Encampment for Palestine. All Eyes on Gaza.

The student encampments sweeping the nations, but dont forget their purpose

One week into the encampment at the University of Michigan, students continue to be unrelenting in our demands: complete and total divestment from investment in the Palestinian genocide. Following the lead from students at Columbia, NYU, and countless other schools, students have “occupied” their universities, one which they pay thousands in tuition too, in solidarity with Palestinians who have continued to survive the ongoing onslaught that has murdered over 34,000 Palestinian, 14,000 of which are children.

Here, at Michigan, it is a sight of music, mutual aid, and political education. Students from all backgrounds are learning to feed each other (those not in the encampment bring donations), make art, and organize together. Students have set up rotating schedules of patrol, medics, food service; they show films like Israelism and The Present to bring awareness to current political schemes and realities of oppression. From sun rise to late into to the night, the encampment has created an environment where the people are freeing each other – no longer relying on schools and leaders who are constantly ignoring the popular demand to divest from the Israeli genocide (students across campuses have voted overwhelmingly for divest; some U.S. polls showing a majority of Biden voters also believe Israel is committing genocide).

But we should not be disillusioned. These encampments are an act of solidarity, nothing more. We are filled with light, warmth, AC, and more food than we know what to do with. The reality in Gaza is no way compares: every university destroyed, one remaining hospital, thousands of children who have become orphans, and two million people who are displaced from everything they’ve called home. Attention should, and must, continue to be on Rafah. On Al-Shifa hospital. On the mass graves where hundreds have been found executed, trampled by tanks, and mutilated by state-sponsored violence.

Despite the non-violent nature of the protests, students across the country have been deemed antisemitic by our schools, leaders, and elected officials. But there is a problem with confusing antisemitism with protesting for Palestinians not to be killed in their own homes. It conflates Judaism, a long-standing peaceful religion, with Zionism, a political ideology created in the 1890s.  Palestinians did not pick the identity of our oppressors, yet we are constantly asked to address the fears created by Western governments in the first place – does the child in Gaza ask who bombs them, or simply ask when the bombs will stop?

All Eyes on Gaza. All Eyes on Rafah.

It begs the question: why has there been wall-to-wall coverage about peaceful protests but not a single word from western governments on the mass graves discovered at Al-Shifa? Or the hundreds of documented war crimes? Why are we being told that the problem is 20-year-old students using certain slogans instead of the most powerful entity on earth arming  a nuclear power decimating a civilian population?

Lest we forget that white supremacy, has, and continues to be, the biggest problem facing the global Jewish population. Biden would rather ignore Jewish scholars and leaders like Bernie Sanders and Norman Finkelstein, who have denounced calling these encampments antisemitic, and continue to play into antisemitic tropes that Israel is the only safe space for Jews. I see more anger at students calling for the freedom of Palestine than when terrorists gunned down innocent people at the Tree of Life Synagogue, or when white supremacists strolled through the streets of Charlottesville. It seems that institutions are more disturbed by protests against genocide than the genocide itself.

Why? Because if students of privilege, non-Palestinian/Arab/ or Muslims students, are willing to throw themselves on the line for a Palestinian future, at schools meant to curate the next generation of imperialists, then that means their colonial chokehold is failing – and that frightens them. The façade of the “only democracy” has faded and along with it the idea that the US has any moral high ground in international politics.

All Eyes on Gaza. All Eyes on Rafah.  

Crackdowns have been taking place across campuses: riot police at Columbia and NYU, Emory faculty being thrown against concrete, UT Dallas students brutalized by state enforcement. However, rather than quell the uprising, it has galvanized even more activists worldwide. We are the generation that watched as police stood outside Uvalde as children were gunned down. We watched as children were murdered as police contemplated plans at Sandy Hook and Parkland, but are perfectly content with brutalizing and beating non-violent students calling for the end of a genocide powered by AI-technologies.

With every arrest, every suspension, and every attempt to silence students into submission, these institutions have only broadened support for the Palestinian cause. Palestinian is arguably the human rights issues of our time, and US response to Palestinian protest has made it the free speech issue of our time. Each student and protestor takes honor in advocating for Palestinian liberation. In fighting the colonial ideals that have allowed for a foreign government to invest millions into US politicians, a government that the US seems willing to risk its own interest for (as homelessness in the US rises, as student debt rises, as food insecurity rises). We have a moral conviction that we should not be complicit. There are no universities left in Gaza, our universities are theirs - until they can get an education, we will use our schools to be their voices in the states and abroad. Our tents, much like Palestine itself, are not going anywhere, remaining steadfast until total divestment with the ultimate goal of Palestinian liberation.

The encampments fill me with inspiration and hope. This is what a Palestinian future will look like. Jews performing Passover rituals along Muslims praying Maghrib, community members of all creeds taking part in collective liberation – a Palestinian that existed before British Mandate. I dream of a Palestine where we can sit in the shade of the trees our grandparents planted and see freedom, feel freedom.

All Eyes on Gaza. All Eyes on Rafah.

An edited version was published first on Al Jazeera by Ahmad Ibsais: https://www.aljazeera.com/opinions/2024/4/30/encamp-divest-and-keep-your-eyes-on-gaza