Pro-Palestinian demonstration draws counter-protest at University of Alabama
Pro-Palestinian protesters face counter-protesters on May 1, 2024 at the University of Alabama.
The University of Alabama was the latest college to see a protest over Israel’s war in Gaza Wednesday. Led by the UA Leftist Collective, students gathered at the Student Center Plaza demanding the school call for a permanent and immediate ceasefire and to push the school to sever ties with defense contractor Lockheed Martin.
In a press release, organizers said Lockheed Martin has “supplied Israel with fighter jets, Hellfire missiles, and other weapons that are currently being used to slaughter Palestinians.”
The protesters had six demands:
- Stop allowing Lockheed Martin to recruit on campus.
- Break off UA’s official role as a “partner university” of Lockheed Martin.
- Rename Hewson Hall, which is named after Marillyn Hewson, former CEO of Lockheed Martin.
- Disclose a list of investments made using UA’s endowment fund, and divest from corporations that are supporting the genocide in Gaza.
- Stop conducting research funded by the Department of Defense.
- Release a public statement calling for an immediate, permanent
ceasefire in Gaza.
This protest comes as students at universities nationwide have protested against Israel’s war in Gaza, which began following an attack from Hamas on October 7.
Counter-protesters enter the scene
Demonstrators stood with signs that read “Ceasefire Now” and “Tide Against Genocide.” Shortly after the protest began, counter-protesters gathered across from the pro-Palestinian group. They waved American and Israeli flags, and some students held a Trump banner. Campus police kept the two sides separated.
As the pro-Palestinian demonstrators cycled through chants, counter-protesters engaged in chants of their own.
Demonstrator Noor Aldein Alabsi said he wasn’t surprised to see counter-protesters.
“With a campus like UA, where it’s more notoriously known for its righter-wing demographic, it was totally expected,” Alabsi said.
He’s Palestinian-American and said he has been moved by the Palestinian support from other colleges, but he doesn’t want the attention colleges are getting to distract from the war.
“The movement isn’t in solidarity with Columbia [University]. This isn’t to change the narrative or focus it on anything unrelated to Palestine,” Alabsi said.
Jewish student Noa David told WVTM the demonstration was unsettling.
“Those are some of our professors and our sorority sisters. It makes me feel unsafe like I can’t stand for what I believe in,” David said.
Guerilla Toss embrace the ‘weird’ on new album
On You're Weird Now, the band leans into difference with help from producer Stephen Malkmus.
Nancy Guthrie search enters its second week as a purported deadline looms
"This is very valuable to us, and we will pay," Savannah Guthrie said in a new video message, seeking to communicate with people who say they're holding her mother.
Immigration courts fast-track hearings for Somali asylum claims
Their lawyers fear the notices are merely the first step toward the removal without due process of Somali asylum applicants in the country.
Ilia Malinin’s Olympic backflip made history. But he’s not the first to do it
U.S. figure skating phenom Ilia Malinin did a backflip in his Olympic debut, and another the next day. The controversial move was banned from competition for decades until 2024.
‘Dizzy’ author recounts a decade of being marooned by chronic illness
Rachel Weaver worked for the Forest Service in Alaska where she scaled towering trees to study nature. But in 2006, she woke up and felt like she was being spun in a hurricane. Her memoir is Dizzy.
Bad Bunny makes Puerto Rico the home team in a vivid Super Bowl halftime show
The star filled his set with hits and familiar images from home, but also expanded his lens to make an argument about the place of Puerto Rico within a larger American context.
