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The student movement for Palestine has been at an all-time high in the United States in response to the devastating Israeli genocide on the Gaza Strip. Thus far, Israel has massacred over 34,000 Palestinians in Gaza, over 14,000 of them children. Palestinians just recently uncovered a second mass grave after Israeli forces killed over 300 people and discarded their bodies in the assault on Nasser Hospital. Due to the targeted killings of aid workers and the strategic blockade of humanitarian aid, Gaza is on the brink of famine.
Seven days after its dramatic 4 am launch on Wednesday, April 19, the Gaza Solidarity Encampment at Columbia has become international news. Students have been organizing their own encampments in solidarity with Gaza across the country, inspired by the struggles of Columbia students, many of whom have been mass arrested, suspended, and evicted from student housing as a result of their participation in the encampment.
Students have thus far launched encampments at universities across the country including the University of Maryland, the University of North Carolina, the University of Michigan, Emerson College, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the University of Minnesota, the University of Rochester, the University of California – Berkeley, the University of New Mexico, the University of Pittsburgh, and the New School.
Students around the world have also followed the example of Columbia, with students beginning an encampment at Sydney University on April 23, and at the University of Alberta, in Canada on April 22.
Students at New York University in New York City launched an encampment at 4 am on April 22 on the campus’s Gould Plaza. That same evening, the New York Police Department moved in on the camp and conducted a violent eviction, arresting both faculty and students and macing and brutalizing protesters. The NYPD arrested 128 people, according to organizers, and cleared the encampment.
The story of the arrests at NYU speaks nothing to the brave defiance of the students and their crowd of supporters in the face of police brutality. NYU faculty were only arrested after linking arms in an attempt to protect the students in the encampment. As NYPD closed in on the camp throughout the day, a crowd of hundreds had gathered outside Gould Plaza to show support. Many of these supporters were arrested alongside student organizers.
The day after protesters were arrested at NYU, the university erected a massive plywood wall in front of Gould Plaza, ostensibly to prevent further encampments. There is good reason the university should fear the sheer persistence of the student body—after Columbia campers were mass arrested last week, students spontaneously poured into the adjacent lawn and immediately set up a new encampment.
Students at the University of Minnesota Gaza Solidarity Encampment were also arrested on April 23, with nine students arrested and the entire encampment cleared. As a result, an emergency protest of over 1,000 students and staff gathered on campus,
Repression justified by accusations of antisemitism
The student movement is under a new level of scrutiny across the country as mainstream outlets flock to cover the encampment, especially at Columbia. The coverage has often been hostile, with Zionist and right-wing media outlets attempting to portray student organizers as antisemitic. Joe Biden himself condemned student protesters, denouncing what he called “the alarming surge of antisemitism” which “has absolutely no place on college campuses, or anywhere in our country.”
“My commitment to the safety of the Jewish people, the security of Israel, and its right to exist as an independent Jewish state is ironclad,” Biden affirmed.
“While every American has the right to peaceful protest, calls for violence and physical intimidation targeting Jewish students and the Jewish community are blatantly Antisemitic, unconscionable, and dangerous—they have absolutely no place on any college campus, or anywhere in the United States of America,” said White House deputy press secretary Andrew Bates in a statement.
What they choose to ignore is the growing wave of anti-zionist Jewish organizing as part of the Palestine solidarity movement. Many of those arrested across the country in the crackdown on the student movement are Jewish themselves and have had their Jewish organizations, such as Columbia Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP) banned by the school administration.
In response to accusations of antisemitism, Jewish student organizers with Columbia JVP, one of the leading organizations in the encampment, held a press conference on April 23. “Come see our camp, come to a shabbat,” said a Jewish Barnard student, who was suspended for participating in the encampment. Jewish student organizers have been holding Jewish celebrations regularly on the encampment. “Inside this camp, we built a new community. And as we built it we committed to fighting all forms of oppression together.”
“Divestment”
Columbia students are using their enormous platform, which they have gained through their organizing, to draw attention towards Gaza. “No matter what the Zionist media says, we maintain our sustained focus on Palestine,” said Eliette Choi, a student at the Columbia School of Social Work and organizer with Columbia University Apartheid Divest (CUAD), one of the central organizations leading the encampment. Students across the country are leveraging a primary demand of their administrations: divest all finances, including endowments, from corporations that profit in any way shape or form from Israeli genocide. “This de-occupation [a term students use for their encampment] is extremely important to bring all eyes on Gaza and to push for divestment,” Choi said.
Students are hoping that fighting for divestment from the heart of some of the wealthiest and most powerful universities will have a “domino effect,” according to Zainab, an organizer with CUAD. The fight for divestment also “shows us that the student movement plays a monumental role in the struggle for Palestinian liberation. Considering that internationally other governing bodies have failed to hold Israel accountable, individuals and particularly students will aim to do anything in their capacity to hold Israel accountable, and that could look like divestment and other means,” Zainab told Peoples Dispatch.
Student organizers at Columbia are also demanding full amnesty for students that have been suspended, evicted, fired or otherwise sanctioned for their protest. In addition to divestment, NYU students are demanding that their institution engage in a full academic boycott of Israel by closing its satellite campus in Tel Aviv.
One of the key groups engaged in resistance against the Israeli occupation, the leftist group, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, released a statement in support of the student struggle in the United States.
“We in the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, along with all our people, the honorable of our nation and the world, confirm our steadfast support for the struggle of the students youth movements , Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) and the Palestinian Youth Movement (PYM) at universities such as Columbia, Rutgers, Yale, Stanford, among others,” wrote the organization.
“As we highly appreciate the positions, movements, and struggles of our students in American universities, and call for the escalation of their struggle against aggressive policies, and the rejection of compliance with the policies biased in favor of the occupation, we also call for the strengthening of ranks and enhancing the unity of students. We highly value the supportive and solidarity positions for the struggle of our people in various American universities and around the world, and all the strugglers for freedom, justice, and human dignity.”
This article originally appeared in the Peoples Dispatch on April 23rd, 2024.
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