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In Texas, pro-Palestine university protesters clash with state leaders
Austin, Texas – “It didn’t feel real.” That’s how Alishba Javaid, a student at the University of Texas at Austin, describes the moment when she saw roughly 30 state troopers walk onto the campus lawn.
Javaid and hundreds of her classmates had gathered on the grass, in the shadow of the campus’s 94-metre limestone tower, as part of a walkout against Israel’s war in Gaza.
They were hoping that their school would divest from manufacturers supplying weapons to Israel. Instead, law enforcement started to appear in increasing numbers.
By Javaid’s count, the state troopers joined at least 50 fellow officers already in place, all dressed in riot gear. The protest had been peaceful, but nerves were at a high. The troopers continued their advance.
“That was the first moment I was genuinely scared,” said Javaid, 22.
Dozens of students were ultimately arrested on April 24, as the officers attempted to disperse the protesters. Footage of the clashes between police and demonstrators quickly spread online, echoing images from other campus protests across the United States.
Yet, Texans face a unique challenge, as they contend with a far-right state government that has sought to limit protests against Israel.
In 2017, Governor Greg Abbott signed a law that prohibits government entities from working with businesses that boycott Israel, and the state has since taken steps to tighten that law further.
Abbott has also cast the current protests as “hate-filled” and “anti-Semitic”, amplifying misconceptions about demonstrators and their goals.
In addition, a state law went into effect earlier this year that forced public universities to shutter their diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) offices.
Multiple students and employees told Al Jazeera that campuses have become less safe for people of colour as a result of the law, which forced the departure of staff DEI advocates.
‘Using violence to subvert minorities’
The violence has continued at University of Texas campuses as students press forward with their protests.
On the final day of class, April 29, police used pepper spray and flash-bang devices to clear a crowd at the Austin campus, while dozens more were encircled by troopers and dragged away screaming.
Hiba Faruqi, a 21-year-old student, said her knee “just kept bleeding” after she was knocked over during a pushing-and-shoving match between students and police.
Yet she counts herself lucky for not sustaining worse injuries. It was surreal, she said, to think that her own university called in state troopers — and then had to deploy medical personnel to assist students who were hurt.
“There’s a racist element people don’t want to talk about here,” she said. “There’s a xenophobic element people don’t want to acknowledge. There are more brown protesters, which maybe emboldens the police to do things a certain way.”
As calls for divestment continue, students, lawyers and advocates told Al Jazeera they have been forced to navigate scepticism and outright hostility from the Texas government.
“Texas is known for using violence to subvert minorities,” Faruqi said. “The reason this is shaking people this time is because it’s not working.”
Scrutiny over university endowments
Many of the protests have zeroed in on the University of Texas’s endowment, a bank of funds designed to support its nine campuses over the long term.
The University of Texas system has the largest public education endowment in the country, worth more than $40bn.
Some of that money comes from investments in weapons and defence contractors, as well as aerospace, energy and defence technology companies with deep ties to Israel.
ExxonMobil, for example, is one of the biggest beneficiaries of the system’s investments, and the company has supplied Israel with fuel for its fighter jets.
Those ties have fuelled the protests across the state’s public university campuses, including a May 1 demonstration at the University of Texas at Dallas.
Fatima — who only shared her first name with Al Jazeera, out of fear for her safety — was among the demonstrators. She wiped sweat from her brow as a young child led the crowd of about 100 in a series of chants: “Free, free, free Palestine!”
The divestment protests have largely been peaceful, Fatima explained, raising her voice to be heard above the noise.
“Over 30,000 people have been murdered,” she said, referring to the death toll in Gaza, where Israel’s military campaign is entering its eighth month.
“And our university is investing in weapons manufacturing companies that are providing Israel with these weapons. We’re going to stay here until our demands are met.”
Twenty-one students and staff members were arrested that day in Dallas. Members of the group Students for Justice in Palestine, of which Fatima is a member, spent the night outside the county jail, waiting for their friends to be released.
One protester wryly noted outside the jail that they had been arrested for trespassing on their own campus, a seemingly nonsensical offence.
In the background, a thunderstorm was beginning to rear its head, so the protesters huddled closer together under the awning.
