20+ detained in pro-Palestine protest at Case Western

CLEVELAND (WJW) — More than 20 people were detained and released on the Case Western Reserve University campus on Monday, as a group of local pro-Palestine demonstrators “occupied” part of the campus, a university spokesperson confirmed.

Students protesting the conflict in Israel are demonstrating on the campus’ public green, KSL Oval, footage from SkyFOX shows. A nearby sign reads, “Welcome to the People’s University for Palestine.”

Protesters are demanding that administrators “divest from the state of Israel,” according to a Monday news release.

“As anti-war protests occur across university campuses in the U.S. with increasing hostility from university administration, CWRU students feel it is imperative to take a stand, as students have always led the way in the anti-war movement,” reads the news release.

According to the news release, students are demanding:

1. Amnesty for all students and faculty disciplined for advocating for Palestinian liberation.
2. Divest all of CWRU’s finances from the companies that profit from Israeli apartheid, genocide, and occupation in Palestine including implementing Resolution 31-15.
3. Disclose CWRU’s investments.
4. Retract remarks made against Resolution 31-15, statements in support of the Israeli goverment, and accusations of antisemitism towards the student body.
5. Call for a permanent ceasefire and an end of the occupation of Palestine.
6. Academic Boycott – cut ties with all Israeli academic institutions which includes

Statement from Palestine Task Force CLE

In the player below, watch previous Associated Press coverage of anti-war protests at U.S. universities:

The university’s student government in November 2022 approved Resolution 31-15, calling on Case Western leaders to examine the university’s financial assets, to determine if its investments indirectly support Israeli “apartheid” from which the university should divest itself within two years.

Specifically, the resolution calls for Case administrators to determine whether the university has invested in companies that provide weaponry or military support for “the illegal occupation of the Palestinian territories,” and identifies several by name.

The resolution identifies other companies that support “illegal Israeli settlements” or operate private prisons in the U.S. and Palestine and elsewhere in the world, that are “profiting from exploitative prison labor.”

Following that resolution, President Eric Kaler issued a statement expressing disappointment in the resolution, which he called “profoundly anti-Israel and anti-Semitic.”

“Vigorous political debate is welcome and encouraged, but hate towards any group will be opposed at every step, including categorically rejecting the calls to action outlined in this resolution,” it reads.

Case Western administrators earlier this year suspended the pro-Palestine student group Students for Justice in Palestine, alleging violations of the university’s student code of conduct.

Several members of the group were accused of “[gluing] fliers to various surfaces around campus” on three separate days. The Monday news release claims students were fined $2,600 “for posting fliers.”

“The relationship between CWRU administration and its students is forever tainted by its deliberate creation of a hostile and unsafe student environment as a way to ignore their own complicit role in shedding Palestinian blood,” reads a March statement from the group.