Norma Rainer and Nath H. – April 28th.
Students at the prestigious Columbia University in New York, who have been mobilizing since 2023 against Zionism’s genocide in Gaza, decided in April 2024 to broaden and extend their protest by setting up tents on the university campus.
The high level of politicization of the movement and its rejection of the U.S. government’s complicity with Zionism is reflected in the students’ demands:
- Ceasefire in Gaza (they have been doing so since 2023)
- Condemnation of genocide by university directors
- Universities to sever ties with companies and donors linked to Zionism
- Institutions stop investing in and receiving money from companies and individuals profiting from the genocide, apartheid and occupation of Palestine
- An end to the stigmatization of protest and guarantees for expelled students.
Wanting to discredit the protest immediately, sectors of Zionism with a presence in Congress, in the faculties and directives of the university, as well as Donald Trump and President Biden, (accomplices of the genocide that Israel has been committing) spoke out against it. So did Netanyahu, who was primarily responsible for the massacre of the Palestinians. With their characteristic cynicism, they all want to hide Zionism’s crimes in Gaza using the old trick of «anti-Semitism.»
They distort reality, as many of those protesting are Jewish and take a clear stand against Zionism and genocide. In addition, the protest in solidarity with the Palestinian cause in the universities of the United States has made it possible to unify young Muslims, Christians and young people of other faiths and cultures, showing a democratic, diverse and very progressive movement.
As a result of pressure from the powerful Zionist lobby in the U.S. and in a clear violation of university autonomy, police repression was ordered inside the campus. Hundreds of students were arrested, their tents dismantled, and others were suspended. In addition, virtuality was imposed on the faculties to weaken the movement. This lays bare, once again, the violation of democratic freedoms in the United States, a country that boasts of its «democracy.»
Contrary to expectations, the discontent with the authoritarian measures and police repression was not long in coming and, like wildfire, new camps have been set up at Columbia University and other universities such as Harvard, MIT, Yale, New York University, Michigan, and Washington, among others. Professors who have joined the protests in defense of the students have also been repressed and arrested.
The spark ignited by the university students of the most prestigious universities in the United States has also reached Europe, where Italian and Australian students returned to protest and a group of students blocked access to the University of Political Science in Paris. The unifying cause of the protests is support for the Palestinians.
We salute and place ourselves on the side of these new unified actions of the student movement, which are part of the massive mobilizations that have been taking place in the United States and Europe against Nazi Zionism, straining relations between the United States and Israel.
They are an encouragement to the national liberation struggle of the Palestinians, who are already greeting university students from their refugee camps.
The solidarity of students in the U.S. and Europe with Gaza is an example for young people and the student movement in Colombia, Argentina and Latin America to follow. Uniting their particular causes behind the international mobilization in rejection of the Zionist genocide would be an extremely positive development in favor of Palestine; a worthy example of resistance and struggle for the national liberation of the oppressed peoples.
