previously been set up on campus by demonstrators. In an incident, . Due to the events on campus, UCLA cautioned students to avoid the campus last week and said classes would be held remotely. Michael Starr and Danielle Greyman-Kannard contributed to this article.  ...قراءة المزيد

الكلمات المفتاحية المذكورة في المقال:

2024-05-03

For the past couple of days, Eli Tsives has watched a video of himself spread online. It shows him trying to enter his campus, the University of California, Los Angeles, and go to class, only to be of pro-Palestinian activists wearing keffiyehs, or Palestinian scarves. Tsives, who is in his first year, handed his phone to another Jewish student who filmed the interaction. He posted the video, but says he didn’t mean to go viral. The newfound fame, he said, has made his life more difficult. “For the first time in my life, I actually have to say, yeah, I don’t feel safe,” Tsives told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency Wednesday morning. “Other students used to not feel safe, and I would advocate for them. But personally, I always used to say, ‘No, I’m fine.’” He continued, “But now that I’ve become so public, I’ve been receiving hate calls, people have been publicly posting on Instagram about me. So it’s very difficult for Jewish students right now on campus.” Pro-Israel counterprotestors started tearing down encampment barriers and screamed "Second nakba!" referring to the mass displacement & dispossession of Palestinians during the 1948 Arab-Israeli war. Per on the scene with another video: The episode was one example of rising tensions at UCLA in the days since students set up an encampment akin to those at dozens of other schools. It turned out to be a relatively tame altercation. The day after Tsives went viral, another video of clashes did so as well: This time, it showed pro-Israel activists physically attacking the perimeter of the school’s pro-Palestinian encampment as well as at least one protester. The demonstrators arrived just before midnight on Tuesday night, many dressed in black clothing with white masks. Photographs and videos from the scene show numerous fights breaking out, objects being thrown into the camp, and at least one firework being set off. Security guards were present at the scene but did not intervene. Police eventually cleared the area around 3 a.m. classes on Wednesday. Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass condemned the violence as “absolutely abhorrent and inexcusable” and called for an investigation. According to the Los Angeles Times, at least 15 people were injured, though it is unclear if anyone was arrested. As of Wednesday afternoon, the area remained restricted to law enforcement and credentialed media, while campus and LA police maintained a heavy presence. Police began clearing the encampment early Thursday morning, clashing with protesters and making arrests as they moved into the area. Among those condemning Tuesday night’s pro-Israel violence are Jewish leaders in LA, and Jewish students at UCLA, which, according to Hillel International, is home to 2,500 Jewish undergraduates among a total of about 32,000. Tsives, who said he witnessed Tuesday night’s clash, said the incident “slows down” those who advocate for Israel. He also laid blame with the university administration, which he said should have removed the encampment days ago when it was found to violate campus rules. “If you’re a student who’s not biased in this situation, and you’re looking at the sides, and you see a pro-Israel mob rush what they think is a peaceful encampment — even though we know this is not a peaceful encampment — it makes us look really bad,” Tsives said. “I’m here to let them know, this was a small group of what the majority of the Jewish people actually believe. We don’t support what they did.” That message was echoed by the LA Jewish federation in a rare statement criticizing the actions of Jews on campus. Like Tsives, the federation also said the violence was a result of the administration failing to act. “We are appalled at the violence that took place on the campus of UCLA last night,” the Wednesday statement said. “The abhorrent actions of a few counter protestors last night do not represent the Jewish community or our values. We believe in peaceful, civic discourse. Unfortunately, the violence at UCLA is a result of the lack of leadership from the Chancellor and the UCLA administration. The Chancellor has allowed for an environment to be created over many months that has made students feel unsafe.” Some Jewish students who condemned Tuesday’s violence also said they were made to feel unsafe on campus. One sociology student said that, like Tsives, he was blocked from crossing campus by pro-Palestinian activists. “It’s been surreal. Surreal is an understatement,” the student told JTA. “I just don’t feel safe on my campus as a Jewish student… It’s kind of gotten to a point where, what are we doing here? This is America.” But the student, who requested anonymity because of the tensions on campus, said the scenes from Tuesday night “just made our stock plummet.” “If this was the stock market we’d be a penny stock right now,” he said. “It’s over. Anyone pro-Israel looks like a barbarian right now, which isn’t a fair representation of most of us.” Many schools with encampments have also experienced counter-demonstrations by pro-Israel students. But UCLA has stood out for the intensity and persistence of pro-Israel protests, which included a mass rally outside the encampment on Sunday that appeared to exceed the encampment’s footprint. A sophomore who gave her name as Stella V., and who wears a Star of David and a Hebrew “Shalom” necklace, said a Jewish professor of hers had recently asked if she felt safe wearing visibly identifiable Jewish jewelry at school. “I told her yes, but in reflecting on that, I realized no, it’s not comfortable for me to wear