Almost half of of Americans support banning anti-Israel protesters from college campuses entirely — and more than three quarters support sending in the cops to protect students, according to a poll this week.
The Morning Consult survey released Wednesday found that 47% of likely voters who responded to the poll would support administrators blocking “pro-Palestinian demonstrations on campus.”
Just 30% of respondents said colleges and universities should not prohibit the demonstrations.
Additionally, 76% of respondents said US universities and colleges should “ask the police to protect campuses from violence,” including 79% of Republicans, 75% of Democrats and 71% of independents.
Large portions of Americans on both sides of the political spectrum support entirely barring the protests from campus, the poll results suggests
By party affiliation, 59% of Republicans and 41% of Democrats want the protests banned, compared with 22% of GOPers and 36% of Dems who oppose prohibiting the demonstrations.
Another 41% of respondents to the Morning Consult poll said pro-Israeli protests should also be banned from campuses.
Asked whether higher education institutions should “make statements condemning Israel’s actions in Gaza,” 42% of voters said they should not and 33% said they should.
Twenty-five percent were undecided.
Hamas recently endorsed that protests, which are tearing US campuses apart, because they “refute the Zionist narrative.”
“We in the Hamas movement believe that any popular movement demanding an end to the aggression and genocide against our people are useful and supportive activities for our cause,” Hamas spokesman Bassem Naim told Newsweek.
“The importance of this increases if these activities involve young people and university students, given that this reflects the vision of future generations,” Naim said.
Since mid-April, more than 1,000 college students have been arrested during anti-Israel protests sprawling across more than 25 campuses in the US, from Columbia University in New York to the University of California, Los Angeles.
Several tent encampments have popped up at Ivy League and state school demonstrations after the first “Gaza Solidarity Encampment” was born at Columbia last month.
Columbia’s president, Minoche Shafik, and other elite university leaders have been under the gun from congressional Republicans for failing to take swift enough action to stop the protests.
Some Jewish students and faculty say that the tent camp has forced them off campus for their own safety.
The anti-Israel demonstrators have called for their school to divest from the Jewish state. Some protesters have called for another “intifada” and have engaged in antisemitic harassment and intimidation of Jewish and pro-Israeli students and faculty.
The term “intifada’’ refers to past Palestinian uprisings that killed hundreds of Israeli soldiers and civilians. Th “Second Intifada” — the last widespread revolt — occurred in the early 2000s.
The Morning Consult survey revealed that less than 40% of American voters are in favor of US colleges and universities divesting from companies that do business with Israel.
Those most supportive of divestment — a principle of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement against Israel — came from the richest households or had postgraduate degrees, the poll found.
Columbia University charges nearly $90,000 in tuition every year — 20% more than the median household income in the US.
On Tuesday, NYPD officers hauled away protesters who fled the Columbia encampment to break into a nearby academic building after administrators ordered them to vacate their tents on the grassy quad.
Nearly half of those arrested this week at Columbia and the state-funded City College campuses were not students.
“Squad” Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has cast doubt on outsiders’ being involved in the protests and accused law enforcement officers of shutting down “nonviolent demonstrations of young students.”
- Not affiliated with school: 13
- Students at affiliated institutions: 6
- Undergrad students: 14
- Grad students: 9
- Columbia employees: 2
House Speaker Mike Johnson and other Republicans have called on Shafik to resign for the fiasco — and announced a chamber-wide crackdown on the funding and outside support fueling the “virus” of antisemitism on campuses.
Johnson (R-La.) has also asked President Biden to consider sending in the National Guard if university presidents fail their duty to protect Jewish students.
Biden broke 10 days of silence on the escalating protests during a White House address Thursday, declaring the US was not a “lawless country” and “order must prevail.”
He affirmed the right to peaceful protests under the protection of the First Amendment but said he would not authorize the National Guard to enter schools.
Pro-Israel Democrats like South Bronx Rep. Ritchie Torres has also suggested the Department of Education install third-party antisemitism monitors for schools that receive US taxpayer funding.
