MIT protesters break through police barricade into encampment, chant for ‘intifada’

Pro-Palestinian protesters that had been blocked by police from accessing an encampment at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology have broken through fencing, linked arms and encircled tents that remained there.

Protesters say they will remain in Kresge Oval overnight, though tensions that flared with police and pro-Israel counter-protesters appear to have eased, student newspaper the Tech reports.

Police had taken up positions near both the Oval demonstration and a sit-in in the middle of Massachusetts Avenue, blocking the street during rush hour in the Boston area. Officers brandished zipties in case of mass arrests, but ultimately did not detain any students, who dispersed from the sit-in on their own, the Tech reports.

Sam Ihns, a graduate student at MIT studying mechanical engineering and a member of MIT Jews for a Ceasefire, says the group has been at the encampment for the past two weeks calling for an end to the killing of thousands of people in Gaza.

“Specifically, our encampment is protesting MIT’s direct research ties to the Israeli Ministry of Defense,” he says.

A video from the school shows protesters clapping and chanting along as an activist on a megaphone calls out “long live the intifada” and “we are the intifada,” statements that have been condemned as antisemitic.

Protestors at MIT today chant “globalize the intifada” and “there is only one solution, intifada revolution.” pic.twitter.com/vtUbFRyh8d

— Steve McGuire (@sfmcguire79) May 6, 2024

For Israelis, the Arabic word “intifada,” literally “uprising,” conjures traumatic memories of mass waves of deadly terror attacks in 1987-1993 and again in the early 2000s.