Texas officials and university administrators have justified the police crackdowns, in part, by citing the presence of outsiders with no present affiliation with the campuses involved.
But 30-year-old activist Anissa Jaqaman is among those visiting the university protests, in an effort to lend supplies and support.
Everyone has a role to play, Jaqaman explained: Her role is sometimes that of the communicator, but more often that of the healer.
She has brought water to the student demonstrators at the University of Texas at Dallas and hopes to provide a space for people to “come over and talk about how we heal”.
“This is a healing movement,” she said time and again as she spoke to Al Jazeera. “We have to carry each other.”
Jaqaman is Texas through and through: She was raised in the Dallas suburbs and is a strong advocate for her state.
“I’m a proud Texan,” she said. “I actually think that Texans are some of the nicest people in the country.”
But back when she was in college, from 2012 to 2016, Jaqaman started to use her voice to bring awareness to the plight of Palestinians.
Rights groups have long warned that Israel has imposed a system of apartheid against the ethnic group, subjecting its members to discrimination and displacement.
In college, Jaqaman’s friends often laughed at her passion. She often smiles, exuding optimism, but her voice grows serious as she talks about Palestine, as well as other issues like the scourge of single-use plastics.
“They just thought I was a tree-hugger, but for human rights,” she explained, speaking in a soft yet confident voice.
But the current war has amplified her concerns. The United Nations has signalled famine is “imminent” in parts of Gaza, and rights experts have pointed to a “risk of genocide” in the Palestinian enclave.
Jaqaman has sported her keffiyeh scarf ever since the war began on October 7, despite feeling anxious that it could attract violence against her.
“I wear it because I feel like it protects my heart, honestly,” she said. “I feel like I’m doing the Palestinian people injustice by not wearing it.”
But she has struggled to get public officials to engage with her concerns about the war and divestment from industries tied to Israel’s military. For months, she attempted to persuade her local city council that “this is a human issue, an everyone issue”, to little avail.
“Everything that we’re seeing right now is about shutting down the discussion,” she said. “If you say anything about Palestine, you’re labelled anti-Semitic. That’s a conversation-ender.”
Youth protesters look to the future
Students like Javaid, a journalism major in her final semester, told Al Jazeera that they are still trying to figure out what healing looks like — and what their futures might hold. In many ways, she and her friends feel stuck.
They recognise they need to take a break from scouring social media for information about the war, and yet it is all they can think about.
The usual college rites of passage — final exams, graduation and job hunting — just don’t seem as important any more.
“How are we supposed to go back to work now?” Javaid asked after the protests.
While she has treasured her time at the university, she is also highly critical of its actions to stamp out the protests. Part of the blame, she added, lies with the government, though.
“The root issue in Texas is that the state government doesn’t care,” she said.
Born and raised in the Dallas area, Javaid plans to stay in Texas for at least a little while after she graduates this month. She has mixed feelings about staying long term, though.
She would like to work in social justice, particularly in higher education, but she worries such a job would be tenuous in her home state.
Still, she feels a sense of responsibility tying her to the state. The political climate in Texas may be challenging, she said, but she has a duty — to her fellow protesters and to Palestine — to keep playing a role.
“I don’t want to jump ship and just say, ‘Texas is crazy’,” Javaid said. “I want to be a part of the people trying to make it better. Because if not us, who?”
LOS ANGELES (AP) — A federal judge disqualified acting U.S. Attorney Bill Essayli in Southern California from several cases after concluding Tuesday that the Trump appointee has stayed in the temporary job longer than allowed by law.
U.S. District Judge J. Michael Seabright disqualified Essayli from supervising the criminal prosecutions in three cases, siding with defense lawyers. Essayli has been unlawfully serving as acting U.S. attorney for the Central District of California since July 29, Seabright wrote. But he may continue to serve as a First Assistant United States Attorney, Seabright ruled, effectively leaving him as the office’s top prosecutor.
“Nothing is changing,” Essayli wrote in a social media post Tuesday evening, saying he looked forward to advancing President Donald Trump’s agenda.
The decision represents another setback to the Trump administration’s effort to extend handpicked acting U.S. attorneys beyond the 120-day limit set by federal law. A judge ruled in September that acting U.S. attorney of Nevada, Sigal Chattah, was serving in her position illegally. Another judge disqualified acting U.S. attorney in New Jersey, Alina Habba, in August.
