Student activism on Gaza has transformed the debate in the US and has grown enormously in the UK.
The first ‘Gaza Solidarity Encampment’, or tent occupation, was at Columbia university in New York City on 17 April.
It lasted until 4 May, when police cleared tents off the campus lawn for the second time, arresting dozens of people.
The protest was organised by a coalition of 116 student groups: ‘Columbia University Apartheid Divest’. Their main demand was that the university stop investing in companies and institutions that profit from ‘Israeli apartheid, genocide and occupation in Palestine’, including Alphabet (Google), Amazon and Microsoft.
Similar encampments were then set up at over 130 universities across the US, leading to over 2,000 arrests of students and faculty members as police were brought in to clear occupations.
In the UK
There has not been the same level of violence in Britain.
The student encampments here started at the University of Warwick on 26 April, followed on 1 May by Leeds, Bristol and Newcastle universities.
Later came Cambridge, Edinburgh, Goldsmiths (London), Liverpool, LSE (London) Manchester, Oxford, Sheffield, SOAS (London), Swansea and University College London (not in that order), among others.
There have also been non-university Gaza encampments.
There’s an interview with someone at the camp outside the Scottish parliament here.