my necklaces on campus,” Stella told JTA. “And yet, I’m going to anyway. Because it’s important that we stay proud and stay true to who we are in this tense situation.” Stella attended a peaceful pro-Israel gathering at UCLA on Sunday next to the encampment and said it was more characteristic of how most Jews in campus have responded to the pro-Palestinian activism and set a clear contrast between the pro-Palestinian and the pro-Israel advocates. “It was for the vast, vast, vast majority very peaceful, and very just loving and uplifting,” she said. “It felt so good to be a part of that community. You could really see the difference in the two communities. One was very angry and very aggressive, and the other was full of love and just happiness. I think that doing things like that is a great way to stand up for what I believe in.” The violence on Tuesday, she said, “gives our name a bad rap, because the vast majority of pro-Israel supporters and pro-Zionists and Jewish people are not violent, and they’re not looking for any type of aggression,” she said. “I think that that type of incident gives our community a really bad representation and a really bad look.” Tsives, along with many of the students who spoke with JTA on Wednesday, said that he was confident that many of the violent counter-protesters were not UCLA students. Students at Columbia University and other campuses with encampments have likewise said that many of the pro-Palestinian activists filmed being aggressive and making antisemitic comments are not affiliated with the university. Tsives, who is active with several Jewish clubs on campus, said he did not recognize a single person who participated. Some students who are from the LA area told JTA they saw fellow local Jewish Angelenos on Tuesday night who are not UCLA students. Dov Waxman, a professor and the director of UCLA’s Israel studies program, came to the same conclusion. In a social media post decrying the violence, Waxman also claimed that many of those involved were not students. “I am absolutely appalled by the violence that took place,” Waxman told JTA. “I just feel totally sickened by it, really, to see those kinds of scenes of violence and mayhem on UCLA’s campus, which is ordinarily a place of peaceful studying and conversations. To see that descend into a kind of warzone is really, really deeply disturbing.” He had harsh words for the violent pro-Israel protesters. “I would certainly say they’re not doing anything to support the needs of the Jewish community at UCLA, and their actions, in fact, only increase the tensions on campus, including for the Jewish community at UCLA,” Waxman added. “I also don’t think they are doing anything to advance what they might think of as being pro-Israel, either. They weren’t acting on behalf or in the interests of the Jewish community at UCLA.” Waxman said he supports students’ right to peacefully protest, adding that he recognized former students of his in the encampment. But Waxman is also a target of sorts: the protesters are calling to boycott UCLA’s Younes and Soraya Nazarian Center for Israel Studies, which he runs. “To call for a boycott of a center that’s based at the University of California at UCLA, which engages solely in teaching and scholarship about Israel — it’s not linked to the Israeli government in any way, it doesn’t engage in pro-Israel advocacy, we’re an Israel studies center — I was really disappointed by that and frustrated by that,” Waxman said. Michael Sassounian, a Jewish UCLA alum and assistant professor in the university’s psychiatry program, told JTA he visited the encampment last Thursday and was met with aggression and obscene language. One pro-Palestinian activist, who Sassounian said nearly started a fight with him, called him a “Zionist piece of s—.” Sassounian, who was waving an Israeli flag at the time, also said some of the activists mocked him for mentioning the hostages, while another chanted “globalize the intifada.” Sassounian said he had no issue with peaceful protest but said the violence Tuesday night as well as the ongoing harassment of Jewish students were both unacceptable. He called on the university to act. “The university clearly has not done enough,” Sassounian told JTA. “They really have not done anything on the part that really concerns me most, which is the bullying and the barring of Jewish students from certain parts of campus.” Early Thursday morning, police moved to clear the encampment after amassing outside of it for hours and issuing an order to disperse. As at other schools, they began making arrests and clashed with protesters, according to reports from the scene. In an apparent reference to the attack by pro-Israel counter-protesters, some protesters yelled, “Where were you yesterday?” They also shouted, “Free, free Palestine” as they linked arms and resisted the police incursion, according to reports and videos from the scene, which was unfolding at about 5 a.m. local time on Thursday. Zack, a fifth-year senior at UCLA who declined to share his last name, arrived outside the encampment Wednesday with the LA chapter of the Israeli-Palestinian grassroots organization Standing Together, which is a rare group in Israel calling for a permanent ceasefire. Despite advocating for an end to the war, it has also faced opposition from the movement to boycott Israel. Zack, who is Jewish, told JTA he had mixed feelings about the encampment but supported the activists’ right to protest and agreed with the calls for a ceasefire. He added that he was “really disturbed” by the incident Tuesday night, and more generally by the vitriolic dialogue that has surrounded the campus protests around the country, which he said distracts from the real issue: the war itself. “I think a lot of the rhetoric on both sides is focusing on what’s happening at UCLA, when we should be focused on what’s happening in Gaza,” he said. ...قراءة المزيد

