Two more pro-Palestinian encampments were cleared out this morning at NYU and the New School. Police used a special tactic on the protesters. They showed up early.

Police officers arrested 56 people — 13 at N.Y.U. and 43 at the New School — according to preliminary information from the Police Department.

Student demonstrators had been sleeping in tents inside a New School building and on sidewalks outside of N.Y.U. buildings since last week. Officials at the two universities asked for the Police Department’s “assistance to disperse the illegal encampments.”...

Several students who had been sleeping in the N.Y.U. encampment remained at the site two hours later, waiting to collect their belongings, as university facility workers cleared the area of remaining tents and stripped fliers from a campus building. About 50 people had been asleep in the encampment when officers arrived without warning, the students said...

Adam Young, a freshman at the New School who had been sleeping in the encampment Friday morning, said that the police did not give students a chance to evacuate the encampment.

Students were tired because they had been expending a lot of energy yesterday.

Students at The New School are escalating their occupation of the building today by shutting down the entrances to the university center to establish the area as a Gaza Solidarity Block until the school meets their demands to divest from Israeli occupation. 🇵🇸 pic.twitter.com/G4yc4cI4ph

— Gerard (@GerardDalbon) May 3, 2024

They stayed up late chanting last night.

The energy at New School tonight. pic.twitter.com/2nHnlma0Ka

— John Pang (@jynpang) May 3, 2024

So the NYPD made quick work of them this morning.

NOW: After sweeping the ‘Gaza Solidarity Encampment’ at NYU, NYPD swept the encampment at The New School

A sweep of the encampment at Parsons, the third such sweep this morning, is currently underway pic.twitter.com/SM6r3IzRmo

— katie smith (@probablyreadit) May 3, 2024

Now it's just a mess for the custodians to clean up.

NOW: Tents and posters are currently being taken down inside the lobby of The New School following an NYPD sweep of the encampment this morning

3 ‘Gaza Solidarity Encampments’ in NYC were swept by NYPD this morning — NYU, The New School, and Parsons pic.twitter.com/QbVmN15UiG

— katie smith (@probablyreadit) May 3, 2024

It's the same at NYU. The protest is just a mess for other people to clean up.

NYU occupiers hopes and dreams being crushed in a dumpster. pic.twitter.com/BWvG3IdaoR

— 𝑐ℎ𝑖𝑙𝑙𝑖𝑛𝑜𝑖𝑠 (@chiIIum) May 3, 2024

The NYPD found some flyers left at NYU calling for "death to America."

"Somebody is radicalizing out students" Deputy Commissioner of Operations Kaz spoke after NYU and New School raid this morning, "we will find out who that is". Chief of Patrol John Chell showed literature found inside the New School 'Gaza Solidarity Encampment' after it was… pic.twitter.com/LObfkp5Vmd

— Oliya Scootercaster 🛴 (@ScooterCasterNY) May 3, 2024

Keep that in mind when you see left-leaning media outlets framing the protesters as young idealists who only want peace or that Republicans are treating them unfairly. Case in point, the NY Times has a story up today which says Republicans are "pouncing."

Biden campaign advisers believe the issue is unlikely to significantly harm the president in the election. The situation in Gaza remains highly fluid, as U.S. officials continue working toward a cease-fire deal between Hamas and Israel, and may not carry the same political resonance when voters head to the polls in November. Students are leaving campus for summer break in the coming weeks, which many believe will help defuse some of the intensity of the protests.

None of that stopped Republicans from pouncing on Mr. Biden’s comments. They accused the president of being unwilling to take stronger actions to quell the continued unrest.

“President Biden *still* won’t forcefully condemn the Hamas mobs on campuses,” Senator Tom Cotton, a Republican from Arkansas, said in a statement on social media on Thursday that cast the protesters as supporting a group considered a terrorist organization by the U.S. and many of its allies. “A complete lack of leadership from an impotent president.”

It's probably the biggest story in the country this week but Republicans are pouncing by pointing out that Joe Biden has been AWOL for most of it. Even left-wing readers aren't buying the spin.

I'm a member of the far left. I have participated in direct action, and have narrowly avoided arrest at past protests (particularly the occupy ICE protests). I have so many grievances with Israel's policy towards Palestine. But I simply can't support this protest movement.

In many ways I am in agreement with the protesters about my anguish over the ongoing decimation of Gaza. But the movement has so clearly been infiltrated by virulent anti-Semitism, intentional or otherwise, and is completely detached from reality. (From the very beginning I heard people framing Hamas as righteous freedom fighters - rather than the callous, genocidal terrorist group they actually are.)

I could go on and on about my grievances with US foreign policy or Israel, but at the end of the day these protests are strategically bankrupt, misguided in the extreme, and do nothing to help the people of Gaza. It's not clear what they expect to accomplish except to completely discredit the cause. They are not winning hearts and minds - it's an embarrassment that has been gone off course from day one.

Also, not mentioned by the Times is the fact that about half of the people arrested at Columbia and CCNY were not students. It was the same at PSU.

At Portland State University yesterday, only 7 of 22 protesters arrested were students. These campus protests are NOT student-driven. Who’s coordinating this nationwide effort to disrupt our college campuses?

The idea that this will all blow over seems like whistling past the graveyard.

Ignoring was not the way to go. It is true and very important to note that half of those arrested were not students. More attention needs to be paid to this, but what is true is there’s a lot of anger among college students about the Gaza conflict. These will be lost votes for Biden and he needs to get the PR together before It’s too late. Visit campuses, hold town hall style meetings. Do something to show that you are listening. Sometimes that’s all it takes.

Anyway, two more campuses cleared. Let's keep going through graduation.