Students say Biden risks ‘losing entire generation of voters’ over his Gaza policy and condemnation of college protests.
President Joe Biden says “order must prevail” on university campuses in the United States, just hours after police raided and dismantled another protest encampment in support of Palestinians.
Biden’s comments came shortly after police arrested at least 132 student protesters at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), early on Thursday and cleared out an encampment.
On Thursday, students and other observers quickly slammed Biden’s statement as failing to recognise that US colleges and universities have called heavily armed police forces onto their campuses to disperse non-violent demonstrations.
“There’s a [sense of] disappointment, but there’s no surprise,” Kali, a student protester at George Washington University in Washington, DC, said of Biden’s remarks.
“For the Biden administration to demonise us in this way is honestly incredibly disappointing,” Kali told Al Jazeera. “It paints a target on the backs of Arab, Muslim, Palestinian, anti-Zionist youth.”
Biden’s approval rating stands at 28 percent among voters under age 30, according to a Pew Research Center survey released last week.
A recent CNN poll also showed that a staggering 81 percent of voters younger than 35 disapprove of Biden’s handling of Israel’s war on Gaza.
He also said the prospect of Trump winning in November would not be enough to convince young voters to vote for Biden. “It’s not on us to make sure that Trump doesn’t come back; it’s on Biden and his campaign,” he said.
Source:
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2024/5/2/no-surprise-us-students-slam-bidens-comments-on-gaza-encampments
