拜登谴责校园暴力，在大量逮捕后打破沉默
【中美创新时报2024 年 5 月 3 日编译讯】（记者温友平编译）周四（2日），美国总统乔·拜登打破了数天的沉默，终于就美国大学校园针对以色列加沙地带战争的抗议浪潮发表了讲话，这些抗议浪潮已经激怒了该国大部分地区，尽管他捍卫和平异议的权利，但他谴责暴力和反犹太主义 。《纽约时报》记者彼得·贝克（Peter Baker）对此作了下述详细报道。
在白宫此前未安排的电视声明中，拜登对学生和其他抗议者进行了强烈谴责，他认为他们对战争的不满太过分了。但他拒绝了共和党关于部署国民警卫队控制校园的呼吁。
“有抗议的权利，但没有制造混乱的权利，”拜登在十天来首次就校园骚乱发表个人言论时对着镜头说道。“人们有权接受教育，有权获得学位，有权安全地穿过校园而不必担心受到攻击。” 他补充说，反犹太主义在美国“没有立足之地”。
总统发表上述言论之际，全国各地的大学仍在努力恢复秩序。身着防暴装备的警察在清理洛杉矶加州大学的一个抗议营地时逮捕了约 200 人，而其他警察则驱散了占领俄勒冈州波特兰州立大学图书馆的示威者。警方拆除帐篷并拘留 34 人后一天，活动人士在威斯康星大学麦迪逊分校搭建了 30 个帐篷。
周四的冲突发生在紧张的24小时内，警察在福特汉姆大学曼哈顿校区、德克萨斯大学达拉斯分校、新罕布什尔州达特茅斯学院和新奥尔良杜兰大学等地进行了逮捕。据《纽约时报》统计，截至周四，过去两周校园骚乱已导致数十个学术机构近 2000 人被捕。
包括罗德岛州布朗大学和伊利诺伊州西北大学在内的一些大学的管理人员选择与亲巴勒斯坦抗议者达成协议，以和平方式结束他们的营地，以避免冲突，但这些协议招致了一些犹太领导人的严厉批评。
自10月7日哈马斯领导的恐怖袭击造成以色列1200人死亡、200多人被劫为人质以来，抗议活动是针对以色列在加沙的战争而爆发的。据加沙当局称，自那时以来，已有超过 34,000 人被杀，其中包括哈马斯战斗人员和平民。抗议者要求拜登政府切断对以色列的武器，并要求他们的学校撤资与以色列有联系的公司，但在许多情况下，示威活动包括反犹太主义言论和针对犹太学生的骚扰。
一些同情抗议者的人反对管理人员诉诸警察行动。周四，美国大学教授协会哥伦比亚大学分会呼吁谴责该大学校长米努什·沙菲克(Minouche Shafik)，此前警方采取行动驱逐了占据汉密尔顿大厅的学生，并导致 100 多人被捕。
该组织表示：“校园武装反恐警察、逮捕学生和严厉纪律并不是度过这场危机的唯一途径。”
最近几天，逮捕和冲突的画面已成为华盛顿政治辩论的主导内容，因为共和党人试图将自己定位为犹太学生的捍卫者，并将民主党人和大学领导人描绘成对反犹太主义软弱的人。
众议院通过了一项旨在将更广泛的反犹太主义定义纳入联邦教育政策的两党措施，70 名民主党人和 21 名共和党人投了反对票，一天后，20 名参议院共和党人提出了他们自己版本的决议。
该法案的发起人、南卡罗来纳州共和党参议员蒂姆·斯科特（Tim Scott）表示：“反犹太主义正在我们全国的大学校园中抬头。”他可能是前总统唐纳德·特朗普的副总统竞选搭档。“犹太学生成为暴力和骚扰的目标，而本应保护他们的大学校长和管理人员却向激进暴徒屈服，让混乱蔓延。”
特朗普在社交媒体上发表了言论。随着加州大学洛杉矶分校的对抗升级，他用大写字母写道：“这是我们国家正在发生的一场激进的左翼革命。” “狡猾的乔·拜登在哪里？纽斯卡姆州长在哪里？我们国家的危险来自左翼，而不是右翼！！！”
加利福尼亚州州长、民主党人加文·纽瑟姆周三发表了自己的声明。“言论自由权并不包括在校园内煽动暴力、破坏公物或无法无天的行为，”他说。
这是拜登周四早上在离开白宫前往北卡罗来纳州进行为期一天的访问之前在电视讲话中提出的表述，周一他在那里会见了在夏洛特被杀的四名执法人员的亲属，随后在威尔明顿发表讲话，宣布了计划来更换铅管。
“摧毁财产不是和平抗议。这是违法的，”总统说。 “故意破坏、侵入、打破窗户、关闭校园、强迫取消课程和毕业典礼——所有这些都不是和平抗议。威胁人们、恐吓人们、向人们灌输恐惧并不是和平抗议。这是违法的。异议对于民主至关重要，但异议绝不能导致混乱或剥夺他人的权利，以便学生能够完成学期和大学教育。”
拜登一直在推动以色列和哈马斯之间达成协议，至少暂时结束战斗，但协议仍然难以达成。根据美国提出的一项提案，以色列将实行为期六周的停火，并释放数百名被关押在其监狱中的巴勒斯坦人，而哈马斯将释放其仍扣押的 100 多名人质中的 33 人。
总统和他的团队希望第一阶段能够延长停火时间，释放更多人质以及更多食品、药品和其他援助，以缓解加沙的人道主义危机。但美国官员表示，虽然以色列已同意该计划，但哈马斯迄今拒绝。
在总统发表四分钟声明之前，一些民主党人因他不愿发声而感到沮丧，迫使他公开谈论校园骚乱。直到周四，拜登在 4 月 22 日回答记者提问时只说了几句话，连民主党人都认为过于模棱两可，否则就让他的发言人来表达他的观点。共和党人批评他没有权衡自己。
拜登暗示，他的批评者只是投机取巧。“在这样的时刻，总会有人冲进来获取政治分数，”他说。“但这不是政治的时刻。这是一个需要澄清的时刻。所以让我明确一点：美国的和平抗议。暴力抗议不受保护。和平抗议才是。”
不过，在安抚党内一些人的过程中，拜登受到了政治左派其他人的批评。在他们看来，他没有像 2020 年那样表现出任何细微差别，当时警察杀害乔治·弗洛伊德后的和平抗议活动失去了控制，拜登在谴责暴力的同时也承认了愤怒的根源。
“他今天本可以做出一些努力来做同样的事情，”佛蒙特州参议员伯尼·桑德斯的前外交政策顾问马特·杜斯说。“相反，他选择放大右翼漫画。不幸的是，这与很少考虑巴勒斯坦人的观点或巴勒斯坦人的生活的总体政策方针是一致的。”
拜登在声明中强调，他将始终捍卫言论自由，即使是那些抗议他支持以色列战争的人。但他明确表示，他认为太多的示威活动已经超出了简单言论的范围。
“让我们也澄清这一点，”他补充道。“任何校园、美国都不应该存在针对犹太学生的反犹太主义或暴力威胁。任何形式的仇恨言论或暴力都没有容身之所，无论是反犹太主义、伊斯兰恐惧症还是对阿拉伯裔美国人或巴勒斯坦裔美国人的歧视。”
拜登在回答记者提问时表示，他不会因为抗议活动而改变中东政策。当他离开房间时被问及国民警卫队是否应该干预时，他简单地说：“不。”
本文最初发表于《纽约时报》。
题图：5 月 1 日，在加利福尼亚州伯克利市的加州大学伯克利分校斯普劳尔广场设立了一个亲巴勒斯坦抗议营地。JIM WILSON/NYT
附原英文报道：
Biden denounces violence on campus, breaking silence after rash of arrests
By Peter Baker New York Times,Updated May 3, 2024
WASHINGTON — President Joe Biden broke days of silence on Thursday to finally speak out on the wave of protests on American college campuses against Israel’s war in the Gaza Strip that have inflamed much of the country, denouncing violence and antisemitism even as he defended the right to peaceful dissent.
In a previously unscheduled televised statement from the White House, Biden offered a forceful condemnation of students and other protesters who in his view have taken their grievances over the war too far. But he rejected Republican calls to deploy the National Guard to rein in the campuses.
“There’s the right to protest, but not the right to cause chaos,” Biden said into cameras in his first personal remarks on the campus fray in 10 days. “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.” Antisemitism, he added, “has no place” in America.
The president’s comments came as universities across the nation continued to struggle to restore order. Police officers in riot gear arrested about 200 people as they cleared a protest encampment at the University of California, Los Angeles, while other officers removed demonstrators occupying a library at Portland State University in Oregon. Activists erected 30 tents at the University of Wisconsin-Madison a day after the police removed tents and detained 34 people.
The confrontations on Thursday followed a tense 24 hours during which police officers made arrests at Fordham University’s Manhattan campus, the University of Texas at Dallas, Dartmouth College in New Hampshire and Tulane University in New Orleans, among other places. As of Thursday, the campus unrest had led to nearly 2,000 arrests at dozens of academic institutions in the last two weeks, according to a New York Times tally.
Administrators at some colleges, including Brown University in Rhode Island and Northwestern University in Illinois, opted to avoid conflict by striking deals with pro-Palestinian protesters to bring a peaceful end to their encampments — agreements that have drawn harsh criticism from some Jewish leaders.
