As in the United States, Australia’s university campuses are currently occupied by student encampments for Palestine. At the country’s wealthiest tertiary institution — the University of Melbourne (UoM) — protesters claimed the campus’s main arts building on May 15. They then rechristened it “Mahmoud’s Hall” in honor of Mahmoud Alnaouq, an Australia Awards Scholar and prospective UoM student who was killed by Israeli airstrikes in October of last year.

In response, the university canceled classes scheduled in Mahmoud’s Hall, locked its back doors, and disabled its elevators. But it did not call the police, despite having threatened to do so multiple times. In contrast with the United States, Australian university administrators have so far hesitated to initiate police crackdowns on encampments.

Instead, university managers have attempted to discredit the camps, accusing activists of spreading antisemitism, endangering student and staff safety, and causing property damage. In a leaked video, UoM deputy vice chancellor Michael Wesley stated that “the university’s patience is at an end” with “seriously intimidating” students who, he alleged, “caused considerable damage.”