Non-students dominate anti-Israel campus protests, raising questions about funding and motives behind the movement
At first glance, anti-Israel protests sprouting up on college campuses across the country might seem like an organic, student-led movement. However, after weeks of protests and more than 2,400 arrests, a much different picture of the protests has emerged.
At university after university, police are finding that many if not most of the demonstrators taken into custody aren’t college students at all. Only six of the 33 people arrested after DC police belatedly cleared the anti-Israel encampment at George Washington University were actually GWU students. Even if one includes the seven Georgetown students who were also arrested, 20 of the 33 people who left campus in zip ties or handcuffs weren’t college students.
The same phenomenon has been observed at Columbia, the City College of New York, the University of Southern California, Cal Poly Humboldt, New York University, the University of Texas at Austin, and Ohio State University. At each, significant fractions of arrests at each university were not affiliated with the school. In total, at least 747 of the 2,400 people arrested are not college students.
If a significant fraction of protesters aren’t college students, then who are they? And much more importantly: who is funding this nationwide network of anti-Israel protests held on college campuses?
