USM students in Portland join nationwide campus protests in support of Palestine [Video]

A small group of pro-Palestine students gathered at the University of Southern Maine campus in Portland on Wednesday in support of similar demonstrations at schools around the nation.

They chanted, briefly marched down the street and carried signs denouncing U.S. support for Israel and issued calls to “free Palestine.” They often were interrupted by car horns – one protester held a sign asking people to honk for support.

It hardly matched the chaos at Columbia University in New York on Monday, when more than a hundred demonstrators who had formed an encampment there were arrested and charged with trespassing. The pro-Palestine demonstrators had asked the school to condemn Israel’s attacks on Gaza, calling it genocide. Meanwhile, Jewish students there and on other U.S. college campuses say the criticism against Israel is veering into antisemitism.

There were no arrests outside Glickman Family Library in Portland on Wednesday afternoon, where roughly 30 people, mostly students, …