الكلمات المفتاحية المذكورة في المقال:

2024-05-02

Hundreds of helmeted police muscled their way into a central plaza of the University of California at Los Angeles early on Thursday in a move to disperse a attacked the previous night by pro-Israel supporters. The pre-dawn police crackdown at UCLA marked the latest flashpoint for mounting tensions on U.S. college campuses, where protests over Israel's conduct of the war in Gaza have led to student clashes with each other and law enforcement. Live footage from the scene showed that officers in tactical gear began filing onto the UCLA campus adjacent to a complex of tents occupied by throngs of demonstrators around sunset on Wednesday. Local television station KABC-TV estimated that 300 to 500 people were hunkered down inside the camp, while around 2,000 more had gathered outside the barricades in support. But the assembled police stood by on the periphery of the tents for hours before finally starting to force their way into the encampment around 3:15 a.m. PDT (1015 GMT) to arrest occupants who refused to leave. The raid was led by a phalanx of California Highway Patrol officers carrying shields and batons. Law enforcement officials clash with demonstrators, as they try to enter the protest encampment in support of Palestinians at the University of California Los Angeles (UCLA), May 2, 2024 (credit: REUTERS/AUDE GUERRUCCI) Demonstrators, some carrying makeshift shields and umbrellas, sought to block the officers' advance by their sheer numbers while shouting, "push them back," and flashing bright lights in the eyes of the police. Some protesters had been seen donning hard hats, goggles, and respirator masks in a day after the university declared the encampment unlawful. Hundreds of other activists who assembled outside the tent city jeered police with shouts of "shame on you," some banging on drums and waving Palestinian flags, as officers marched onto the campus grounds. Many wore the traditional Palestinian scarves called keffiyehs. A much smaller group of demonstrators waving Israeli flags urged the police to shut down the encampment, yelling, "Hey hey, ho-ho, the occupation has got to go." Prior to moving in, police urged demonstrators in repeated loudspeaker announcements to clear the protest zone, occupying a plaza about the size of a football field between the landmark twin-tower auditorium Royce Hall and the main undergraduate library. ...قراءة المزيد

الكلمات المفتاحية المذكورة في المقال:

2024-05-02

(مصراوي) أطلقت الشرطة الأمريكية، اليوم الخميس، قنابل الغاز على الطلاب المتظاهرين داخل حرم جامعة كاليفورنيا، من أجل فض الاعتصام. وانتشرت قوات الأمن، داخل جميع مباني الجامعة من أجل تعزيز تواجدها الأمني وفض الاعتصام من داخل حرم الجامعة. وأزالت قوات الأمن التي اقتحمت الجامعة بطلب من رئاسة الجامعة، الحواجز الحديدية والخشبية التي وضعها الطلاب المتظاهرون، كما اشتبكت معهم واعتقلت عددًا من أجل إجبارهم على إخلاء الجامعة. وكانت جامعة كاليفورنيا، قد أعلنت أن العملية التعليمية داخل حرم الجامعة ستكون عن بعد يومي الخميس والجمعة، داعية إلى تجنب الحرم الجامعي بناء على تعليمات مجلس الشيوخ الأكاديمي للجامعة. وسبق ذلك هجوم متظاهرين يهود على الطلاب واعتدائهم عليهم بالضرب والألعاب النارية خلال اعتصامهم، أمس الأربعاء، ما دفع قوات الأمن لإطلاق قنابل الغاز على الطلاب المتظاهرين. ورفض الطلاب فض اعتصامهم، مؤكدين على استمراره للتنديد بالعدوان الإسرائيلي على غزة وللمطالبة بعودة زملائهم المحتجزين والذين بلغ عددهم 1700 شخص من داخل جميع الجامعات الأمريكية. 🚨: Riots and violent Clashes have Erupted Law enforcement Officers have Enter Pro-Palestine Protesters Encampment in UCLA as rubber bullets and flash bangs are being deployed ⁰📌 l Currently, chaos and clashes, along with riots, are erupting as… ...قراءة المزيد

