MIT encampment meets counterprotest, with sparks but no violence

Tensions ran high on MIT’s campus Friday as a pro-Palestinian encampment erected nearly two weeks ago was met with counterprotest across Mass. Ave.

MIT President Sally Kornbluth sent a preemptive message of concern early in the day, while fences were installed at the camp’s periphery Friday morning.

“We are making every appropriate preparation for these rallies, with strong support from local police,” Kornbluth wrote, while also urging the community to do “everything possible to keep the peace.”

Due to a heavy police presence and de-escalation trainings inside the camp — which has now grown to include over a dozen tents since it went up on April 21 — confrontations were isolated and quickly defused by police, faculty or encampment members.

The developments at MIT took place as campus encampments have turned violent elsewhere, including during a counterprotest at UCLA.

Nationwide, more than 2,000 pro-Palestinian student protesters have been arrested by police as many university administrators moved to clear encampments before commencement season.

Police last week cleared out camps at Emerson College and Northeastern University while students at Tufts, Harvard and MIT continue to face off with university leaders, refusing to back down from their demands that schools’ disclose and divest from their financial ties with Israel.

Friday’s counterprotest at MIT was organized by the New England chapter of the Israeli American Council.

By its 1 p.m. start, Cambridge police were well-prepared: they set up several rows of metal barricades and contained the counterprotest to a space hundreds of feet from the camp.

In some ways, the day did bear out Kornbluth’s concerns that these campus encampments could become unpredictable flashpoints for broader conflict.

One sign at the counterprotest called for pro-Palestinian students to be deported to Gaza, which remains under siege. And a few counterprotesters approached the camp’s edge on Kresge Lawn, holding Israeli flags on long wooden dowels and accusing those inside of supporting “rape and terrorism.”

Safiyyah Ogundipe, an MIT senior and encampment member, says the camp has been peaceful.

“This is what they’re worried about? People eating, people dancing — someone was taking care of a wounded bunny yesterday,” she said.

During the counterprotest, some Jewish MIT students and alumni in support of a cease-fire led the encampment in song; Muslim students prayed and others danced the dabke, a traditional Levantine dance.

Ogundipe says that encampment members are politically passionate and determined that their school sever its research and financial ties with Israel as a result of the ongoing war, which has claimed tens of thousands of civilian lives.

“Calling out the genocide that’s being perpetuated against Palestinians in Israel — it calls into question other forms of violence that we export out of the U.S.,” she said, mentioning Congo and Sudan, among other places.