President Joe Biden made unscheduled remarks from the White House on Thursday morning to denounce pro-Palestinian protests that have popped up at college campuses across the country and led to more than 1,700 arrests in two weeks, including dozens more on Wednesday evening and early Thursday morning.
The protests, Biden said as he left the podium following his brief remarks, have not changed his mind on how he will continue to handle U.S. foreign policy when it comes to supporting Israel in the war in Gaza.
The president made the case that while Americans have the right to protest, they do not have the right to cause chaos: “Violent protest is not protected — peaceful protest is. It’s against the law when violence occurs. Destroying property is not a peaceful protest."
"We are not an authoritarian nation where we silence people or squash dissent," Biden said. "But, but neither are we a lawless country. We're a civil society and order must prevail."
"Dissent is essential to democracy, but dissent must never lead to disorder or to denying the rights of others so students can finish their semester and their college education," he added.
He went on to denounce antisemitism, Islamophobia and discrimination against Arab- and Palestinian-Americans. He also said he did not believe the National Guard should intervene.
“Whether it’s antisemitism, Islamophobia or discrimination against Arab Americans or Palestinian Americans, it’s simply wrong,” Biden said. “There’s no place for racism in America. It’s all wrong, it’s un-American.”
Israel’s campaign in Gaza — launched in the aftermath of Hamas' Oct. 7, 2023, surprise attack that killed 1,200, the deadliest attack against Jews since the Holocaust — has killed more than 34,000 Palestinians, according to local health officials. It has wreaked vast destruction and brought a humanitarian disaster, with several hundred thousand Palestinians in northern Gaza facing imminent famine, according to the U.N. More than 80% of the population has been driven from their homes.
When asked by a reporter at the White House if the protests had influenced him to reconsider his perspective on the war, Biden said “no.”
“Time and time again protesters are painted negatively, especially student protestors — protesting of Vietnam War in the 60s, apartheid South Africa — you saw the same militarized response from administration and media portraying them as chaotic protesters but the students have always been on the right side of history,” Lexi Zeidan said in a text to Spectrum News. Zeidan is a Palestinian-American organizer with the Uncommitted National Movement, an initiative that began in Michigan to encourage Democrats to not vote for Biden in the primary in protest of his support for Israel.
“And how can we call these protesters chaotic? What exactly do we deem chaotic? If we wanna call something chaotic, I’d say our government paying billions of dollars to drop bombs and babies is a little beyond chaotic -- but we’re worried about students protesting genocide,” she continued.
The protests are calling for an end to the war in Gaza and for their institutions to divest from Israeli companies and weapons manufacturers, and in some cases cut off direct financial ties to Israel itself. While pro-Palestinian protests have been occuring on campuses since the war began, they have taken on a new fervor since Columbia University called the New York City Police Department on a protest encampment on their campus on April 18 and 108 were arrested.
Encampments and solidarity protests began spreading and continue to be held two weeks later at universities in every corner of the country, at Ivy League schools and state colleges. Buildings were seized at Cal Poly Humboldt, a small, public university 300 miles north of San Francisco, and then at Columbia University. Both protests were cleared by overwhelming law enforcement action.
Mass arrests have been made, at times violently, in Boston and St. Louis, outside Atlanta and in Austin, from Connecticut to Colorado.
“It's a shame. I'm so proud of the New York finest. They're great. They're great people too. And so many of 'em, they're incredible. They did a job at Columbia and likewise in Los Angeles. They did a really good job at UCLA,” said former President Donald Trump, Biden’s 2024 rival, as he walked into a New York City courtroom for his hush money criminal trial on Thursday. “Don't worry about the right, the right's fine. Worry about the left. This is a movement from the left. These are radical left lunatics, and they got to be stopped now because it's going to go on and on and it's going to get worse and worse. They take over countries and we are not letting 'em take over the USA.”
The University of California, Los Angeles, saw a violent police crackdown on Wednesday night and early Thursday morning. At least 132 people were arrested, Sgt. Alejandro Rubio of the California Highway Patrol said Thursday morning. Police there deployed flash-bangs — which produce a bright light and a loud noise to disorient and stun — at the crowd of more than 1,000 and shot non-lethal munitions at protestors, videos from a journalist for the nonprofit news organization CalMatters show.
The protests come as Biden is seeking reelection in what is expected to be a close rematch with Trump. Both men have come out strongly against the protests over the last two weeks, but polling suggests Biden is more likely to suffer politically by angering pro-Palestinian constituencies among Arab American, Muslim American and young voter populations.
Vast majorities of both parties have denounced the protests for incidents of antisemitism, for their opposition to Israel’s war effort and for their tactics ranging from disrupting planned commencement ceremonies by building encampments on campuses to seizing control of buildings.
Biden’s remarks on Thursday were his first publicly on the protests, after previously condemning them through statements and through White House spokespeople.
“It's basically a matter of fairness. It's a matter of what's right. There's the right to protest, but not the right to cause chaos. People have the right to get an education, the right to get a degree, the right to walk across the campus safely without fear of being attacked,” Biden said on Thursday, before departing the White House for an event in North Carolina. “I understand people have strong feelings and deep convictions. In America, we respect the right and protect the right for them to express that. But it doesn't mean anything goes. It needs to be done without violence, without destruction, without hate and within the law.”
And while polling shows Americans are souring on Biden’s handling of the war, a new poll out Thursday from YouGov found that just 28% of U.S. adults support the pro-Palestinian protests, while 47% oppose and 24% are undecided. Still, if the 2024 election is as close as the 2020 election -- which was decided by tens of thousands of votes in a handful of swing states -- Biden faces a challenging path to reunifying the coalition that helped elect him the first time.
“Make no mistake. As president, I will always defend free speech. And I will always be just as strong standing up for the rule of law,” Biden said on Thursday. “That's my responsibility to you, the American people, and my obligation to the Constitution “
Former President Donald Trump, Biden's likely opponent in November's election, has criticized the Democratic incumbent to speak out more forcefully about the protests, accusing him of being "nowhere to be found."
The Associated Press contributed to this report.