UNC protestors remove American flag and fly Palestinian flag, chancellor puts it back up personally

Tuesday on the campus of UNC-Chapel Hill, demonstrators broke through police barricades to lower the American flag in the main quad and fly the flag of Palestine instead. Interim Chancellor Lee Roberts then walked to the quad surrounded by law enforcement officers, to put the American flag back up. Counter-protesters surrounded the flagpole and chanted “USA,” thanking Roberts for his intervention.

“That flag will stay there as long as I am chancellor,” he told WRAL news in live coverage of the protest. “Tell students that we will keep them safe from a small minority of students who want to disrupt their experience. This university is for everybody.”

According to the student media outlet Carolina Review, the crowd of protesters set up an encampment Monday afternoon and stayed in the quad all night. They chanted “intifada,” “revolution,” and “to the river to the sea” during the demonstration. The term has become a rallying cry for eliminating the nation of Israel, and putting the entire territory, from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea, under Palestinian control.

Police officers confiscated the Palestinian flag while pro-Palestine protestors and counter-protesters shout at each other.

“No one has the right to disrupt campus materially nor to threaten or intimidate our students,” the chancellor’s office wrote in a message issued earlier Tuesday.

This is a developing story.

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