When I saw pro-Palestine university students brutally dragged by police and troops at the University of Texas, my mind drifted to the memory of Rachel Corrie, a brave 23-year-old woman from Washington who was crushed to death by an Israeli bulldozer demolishing Palestinian homes in Rafah in 2003.
“I think I could see a Palestinian state of a democratic Israeli-Palestinian state within my lifetime,” Corrie wrote to her mother days before her tragic death. This “state” still seems a distant reality, but students across campuses in the United States fulfill Corrie’s wish for meaningful protests for the rights of Palestinians. Moreover, they, in a way, tell President Joe Biden that his days in office are numbered if his administration sustains its unwavering support of Israel’s massacre of Palestinians.
Since the conflict began, the U.S., like other Western countries, had its fair share of protests against Israel and Biden, but rallies of students demonstrated how far U.S. authorities would go in suppressing the peaceful demands of protesters. More than 200 protesters were arrested over the past few days as protests snowballed from Los Angeles to Boston, from New York to Atlanta and Texas.
“I look forward to more moments like Feb. 15 when civil society wakes up en masse and issues massive and resonant evidence of its conscience, its unwillingness to be repressed, and its compassion for the suffering of others,” Corrie wrote in her email to her mother on Feb. 28, 2003. She was referring to a rally in Rafah by locals and activists like her to protest U.S. policies regarding Iraq and the people of Palestine.
“The international media and our government will not tell us that we are effective, important, justified in our work, courageous, intelligent, valuable. We have to do that for each other, and one way we can do that is by continuing our work, visibly,” she also wrote. This week’s protests were apparently “important” for the media as photos of protesters pinned down by police on the ground made it to the website of New York Times (NYT), which was accused of pro-Israel bias in its coverage of Palestine-Israel conflict.
As for the government, Biden was quick to tag the “anti-Semitism” label on them, something U.S. or European governments resort to revile pro-Palestinian protests.
Biden, a staunch advocate of freedom of expression, is so far quiet on the handling of the protests, which people have already begun drawing parallels with the 1970 shooting at Kent University, where the National Guard shot dead four college students protesting the U.S. role in the Vietnam War. But he is certainly aware that such mass protests reflect and often shape public opinion.
Preparing for a tight race against Donald Trump (to be fair, the “most pro-Israel president” in his own words), Biden is fast losing support among Arab American and Muslim voters already and student protests may further spell trouble come November. The rising reaction to U.S. policy toward Israel may be alleviated with more aid to Palestinians in addition to airdropped relief and more warnings to the Netanyahu administration to avoid escalation of the conflict, but these may not be enough at the end of the day for Biden.
A Gallup Poll from March shows more than half of U.S. voters disapprove of Israel’s actions and growing protests show the tide is turning for Biden when it comes to seemingly unopposed support for Israel’s war crimes.
But perhaps the most visible sign of trouble for Biden in terms of his political ambition came out of Michigan where an “uncommitted” political movement against Biden over his support for Israel was born. On Thursday, they joined students at the University of Michigan for protests. The movement, a headache for Democrats, holds sway on thousands of votes that may change the fate of Biden in his neck-to-neck race against Trump in swing states like Michigan.