Essayli is a former federal prosecutor turned Republican California Assemblymember, where he took up conservative causes and criticized the state’s COVID-19 restrictions. He has been outspoken against California policies to protect immigrants living in the country illegally, and he has aggressively prosecuted people who protest Trump’s ramped up immigration enforcement across Southern California.
Under federal law, if a permanent U.S. attorney is not nominated by the president and confirmed by the Senate within 120 days, judges of the federal district court can appoint an interim until the vacancy is filled. Essayli has not been confirmed by the U.S. Senate —something that generally requires a degree of bipartisan support. California Sens. Adam Schiff and Alex Padilla have criticized Essayli’s appointment.
Essayli was appointed as interim U.S. attorney in March, several months after former President Joe Biden’s appointee to the job resigned. Just shy of the 120-day mark, U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi appointed him as First Assistant U.S. Attorney and said he would have the authority to serve as acting U.S. attorney upon a vacancy in the role. He then resigned as interim U.S. attorney.
The government has argued that he can do so under the Federal Vacancies Reform Act of 1998, which Congress passed specifically to regulate the temporary filling of executive branch vacancies that require presidential appointment and Senate confirmation.
Seabright, however, said that provision of the law only applies if the previous U.S. Attorney dies, resigns, or is otherwise incapacitated.
The lawsuit seeking to disqualify Essayli was brought by three men facing federal firearms charges. They sought to have their indictments dismissed. Seabright ruled the indictments can proceed.
In Nevada, the same judge that disqualified Chattah ruled last week that he was pausing his earlier ruling while a federal appellate court weighed an appeal from the U.S. Department of Justice, allowing her to remain temporarily involved in the cases being prosecuted by her office. An appellate court heard arguments on Monday regarding Habba’s appointment as well, questioning government lawyers on their maneuvers to keep Habba in place.
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U.S. President Donald Trump on Wednesday met with South Korean President Lee Jae Myung in the city of Gyeongju – the final stop on his Asia tour aimed at securing new investment deals.
“The Republic of Korea is a cherished American friend and a close ally. And as we can see in this beautiful city, it’s truly one of the most remarkable nations anywhere on earth,” Trump said ahead of the meeting at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) CEO Summit, adding that South Korea’s president “is a terrific person.”
During their bilateral meeting, Lee asked Trump to consider allowing South Korea to access fuel for conventionally armed, nuclear-powered submarines – a long-standing restriction under a U.S. nonproliferation deal.
Trump’s previous stops during his trip included visits to Malaysia and Japan.
After his visit to Japan yielded roughly $490 billion in investment commitments, Trump said a trade deal with South Korea has proven more challenging as he seeks an additional $350 billion in U.S. investments. Trump predicted total new investment could reach upwards of $22 trillion in investments by the end of his first year back in the White House.
TRUMP’S FOCUS TURNS TO JAPAN AND SOUTH KOREA AS ASIA TRIP CONTINUES
U.S. President Donald Trump and South Korean President Lee Jae Myung attend a high honor ceremony at the Gyeongju National Museum in Gyoeongju, South Korea. (AP)
“I figure that we’ll probably be at 20 or 21, maybe even $22 trillion of investments coming into our country by the end of the first year of my second term,” the president said. “And we had a tremendously successful first term. We had the strongest economy in history for our country, the strongest we ever had. But this is, I think, blowing it away. We have a great policy. We have some very good things happening.”
“Around the world, we’re signing one trade deal after another to balance our relationships on the basis of reciprocity,” Trump added. “I’ve signed groundbreaking agreements with Malaysia, Cambodia, Japan, and our deal with the Republic of Korea will be finalized very soon. These agreements will be incredible victories for all of us, because everyone is better off when we have stable partnerships not plagued by chronic problems and imbalances.”
Speaking to business executives at the event, Trump described an “economic revolution” underway in the United States. The president urged the executives not to listen to “small minds with no vision,” pledging to “build, trade, prosper and thrive together.”
