Anti-Israel student group demands university divest from Boeing
Dozens of anti-Semitic, pro-Hamas protesters were arrested Monday evening after taking over a building at the University of Washington in Seattle and setting nearby dumpsters on fire in an attempt to demand that the school cut ties with Boeing over the company’s defense contracts with Israel.
“Individuals who mostly covered their faces blocked access to two streets outside the building, blocked entrances and exits to the building and ignited fires in two dumpsters on a street outside,” university spokesman Victor Balta told CNN. Hours later, police arrested “about 30 individuals” who now face charges including trespassing, property destruction, disorderly conduct, and conspiracy, Balta said.
The University of Washington is among many universities that have drawn scrutiny over anti-Israel protests on campus since the Israel-Hamas war broke out in October 2023. The group that organized the Monday protest, Students United for Palestinian Equality & Return, is a “suspended student group” that has published a manifesto overtly praising Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023, terrorist attack on Israel, Balta told CNN.
A separate group, whose members were dressed in all black, appears to be responsible for blockading at least one road and confronting a security guard, according to KOMO News.
Protesters on Monday occupied the Boeing-funded Interdisciplinary Engineering Building and called on the University of Washington to divest from the aerospace giant for supplying weapons used in Israel’s war against Hamas terrorists. Video footage shows several nearby dumpsters on fire, with one protester shouting, “Abolish the police. Every cop dead is a victory for the resistance.”
“The University of Washington is a direct partner in the genocide of the Palestinian people through its allegiance to its partnership with Boeing,” the student group wrote in a Monday evening Facebook post, urging protesters to “wear a mask, and cover idntifiable [sic] features.”
Balta said the university “will not be intimidated by this sort of offensive and destructive behavior and will continue to oppose antisemitism in all its forms.”