الكلمات المفتاحية المذكورة في المقال:

2024-05-02

Hamas leaders said they were studying a ceasefire and hostage release proposal presented by Egyptian mediators and hoped to respond by Thursday, according to a statement the terror group sent to the Associated Press.  The current round of truce negotiations between Israel and Hamas appears to be serious, but the two sides remain far apart on a key issue: whether the war should end under the emerging deal. “It is very likely that tomorrow, Thursday, God willing, the mediators will receive a response,” the Hamas statement said. Later, a senior Hamas official, Osama Hamdan, said in an interview with in an interview with Lebanese media Al-Manar, "we have made it clear that our position is negative regarding the current negotiations plan.” He said, “Israel is trying to blackmail us with the Rafah operation.” U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken visited Israel on Wednesday, holding a series of meetings with Israeli officials, while also planning to oversee the transfer of humanitarian aid to Gaza. His day consisted of meetings with Israeli President Isaac Herzog in Tel Aviv, during which Blinken emphasized the urgent need for a ceasefire and a prisoner swap deal between Israel and the Hamas terror group. He also met with Prime Minister Netanyahu and Defense Minister Gallant. To catch up on the full events from Wednesday, Read more in-depth updates on the Los Angeles Police Department is calling on the UCLA encampments to evacuate through the loudspeakers The LAPD has issued a "tactical alert" across the city related to the illegal gathering announced at a pro-Palestinian encampment at UCLA, preparing them to be on high alert of illegal activities tonight This post can't be displayed because social networks cookies have been deactivated. You can activate them by clicking manage preferences. ...قراءة المزيد

الكلمات المفتاحية المذكورة في المقال:

2024-04-29

Fights broke out on the ) campus between pro-Palestinian and pro-Israeli demonstrators on Sunday night, according to local news. The violence came after security fences were moved by demonstrators, footage from the event shared by NBC News revealed. Pro-Israel group Stand With Us was scheduled to demonstrate at 11 AM, according to NBC Los Angeles, and members of the Harriet Tubman Center for Social Justice scheduled a 9:30 a.m. demonstration to support pro-Palestinian demonstrations on campus. “This morning, a group of demonstrators breached a barrier that the university had established separating two groups of protestors on our campus, resulting in physical altercations,'' Mary Osako, vice chancellor of UCLA Strategic Communications, said in a statement provided to City News Service.  “ has a long history of being a place of peaceful protest, and we are heartbroken about the violence that broke out.”A pro-Israel counter-protester walks with an Israeli flag near protesters attending a demonstration in support of Palestinians in Gaza, amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and the Palestinian Islamist group Hamas, at the University of California Los Angeles (UCLA) in Los Angeles, California, U. (credit: DAVID SWANSON/REUTERS) “My team and I are closely tracking the protests at UCLA today and are in close communication with UCLA leadership and City officials to ensure the safety and wellbeing of everyone on campus,” City Councilwoman Katy Yaroslavsky posted on X.  My team and I are closely tracking the protests at UCLA today, and are in close communication with UCLA leadership and City officials to ensure the safety and wellbeing of everyone on campus. In one incident, reported by the Daily Bruin, a Palestinian flag was stomped on.  NBC reported that no arrests have yet been made. The protests came only a day after pro-Palestinian students expanded their on-campus encampment, according to Los Angeles Daily News. On Thursday, a by pro-Palestinian students after holding a sign stating that people supporting Hamas were not allowed on native land. ...قراءة المزيد

الكلمات المفتاحية المذكورة في المقال: