Students say “no more” to funding genocide
Across the United States, students have mobilized and are demanding that their academic institutions cease their participation in the genocide of Palestinians. Encampments of students on expansive college quads are at the forefront of actions against the administration, but certainly not limited. We have seen students at Emory University, California State Polytechnic University of Humboldt, Columbia University, Hamline University, and others physically occupy administrative and academic buildings on campuses, integrating the movement with even more pressure and momentum. These tactics are sharpened with insights from other movements in recent history like Occupy in 2011 and the Black Lives Matter protests in 2020. Most demands from these students relate to the disclosure and divestment of funds that contribute to the genocide, however, some are also in solidarity with the movement as a whole. Furthermore, the students’ actions have inspired professors and other faculty to directly engage with the administration by supporting the student encampments and demands. In some cases, the inspired faculty have joined the protests to act as a buffer between the police and the students.
As of writing this, there have been over 2,000 arrests of students and faculty peacefully demonstrating against a genocide supported by their own academic institutions and the United States government. These police are fitted with riot gear, have used tear gas and rubber bullets, and continue to use tactics that endanger the demonstrators. This response is a clear sign that the demonstrations are striking at the heart of power and is genuinely resisting the official narratives of Empire. Repression has always been a tactic used to undermine leftist movements and this is no different. The protestors may not be advocating for a revolutionary vanguard or dismantling of the US government, but it is hard to argue that these demonstrators are not radical and not leftists. Anecdotally, the library set up at the encampment of the University of Pennsylvania contains a myriad of anti-capitalist and decolonial literature. Fellow demonstrators talk of how violence is encoded in the global Capitalist system and what it takes to confront and change that. The administrations and government will quickly find out that quashing these protests is a fast-track to radicalizing yet another generation of politically motivated leftists, some of which will want to circumvent the public marches and get straight into organizing and building alternative power structures.
Palestine is Everywhere
This motto has been popping up on campus encampments, protests, and online discourse, along with some confusion of what exactly it means.
- On every continent exists some form of movement to resist Israel’s genocide of Palestinians. Obviously it has been present in the belly of the beast, that is, the United States and Europe, but now students in South America, Asia, and Africa have joined in solidarity. Word of the encampments has also reached Palestine, where on April 25, 2024, student organizations released a letter of solidarity to the students protesting the colleges actively funding and profiting from the genocide. If nothing else, this letter of solidarity should ignite a fire in everyone’s heart that we must keep pressing forward with our movement and continue to pressure administrations in ceasing their involvement. Chanted across the country is “We are Palestinian”; where there are students fighting for Palestine, there exists affirmation of their existence, something that Israel can never erase.
- The settler-colonial state of Israel continues to exist and continues its campaign to erase the identity of Palestinians. This logic should be a relic of days gone, yet it continues to this very day and will continue for the near future. Famously, Nelson Mandela drew parallels between the struggle of South African liberation from apartheid and the struggle of Palestinian liberation from Israeli apartheid and occupation, stating that “our freedom is incomplete without the freedom of the Palestinians.”1 For those living in “free” societies, how free are you? Do you export that freedom abroad in the form of medical brigades or through bombs and IMF loans? No one can claim to be free when the condition of your freedom hinges on the unfreedom of another.
- The technologies and tactics that is used to kill and oppress Palestinians are the same technologies and tactics that are used to quash dissent in the metropole. The technology is, of course, built in the metropole and exported to the colonial territory for use. We have seen again and again that once it has been tested on a population not of our own, it is turned inward and used on citizens. Antony Loewenstein in his recent book, The Palestine Laboratory: How Israel Exports the Technology of Occupation Around the World, investigates the way the Israel uses the continuing genocide as a way to test and market technologies of control and destruction for globalized export. The United States, being the main arms-dealer in the world, is also a key consumer of military technologies and tactics from Israel. As noted previously in my article “Some Thoughts on Atlanta and Lützerath”, US police forces are trained in Israel and their technology is inspiration for expanding the systems of surveillance in the United States. The barbarity of the NYPD in their recent violent clashes with student demonstrators of NYU, Columbia, CCNY, and the New School makes more sense when you realize that the NYPD, being the largest police force in the United States, rivaling entire armies with the scope and scale of their funding and equipment, has counter-terrorism offices in Tel Aviv, Israel since 2012. In late August of 2023, New York City Mayor Eric Adams visited Israel and stated: “You all know that I’m a great fan of technology and all it can do to make our lives easy and safer. And Israel is on the cutting edge of exciting developments in technology that will benefit all of us,” and listed off some applications like “our introduction of drones”2, security cameras with biometric data collection, and usage of artificial intelligence.3 What happens in Palestine and Israel is directly linked to the politicians in the United States and the appendages they use to maintain their power.
