An Antifa anarchist movement-associated anti-Israel militant group on Monday claimed responsibility for the Thursday arson of 15 Portland Police Bureau training vehicles in a “preemptive May Day attack” on law enforcement to protect the pro-Palestinian encampment occupying the facilities at the Portland State University.
A group calling itself Rachel Corrie’s Ghost Brigade issued a statement on the Antifa-affiliated Rose City Counter-Info blog, in which it called for an escalation in violence on behalf of Palestinians. The Rachel Corrie Foundation did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
“We call for more actions to avenge Palestinians and the brutalized students at PSU and beyond!” said the brigade. “Let 10 million cop cars burn!”
The so-called brigade, named for a pro-Palestinian who was killed when she placed herself in the path of a D9 bulldozer in Rafah in 2003, claimed that they had committed the arson because they believed that the PSU encampment would be cleared by law enforcement. The group said that on Thursday, they had cut through the fence of a police training facility and set 10 fires that spread to 15 vehicles. Portland Police said that some of the vehicles were destroyed and some damaged.
The group urged student occupation settlements not to be passive but to “catch the police off guard” and “Raid them before they raid you!”
“Fight! Defend your camps! If the frat[ernity] bros come, smash their frat house windows! If the Zionist settlers come, throw fireworks at them! If the cops come, don't just resist arrest; fight them! They will hate you and beat you if you’re peaceful or violent, and it is time to be violent,” the brigade said in five messages to students. “Out of the quads, out of the buildings, into the streets! As the semester ends, this is not over. Fight during the summer. When next year starts, then too!”
Students were advised not to negotiate or demobilize until the full adoption of Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions movement policies and amnesty for all arrested and suspended activists.
Thirty activists were arrested by the Portland Police Bureau on Thursday, including at least six students, when they cleared the anti-Israel occupation of the university’s library. Portland State University Officers arrested one person and detained another for a police mental health hold. PPB said that they were seeking 18 other activists, many of whom had been armed with makeshift shields and had fled the library after the days-long occupation.
One of the activists who was arrested allegedly deployed a fire extinguisher at an officer as they navigated through the library, which was full of barricaded doors and floors made slick with soap and paint. Footage of the vandalized library posted by the PPB showed the caches of tools, improvised bludgeons, makeshift armor, ball bearings, paint balloons, and ink spray bottles, which were not used against officers. Seven officers were injured during the raid, but most minor, the most serious being a knee injury.
Portland Mayor Ted Wheeler thanked the police for their efforts against criminal behavior, which he claimed had “tainted otherwise peaceful gatherings.”
“I support the right to freedom of expression, but criminal destruction, intimidation, and violence are not free speech,” Wheeler wrote on social media.
PSU President Ann Cudd said on Friday that the Branford Price Millar Library had been “rendered unusable” and that while she was supportive of the protests, she expected “that protesters will not intimidate and harass students or other members of our community. PSU does not tolerate violence or hate of any kind. We stand up strongly against antisemitism, Islamophobia, and Anti-Arab and Anti-Palestinian hate.”
Defending her decision to call the police in a Tuesday statement, Cudd said that hateful “slogans and epithets, while protected by the First Amendment, will not bring about a ceasefire in Gaza, but they can poison our community.”
Call to arms
PSU Students United for Palestinian Equal Rights said on April 25 that it was answering a National Students for Justice in Palestine call to seize campuses in emulation of the Columbia University encampment to force universities to adopt anti-Israel policies.
In addition, PSU SUPER demanded that the university cut ties with Boeing. Cudd said on Friday that there would be a Boeing Forum and that the administration had canceled a May 10 Presidential Investiture Ceremony and a diversity symposium. The campus had been closed multiple times in response to the protests and encampment.
Rose City Counter-Info claimed Tuesday that Antifa forces had attacked Banks, Louis Vuitton, Gucci, Starbucks, Verizon, and other businesses while chanting “Intifada Intifada, long live the Intifada.” They also reportedly caused a campus police officer to flee with a stoning attack.
Antifa factions had fights and confrontations with the pro-Palestinian encampment factions, who regulated who could enter the occupied zone. Antifa was accused of “triggering Palestinians by wearing black” and told that they were not welcome because they were interfering with “A Muslim image” of non-violence.
“The actions of the black bloc will only get innocent people of color arrested,” a Muslim activist said, according to the Antifa blog.
The Antifa bloggers denied that the sentiment was shared by the majority of the encampment and criticized those who had established themselves as authorities of the occupied library. They argued that violence had to be used and that peaceful protest would not achieve their objectives.