The past 24 hours have been a flashpoint for pro-Palestinian student protests at college campuses

across the country.

This was the scene this morning at the University of Wisconsin and Madison, where police and Riot Gear engaged in a standoff with

demonstrators before dismantling tents that were part of a protest encampment.

Police then clashed with protesters who here in New York City,

and arrested roughly three dozen, according to local reports.

Then at Fordham University here in New York City,

earlier this evening, police wearing helmets and carrying

batons arrested pro-Palestinian demonstrators placing them in zip ties as they took

down an encampment inside a campus building. This is all of course part of a larger protest

movement spreading across dozens of colleges and while the demands of

each individual protest vary, they are primarily focused on drawing attention

to the tens of thousands of Palestinian civilians killed in Gaza and

calling for their colleges to financially divest from investments connected to Israel.

The protests have been followed by dozens of counter protests, primarily in support of

Israel, and against what these supporters call rising anti-Semitism.

Overall more than 1500 protesters have been arrested in just the past two weeks.

Many of those arrests have been brutal with protesters and even professors

thrown to the ground and forcibly removed. But some of those arrests have

also been peaceful.

With the story this big, it is important not to paint any of this with too broad a brush.

All of these protests are made up of individual actors. All of them are happening on different campuses

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