Los Angeles Review of Books
May 10, 2024
Prof. Saree Makdisi diagnoses how the university, the police, and the media have failed our students protesting on behalf of Gazan lives.
“THIS IS STUFF that only happens in movies.” That was the only way that a UCLA student, quoted in one newspaper account, could attempt to make sense of what he saw happening on the Westwood campus in the predawn hours of May 1. In the dark of night, dozens of men wearing black or blue sweatshirts with full-face white plastic masks, some with Israeli flags draped on their shoulders, converged on the UCLA encampment that students had assembled in peaceful solidarity with the beleaguered Palestinians of Gaza. Armed with lasers, clubs, and homemade weapons including planks of wood embedded with nails, as well as various irritant gases (mace, tear gas, pepper spray, bear spray), and chanting anti-Arab, anti-Black, and anti-Palestinian slogans, the mob set about attacking the students and faculty in the camp. Massive speakers blared noise at the encampment: first, a baby crying, then sirens, an eagle screeching.