TRUMP ANNOUNCES MEETING WITH XI JINPING AT SOUTH KOREA APEC SUMMIT SCHEDULED FOR NEXT MONTH
U.S. President Donald Trump shakes hands with South Korean President Lee Jae Myung as they attend a high honor ceremony at the Gyeongju National Museum in Gyoeongju, South Korea. (AP)
Trump later received South Korea’s Grand Order of Mugunghwa – the nation’s highest honor – along with a replica of a royal crown from the ancient Silla Kingdom, symbolizing Seoul’s recognition of his prior diplomatic efforts.
Trump’s visit coincided with new tensions on the Korean Peninsula after North Korea said it fired sea-to-surface cruise missiles off its western coast.
“He’s been launching missiles for decades, right?” Trump said of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un.
Trump reiterated his willingness to meet with the North’s leader, saying, “We had a really good understanding of each other.”
U.S. President Donald Trump waves after speaking at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation CEO summit in Gyeongju, South Korea. (AP)
In a separate speech, South Korea’s leader warned against rising protectionism, urging global cooperation on trade – a message that contrasted with Trump’s America First pitch.
Trump also previewed his upcoming meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping.
“You know that President Xi of China is coming here tomorrow, and we’re going to be, I hope, making a deal,” Trump said. “I think we’re going to have a deal. I think it’ll be a good deal for both. And that’s really a great result.”
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“That’s better than fighting and having all sorts of problems. And, you know, no reason for it,” he added.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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Hungary’s Prime Minister Viktor Orbán said he will discuss new US sanctions on Russian oil with President Trump in Washington next week.
The US slapped sanctions on Russia’s two largest oil companies, Rosneft and Lukoil, last week, with the former also being blacklisted by the EU.
“We are discussing how to build a sustainable system for my country’s economy, because Hungary is heavily dependent on Russian oil and gas. Without them, energy prices will skyrocket, causing shortages in our supplies,” Orbán told the Italian newspaper La Repubblica during a visit to Rome.
When asked if Trump went too far and had made a mistake by targeting Russia’s energy sector, Orbán said that he had gone too far, adding that Hungary will find a “way out” from the sanctions.
Landlocked Hungary imports most of its fossil fuels from Russia, despite repeated calls from the United States and the European Union to end its dependency on energy from Moscow, an issue which has become a point of tension.
The impact of US sanctions
Hungarian Foreign Minister Péter Szijjártó said the government is examining the possible impact of the sanctions, which the US says will stay in place until Russian President Vladimir Putin shows a genuine willingness to negotiate a ceasefire in Ukraine.
“As for the American sanctions, since their entry into force is still some way off, these measures have not yet caused any loss or difficulties in terms of our energy imports from Russia,” Szijjártó said at a press conference in Budapest on Monday.
Separately, the European Commission said the US sanctions do not pose any immediate danger for the security of supplies into Europe, as member states are required to hold oil reserves for 90 days.
“Last week’s decision obviously might have an impact and we want to make sure that our member states are prepared, that they have a plan and we are here to support them with this,” Anna-Kaisa Itkonen, European Commission spokesperson, told journalists.
Pressure mounts on Slovakia and Hungary
Since the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, the EU has made several attempts to cut its energy dependency on Russia.
In 2022, the bloc banned the purchase of Russian pipeline oil, with Hungary and Slovakia receiving exemptions. However, while there is no ban on Russian pipeline gas, the EU plans to phase out all fuel imports by the end of 2027 in the bloc.
Max Whitaker, US Ambassador to NATO, talking to Fox News on Sunday, criticised Hungary for not doing enough to end dependency.
Last week the US opted to sanction the Russian energy sector for the first time since the war in Ukraine started.
“Hungary, unlike many of its neighbours, has not made any plans and has not taken any active steps. We are going to work with their neighbours, like Croatia and other countries, that can help them to wind them off. And that pipeline will most likely shut off in the coming years,” Whitaker said, referring to the Druzhba oil pipeline.
Slovakia will have to present a plan to decouple from Russian energy too, he added.
According to the Centre for the Study of Democracy, Hungary further increased its energy dependency since the start of the full-scale invasion.
In 2022, 61% of Hungary’s crude oil needs were imported from Russia. This year so far, it has risen to 92%, while Slovakia depends almost entirely on Russia for oil imports.
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