French university students protest in support of the Palestinian people.   (Photo: Prensa Latina)

By Guillermo Alvarado

Students from several universities in the European Union intensify their actions of solidarity with the people of Palestine, victims of an extermination operation coldly calculated and executed by the Zionist state of Israel, which has already caused more than 35 thousand deaths, most of them children and women. 

Many of the young people's actions were repressed with excessive force by police forces, particularly in France, Germany and the Netherlands, which, however, has not deterred the students.

At the University of Amsterdam, for example, hundreds of young people resumed their partial occupation of the campus the day before, after the police evicted them the day before with batons and destroyed the tents where they were installed.

In addition to the excessive use of force, more than 160 were arrested and could be prosecuted for public disorder crimes.

Something similar happened shortly before in Paris, France, where a hundred protesters in favor of the Palestinian cause who had occupied an amphitheater of the historic Sorbonne were dispersed and 88 of them ended up in a security forces barracks.

However, there is some encouraging news, as this Wednesday the faculty of the University of Barcelona voted in favor of a motion in support of Palestine and against the Israeli genocide.

This includes the breaking of academic ties with centers of higher learning, entities and companies of the Zionist State, which is precisely the main demand of students in European countries.

The statement points out that this is a pressure mechanism against Israel “until the genocide ends, the apartheid system is eradicated and colonization ends” in Palestine. The rector, Joan Guardia, said that the university will not be indifferent to the terrible events that occurred in Gaza.

In Belgium they asked the Free University of Brussels to publish and end all commitments it has with academic centers in Tel Aviv, as well as suspend an already scheduled conference by a former Israeli ambassador.

Director Annemie Schaus recalled that on March 25, the council of rectors of the universities of Brussels and Wallonia decided to cancel a student exchange agreement with Tel Aviv University.

Support for Palestine is growing little by little, at least in the academic sector, because from a political point of view most powers, especially Western ones, maintain their complicity with Israel.