In the past two weeks, thousands of students across the United States have launched encampments on the campuses of their universities in solidarity with the Palestinian people as Israel’s genocidal assault enters a seventh month. Students are demanding that their universities divest their endowments from Israel and all companies that do business with Israel and benefit from its illegal occupation of Palestine, and cut all academic partnerships with Israel. They have declared that they will remain in the encampments until their demands are met.
These encampments have already been met with heavy repression by university administrations and local officials. In many cases, administrators have already called in campus police, local town or city police, and even state troopers to violently attack, arrest, and evict students, faculty, and community members from the encampments. This repression however, has only served to strengthen the movement and increase its visibility, inspiring others to do the same at their own universities not only in the US but in Canada, France, the UK, Australia, and more.
Read more: Student movement for Palestine stands defiant in face of police repression
The wave of militant action across the US in support of Palestine and against Israel’s ongoing genocide in Gaza has sent a shockwave across the world and dominated international news. In response, groups across Historic Palestine have expressed their gratitude and solidarity for the brave actions taken by students and encouraged them to continue the struggle. Below is a statement from the Palestinian Educational Collective, a grouping of Palestinian youth, students, and university workers to the students, academics, and workers across the world.
Statement in Support of Students and Academics across University Campuses
We, a group of Palestinian youth, students, and university workers, stand shoulder to shoulder, in solidarity and pride, with our comrades who are protesting on university campuses across the United States, Europe, Egypt, Australia, and other parts of the world. We hear you, we appreciate your struggle, and together we will triumph against oppression.
These protests mark a decisive turning point in the struggle for our collective liberation. Emerging from a long tradition of global struggles for the freedom of colonized and subjugated people, the ongoing protests mark the most significant moment in recent history of people across the world putting their bodies, freedoms, and futures on the line to force an end to the ongoing 76-year genocide and perpetual war against the Palestinian people.
As protesters are met with brutal violence that vilifies the legitimacy of the struggle, institutions of higher education professing to be spaces of critical thinking and freedom of expression sanction the repression. Rather than defending the academy’s public role and the students’ right to protest, these institutions have dropped their democratic façade to unequivocally side with the Zionist regime and its allies, who continue to unleash a genocide on the Palestinian people while live-streaming it for the world. The genocide in which these institutions are complicit has thus not only wreaked havoc on the lives of Palestinians, but has also shattered the democratic and liberal values that these institutions purport to uphold.
We condemn the use of brutal and militarized state force against protestors. Although not surprising, it is appalling that police forces are brutalizing and arresting students and faculty members.
But your struggle has joined the hundreds of students and faculty members from Palestinian universities and educational institutions who have been killed, incarcerated, tortured, and brutalized by the Zionist regime. The tactics used to shut down the global protest movement that is shaking the imperial core highlight the material and discursive links between colonial and oppressive regimes in quelling political and social mobilization while affirming the interconnectedness of our struggles. Today, it is clearer than ever before: we need to abolish these inherently violent and racist systems.
As you erect tents across campuses, as you demand that colleges and universities divest from companies profiting from genocide, as you demand to put an end to academic programs with Israeli institutions, you are making history! Your loud cry for Palestinian liberation is being heard and is slowly but forcefully resonating around the world.
Together, we are collectively making history as we fortify our long tradition of resistance against injustice and fight for a just, free, and liberated future.
The Palestinian Educational Collective