The protests have erupted in response to Israel’s war in Gaza since the Oct. 7 Hamas-led terrorist attack killed 1,200 people in Israel and resulted in more than 200 taken hostage. More than 34,000 people in Gaza have been killed since then, according to authorities there, including Hamas combatants and civilians. The protesters have demanded that the Biden administration cut off arms to Israel and that their schools divest from companies linked to Israel, but in many cases the demonstrations have included antisemitic rhetoric and harassment targeting Jewish students.
Some of those sympathetic to the protesters pushed back against administrators for resorting to police action. The Columbia University chapter of the American Association of University Professors on Thursday called for the condemnation of Minouche Shafik, the university’s president, after a police operation that removed students occupying Hamilton Hall and resulted in more than 100 arrests.
“Armed counterterrorism police on campus, student arrests and harsh discipline were not the only path through this crisis,” the group said.
The images of arrests and clashes have come to dominate the political debate in Washington in recent days as Republicans seek to position themselves as defenders of Jewish students and portray Democrats and university leaders as soft on antisemitism.
A day after the House passed a bipartisan measure seeking to codify a broader definition of antisemitism into federal education policy, with 70 Democrats and 21 Republicans voting no, a group of 20 Senate Republicans introduced their own version of the resolution.
“Antisemitism is rearing its ugly head at college campuses across our nation,” said the bill’s sponsor, Sen. Tim Scott, R-S.C., a possible vice-presidential running mate for former President Donald Trump. “Jewish students are being targeted with violence and harassment, and the university presidents and administrators, who should be defending them, are caving to the radical mob and allowing chaos to spread.”
Trump weighed in on social media. “This is a radical left revolution taking place in our country,” he wrote in all capital letters as the confrontation at UCLA escalated. “Where is Crooked Joe Biden? Where is Governor Newscum? The danger to our country is from the left, not from the right!!!”
Gov. Gavin Newsom of California, a Democrat, issued his own statement Wednesday. “The right to free speech does not extend to inciting violence, vandalism, or lawlessness on campus,” he said.
That was the formulation that Biden advanced during his televised comments Thursday morning before leaving the White House for a daylong trip to North Carolina, where he met with relatives of four law enforcement officers killed in Charlotte on Monday and later gave a speech in Wilmington announcing plans to replace lead pipes.
“Destroying property is not a peaceful protest. It’s against the law,” the president said. “Vandalism, trespassing, breaking windows, shutting down campuses, forcing the cancellation of classes and graduations — none of this is a peaceful protest. Threatening people, intimidating people, instilling fear in people is not peaceful protest. It’s against the law. Dissent is essential to democracy, but dissent must never lead to disorder or to denying the rights of others so students can finish the semester and their college education.”
Biden has been pushing for an agreement between Israel and Hamas that would end the combat, at least temporarily, but a deal has remained elusive. Under a U.S.-sponsored proposal on the table, Israel would enter a cease-fire for six weeks and release hundreds of Palestinians held in its prisons while Hamas would free 33 of the more than 100 hostages it is still holding.
The president and his team hope that such a first stage would lead to a longer cessation of hostilities and the release of more hostages as well as more food, medicine and other aid to ease the humanitarian crisis in Gaza. But American officials said that while Israel has agreed to the plan, Hamas has so far refused.
The president’s four-minute statement came after some Democrats frustrated by his reluctance to speak out pressed him to publicly address the campus uprisings. Until Thursday, Biden had offered only a couple of sentences in response to reporter questions on April 22 that even Democrats considered too equivocal and otherwise left it to his spokespeople to express his views. Republicans have castigated him for not weighing in himself.
Biden implied that his critics were simply being opportunistic. “In moments like this, there are always those who rush in to score political points,” he said. “But this isn’t a moment for politics. It’s a moment for clarity. So let me be clear: Peaceful protest in America. Violent protest is not protected. Peaceful protest is.”
In calming some in his party, though, Biden took heat from others on the political left. In their view, he employed none of the nuance that he expressed in 2020 when otherwise peaceful protests after the police killing of George Floyd got out of control and Biden acknowledged root causes of the anger even while condemning violence.
“He could’ve made some effort to do the same today,” said Matt Duss, a former foreign policy adviser to Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt. “Instead, he chose to amplify a right-wing caricature. Unfortunately, it’s consistent with an overall policy approach that shows little regard for Palestinian perspectives or Palestinian lives.”
In his statement, Biden emphasized that he would always defend free speech, even for those protesting his own support for Israel’s war. But he made clear that he thought too many of the demonstrations had gone beyond the bounds of simple speech.
“Let’s be clear about this as well,” he added. “There should be no place on any campus, no place in America, for antisemitism or threats of violence against Jewish students. There is no place for hate speech or violence of any kind, whether it’s antisemitism, Islamophobia, or discrimination against Arab Americans or Palestinian Americans.”
In response to questions by reporters, Biden said he would not change his Middle East policy as a result of the protests. Asked as he left the room if the National Guard should intervene, he said simply, “No.”
This article originally appeared in The New York Times.
