The University of Michigan’s club fair took an unexpected turn on Wednesday when police shut down an anti-Israel protest, causing chaos among student activists. The protesters, who are members of the TAHRIR Coalition, demanded that the university divest from all companies supporting Israel. They disrupted the fair with a sit-in and chanted slogans implying the elimination of the state of Israel.
Shortly after the protest began, pro-Israel counter-protesters gathered, holding American and Israeli flags. Yitz Pierce, the program director at the Jewish Resource Center on campus, joined the counter-protestors to ensure their safety. He told The Post that although it had not turned violent, the situation was frightening.
The anti-Israel protestors did not have a permit to demonstrate and distributed flyers listing their demands: divestment from Israeli apartheid and genocide, establishment of a “People’s Audit,” boycotting Israeli academic institutions, and abolishing campus policing.
When the police arrived without a warrant and demanded that the protestors disperse, they were ignored. The officers then ran into the crowd, arresting at least one student protester and pushing the mob away from the space in front of the library. Forced to relocate, the protesters marched around the campus, eventually arriving at an Army ROTC table where they yelled at the student representatives of the organization.
This incident is part of a larger saga of chaos enveloping the University of Michigan since the Israel-Hamas War last spring. Anti-Israel activists have taken control of the student government and withheld funding from clubs on campus, demanding that the university divest from companies supporting Israel. The university’s regents have made it clear they will not give in to political pressure for divestment.
As a result, clubs are struggling to function, and the administration is trying to find temporary methods to fund student organizations. Amid tensions between protestors and club members, Rabbi Alter Goldstein, who runs the Chabad House on campus that does not rely on university funding, told The Post, “I believe things could be resolved more in dialogue than just trying to lock doors.
The Israel-Palestine issue may prove decisive in the 2024 election, as over 100,000 Michigan Democratic Primary voters voted “uncommitted” in the state’s February presidential primary in protest of President Joe Biden’s support for Israel.
