When a pro-Palestine protester snatched an Israeli flag from a counter-protester on the steps of UC Berkeley’s Sproul Hall this week, it seemed as if it could go the way of violent clashes in universities in Southern California.

But the ensuing scuffle quickly de-escalated, and a relative calm returned to campus Thursday.

At Stanford, when students turned up waving U.S. and Israeli flags, pro-Palestine protesters encamped at White Plaza kept the commitment they had pledged to each other: They will not be provoked.

They are “trying to get a response and a reaction out of us, but we don’t want that,” Emily Williams, a third-year Stanford student and pro-Palestine activist, said Thursday. “So we just ignore them.”

So far, with a combination of relative discipline among protesters, police-as-a-last-resort campus policies and a more progressive Bay Area political culture, the Bay Area’s biggest universities — from Berkeley and Stanford to San Jose State and the University of San Francisco — have largely managed to avoid the kinds of bloody skirmishes and riot police that have made headlines at campuses across the country.

But whether the uneasy peace will last remains uncertain.

“It’s a fragile situation,” said Dan Mogulof, vice-chancellor for public affairs at UC Berkeley, the cradle of protest movements dating back to the 1960s. “The actions of a single individual can lead to really severe consequences because it begins a chain reaction. So we’re not taking anything for granted. We’re not patting ourselves on our backs. But we do have institutional experience.”

UCLA administrators in Southern California had thought they balanced First Amendment rights with safety on campus, but that quickly changed Wednesday night when a bloody melee with fistfights and chemical sprays broke out, lasting for hours before police intervened. At the University of Southern California, 93 people — including 51 students — were arrested last week following reports of vandalism.

The tensions across California follow dramatic scenes at Columbia University, where 217 were arrested and the encampment was removed by police, and scores of other universities where pro-Palestinian students are protesting the Israeli war in Gaza. Some 40,000 Palestinians have been killed in counter-strikes after Hamas militants attacked Israelis on Oct. 7.

On Thursday, President Joe Biden called for calm. “Order must prevail,” he said. “There’s the right to protest, but not the right to cause chaos.”

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