EVANSTON, Ill. — Sunday marks the fourth day of the pro-Palestinian protest and encampment at Northwestern University.
As hundreds of students, staff and community members continue to take over the school’s Deering Meadown, the epicenter of the student-led demonstration is for university leaders to stop backing Israel.
Demonstrators opposing the war in Gaza were met by counter-protesters rallying against Hamas and calling for the release of Israeli hostages.
“No dialogue at all,” Amy said. “All we got was free Palestine, Jews for Palestine, but no one wants to engage in a conversation.”
For one student, she said taking part in the movement to call for a ceasefire in Palestine is in line with her Jewish values.
“I learned growing up that Jewish people are people of resistance and people and that all life is sacred and that includes the 40,000 Palestinians who’ve been murdered since October 7,” Paz said.
Demonstrators on both sides held their flags, chanted and even clashed, but remained mostly peaceful.
“We need to raise voices because our families are being killed,” Nida Sahouri, with the Chicago chapter of American Muslims for Palestine, said.
While there were no violent confrontations, some students said they were on the receiving end of hateful rhetoric from counter-protestors.
“As a Jewish student, I didn’t feel threatened by their claims that we were anti-Semitic,” Mayan said. “I’ve never felt more anti-Semitism in my life than I have this morning from the people holding Israeli flags.”
This campus demonstration showed little signs of slowing down, which many hope that students’ activism will ignite change in the Middle East.
Student organizers said negotiations with university leadership are still ongoing and until their list of demands are met, the encampment will stay up.
WGN News reached out to the school for a comment and is awaiting a response.
