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The pro-Palestinian student movement in the United States looks at itself in history to continue

Opposition to the war in Gaza has triggered a student movement in the United States not seen since the protests against apartheid in South Africa in the 1980s and in rejection of the Vietnam War in the 60s, although the difference is the strong police reaction to more peaceful rallies.

The one that has already been called by historians such as Robert Cohen, of New York University, as the largest university movement in the United States in the 21st century has parallels with the uprisings of the past, but is also unique in forcing Washington to “be more careful with what it does with its military help.”

For Juan González, who was one of the leaders of the 1968 protests at Columbia University (New York), today’s demonstrations are much more peaceful but are facing more immediate repression.

“Never in the history of student protests has a protest been suppressed for so little violation of the law,” said Cohen, an expert in social movements, in a recent interview.

“Basically they are setting up camps in public spaces, they are not interfering with classes (…) we took several buildings in a single day,” he said in an interview with EFE González, 76, who considers that the police response is being much more severe on this occasion, with eviction of peaceful camps and more than 2,000 arrested.

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Authorities from both New York City in the United States and the university were willing to negotiate with González and the other student leaders, he explained, something that has only happened in a handful of educational centers during the current movement.

In educational centers such as the University of California in Los Angeles (UCLA), the University of Texas in Austin or the University of South Florida in Tampa in the United States, state and local law enforcement agencies have entered to evict the camps and forcibly expel the students shortly after they congregated with the approval of the university authorities.

Another of the main differences is the historical context: the student protests of 1968 against the Vietnam War were included in a much larger movement that transcended the campuses and that included other causes such as the rejection of racial discrimination.

“Our strike in Columbia began only a couple of weeks after Martin Luther King was killed (…) there were riots and riots in more than 100 cities across the country,” explained González, who recalls that the worst moment of police repression was when in 1970 the Ohio National Guard killed four students at Kent State University.

The students’ requests, however, have similarities. Currently, university students ask educational centers to cut all kinds of ties with Israel and its military industry, while in 1968 they asked the institution to cut ties with the IDA, a center that was investigating weapons to be used in Vietnam.

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The protests of now are also loaded with an “internationalist perspective” something that for the historian of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) Tanalís Padilla did not happen years ago in the United States.

“Within the empire, the country’s actions are rarely taken aware of,” Padilla said of these protests against injustices that are happening “in another part of the world.”

The author of “After Zapata” indicated that this student movement has similarities with the fight against the Vietnam war in the 70s and the civil rights claims in the 60s, but contrary to the first case, “U.S. soldiers are not dying” and, in the second, there was no internationalist vision and solidarity with the suffering of the people of Palestine.

“It is a movement of international solidarity that has not been seen in a long time, which gives hope and it is very important that it happens in the most powerful country in the world,” said the teacher, a Jewish descendant of victims of the Holocaust and who has participated in the MIT student camp.

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International

Seven bodies found with signs of torture in Sinaloa

Mexican authorities discovered seven lifeless bodies on Wednesday, showing clear signs of torture, in the rural area of Culiacán, Sinaloa, just one day after the same number of bodies was found in several municipalities in the western state of Mexico.

Six of these seven victims were found along the side of the highway that connects Culiacán to Mazatlán, near Laguna de Canachi, according to local media reports, which also noted that messages addressed to a criminal group were found near the bodies.

This brings the total number of violent deaths in the region to seven within just 24 hours. On Tuesday, authorities reported more victims found in the municipalities of Culiacán, Elota, and Mazatlán.

Among the victims identified was a local cattle rancher named Ramón Velázquez Ontiveros, as well as a police officer from Mazatlán, who was killed by a motorcyclist outside his home in San Marcos.

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International

Málaga paralyzed by new storm as torrential rains hit Spain

Thousands of people were evacuated and trains were suspended as torrential rains once again struck Spain on Wednesday, following the devastating floods that killed at least 223 people two weeks ago, most of them in the Valencia region.

The national meteorological agency (Aemet) issued a maximum, red-level alert for the Andalusian province of Málaga in the south, and for Tarragona in the northeast, due to the new DANA (isolated depression at high levels), also known as a cold drop.

The city of Málaga appeared to be the hardest hit by the rains, with more than 3,000 people evacuated from 1,000 homes near rivers, flooded streets, and the suspension of urban transport and train services to Madrid.

“Today Málaga is paralyzed,” said Andalusia’s regional president, Juan Manuel Moreno, to reporters. “I know it is a problem for citizens not being able to take their children to school or go to work, but after what we saw in Valencia, we need to ‘prevent’ and minimize the impact in terms of loss of life,” he added.

The storm also led to the postponement of a match between Spain and Poland in the Billie Jean King Cup women’s tennis competition, which was scheduled for Wednesday afternoon in Málaga.

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Hezbollah launches explosive drone strike on Israel’s defense headquarters

The Lebanese Islamist movement Hezbollah claimed on Wednesday that it launched an attack with explosive drones against the Israeli army’s headquarters in Tel Aviv.

The Iran-backed organization reported in a statement that it had carried out “an aerial attack with a squadron of explosive drones” targeting the site that houses Israel’s main defense institutions.

Hezbollah later stated that it also fired a barrage of rockets at the Glilot military intelligence base in the suburbs of Tel Aviv.

The Israeli military indicated that “sirens sounded in several areas of northern and central Israel following the launch of projectiles from Lebanon.”

It later clarified that “five projectiles were identified over the territory, and some were intercepted.”

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