The article does not describe any political persecution, it just repeats a vague assertion by one guy and then makes implications about COVID lockdowns

Democrats and university admins just ran a standard PR playbook. They depend on students’ naivete to succeed at it, and that worked. Several encampmentd accepted mere promises of consideration to disband while others got stronger concess but without them actually being in hand, which were easy to renege on.

For campus protest to work against something as entrenched as Zionism, these lessons need to be learned and consistently passed on and there need to be strong ties to orgs outside the university that can provide seasoned advice.