Concerning Violence and Education
What does it mean for something to be violent? It is the same rhetorical question posed by people seeking distinction between the terrorist and the freedom fighter. Even more so that someone might distinguish between just and unjust violence. In my view, shared by others in the business of anti-colonial and anti-racist resistance, is that self-defence is always just, and when people find themselves in a position of constant oppression, resistance is always just. This is why I do not denounce the actions of the Palestinian people, who have for the last 75+ years been in a state of constant exceptional violence against their existence. Their resistance is just.
The same logic applies to students demonstrating against their academic institutions that are funding and profiting from the genocide. Their resistance, whether that be in the form of strikes, marches, occupation of campus greens or of campus buildings, is just. The violence they may commit, if we are to even cede that they commit so-called violence in the form of vandalism or damage to property, is an extension of the resistance Palestinians conduct in response to their continued ethnic cleansing. Remarkable is the narrative on mainstream media and social media where Zionists clutch their pearls at the occupation of campuses, claiming feelings of insecurity and uneasiness, and denounce the so-called violence occurring. They shine light onto resistance from students and conveniently ignore the real provocations from crazed and dangerous Zionist counter-protestors and the police. Conveniently, they ignore that greater violence is committed by the Israeli state each day than all windows the students could wish to break during their lives. It is clear that these liberal Zionists, despite their claim to care for the innocent civilians, wish to see the complete destruction of Gaza and the West Bank and complete pacification of the student movement before they criticize Israel for “excesses” during their war. By the time they look back to Israel, they will already be planning excursions to vacation at the new neighborhoods and resorts built on the rubble of Palestinian homes after the Palestinian bones have been crushed and thrown into the wind.
How does one even convince themselves that these “education institutions” are anything but businesses, vessels for private capital to, at the end of the day, make a profit. They invest in companies that profit from war and conflict and ones that actively are killing the planet. They provide room and board for professional murderers for nothing but a shoutout at the next conference. The information is public and widely disseminated. Why do they only stop (if they do) after there is a public outcry? The answer is numbingly simple: they operate through capitalist logic. How does one even go back to school knowing their institution funded genocide until a mass movement to get them to stop. Those same people are still in charge in their ivory tower when they should be rotting in a damp cell. What is a private university? The answer is now clearer than ever: they are the marketplace of death.
Long Live the Student Intifada!
It is clear that this is just the start of a hot summer of resistance to the Empire and the Empire has shown that it will be fighting back. We must not, and will not, give up until the genocide stops and we have dismantled the systems of control that govern our lives. No matter what, we must keep going and sharpen our tactics to ensure that the students are victorious, both at home and abroad in Gaza and the West Bank. Only through the power of the people is this possible, and the power of the people cannot be stopped.
- The complete statement includes a greater scope of solidarity than solely Palestine and I feel obligated to publish the full quote: “But we know too well that our freedom is incomplete without the freedom of the Palestinians; without the resolution of conflicts in East Timor, the Sudan and other parts of the world”. “Address by President Nelson Mandela at International Day of Solidarity with Palestinian People, Pretoria”. December 4, 1997. Nelson Mandela. http://www.mandela.gov.za/mandela_speeches/1997/971204_palestinian.htm#:~:text=Peace%20and%20prosperity%3B%20tranquillity%20and,Palestinian%20self%2Ddetermination%20and%20statehood. ↩︎
- “Transcript: Mayor Adams Holds Virtual Media Briefing to Discuss Trip to Israel”. August 23, 2023. https://www.nyc.gov/office-of-the-mayor/news/614-23/transcript-mayor-adams-holds-virtual-media-briefing-discuss-trip-israel ↩︎
- “Transcript: Mayor Adams Holds Virtual Media Briefing To Discuss Trip To Israel”. August 22, 2023. https://www.nyc.gov/office-of-the-mayor/news/611-23/transcript-mayor-adams-holds-virtual-media-briefing-discuss-trip-israel ↩︎
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