By Sharon Zhang / Truthout
Yale University revoked the registration status of a pro-Palestine student group on Wednesday after hundreds of students protested against a speaking event by Israeli National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir on Tuesday, despite the group saying that it was not responsible for organizing the demonstration.
This past week, Yale students reestablished their Gaza solidarity encampment in protest of Ben-Gvir’s speech on Wednesday. Roughly 200 protesters gathered on Tuesday night, shortly before organizers disbanded the encampment due to threats of retribution from the university.
In a statement, the university claimed that it had revoked the registration status for Yalies4Palestine after student protesters violated university “time, place, and manner policies.” It said that the administration is investigating the protest and that supposed violators of those policies will “face law enforcement and disciplinary action, including reprimand, probation, suspension, or expulsion.”
The suspension comes just two days after Yale University signed a joint statement pledging to allow their students and staff to express their viewpoints “without fear of retribution, censorship, or deportation” in the face of repression by the Trump administration, sparked in large part by the wave of campus protests last spring against Israel’s genocide.
Yalies4Palestine, Yale’s chapter of Students for Justice in Palestine, said it was not responsible for organizing the protest, per the Yale Daily News, but had simply shared posts on social media amplifying the event. Posts from Yale pro-Palestine groups on social media said that the encampment was set up by an autonomous group.
Yalies4Palestine pledged to continue fighting. A large group of activists indeed continued to protest Ben-Gvir on Wednesday around the time of the event, with police arresting at least one activist amid the demonstrations.
“Yalies4Palestine is not just a student organization,” the group wrote on social media. “Yalies4Palestine is a movement. Gaza is our core. We will not stop. We will not rest.”
Ben-Gvir is extremist even by the standards of the current Israeli government led by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, which is already regarded as one of the most far right and anti-Palestinian governments in Israel’s history. The police minister is regularly protested in Israel for his extremist policy proposals, and was protested by Israeli activists in the U.S. when he landed in Florida earlier this week.
The leader of Israel’s police force, Ben-Gvir is helping to lead the charge for the annexation of the occupied West Bank and has openly called for Israel to resettle Gaza. His far right and anti-Palestinian views were considered so extreme in his youth that he was banned from serving in the Israeli military — even amid its indiscriminate slaughter and forced expulsion of Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank in the 1970s and ‘80s.
Just before his visit to Yale on Wednesday, Ben-Gvir boasted of a meeting with Republican leaders in which they agreed that “food and aid depots [in Gaza] should be bombed to create military and political pressure” — even as the UN has warned that Israel’s humanitarian catastrophe has reached new depths after 50 days of Israel’s total aid blockade.
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Sharon Zhang
Sharon Zhang is a news writer at Truthout covering politics, climate and labor. Before coming to Truthout, Sharon had written stories for Pacific Standard, The New Republic, and more. She has a master’s degree in environmental studies. She can be found on Twitter: @zhang_sharon.
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