Brown Students for Justice in Palestine (Brown SJP) led a rally on the Brown University Main Green on Saturday to mark the International Day of Action for Palestine. At the rally, Brown SJP will officially launch its campaign for Brown University and the Warren Alpert Medical School to cease their study abroad programs in Israel. The undergraduate programs reopened this year after three years of suspension since October 2023.
“The partner institutions – Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Technion Israel University of Technology, Tel-Aviv University, Ben Gurion University of the Negev, and the Arava Institute of Environmental Studies – are all complicit in Israel’s ongoing genocide in Gaza and larger systems of carceral violence within occupied Palestine and here in the United States. We reject our institution’s sanitizing of the settler colonial state of Israel and its implicit support for Israel’s war crimes through the official sanctioning of these programs. The end to Brown’s study abroad programs in Israel is a relaunch of our long-term campaign for the University to sever its ties with Israel, including divesting its endowment from companies complicit in Israel’s occupation of Palestine.”
“For three years, Israel and its supporters have waged their campaign of genocide in Gaza, the scale of destruction of which has been incomprehensible. The Zionists have torn apart every means of human existence in Gaza. They have not only destroyed the means of survival – food, water, shelter, healthcare – but have attempted to destroy the dignity of the people of Gaza by slaughtering journalists, scholars, resistance fighters, artists, and scientists. They attempt to rip the very soul out of Palestinian society. Yet at this they have failed. The people of Gaza continue to fight for their survival and dignity every day, even while they continue to be bombed during this fake ceasefire. The people of Gaza fight just as the Palestinians of the West Bank fight against increasingly brutal settler violence.
“Indeed, the Palestinians have fought this war for over 100 years. From the start of the British colonization of Palestine till now, the Palestinian people have fought to honor the martyrs of the struggle for liberation. Their commitment to the struggle inspires us, the students of the United States, to fight to dismantle Western imperialism from within.
“Our institutions from inside the US attempt to make us forget about the genocide, to manufacture consent for continued support for Israel, and to rehabilitate the image of a nation that will forever be remembered for its crimes against the Palestinian people. We will not let them. It is our duty to make the Zionist entity a pariah in the institutions of the West. I speak as a student of Brown University, which has recently reopened its five undergraduate study abroad programs to universities in the Zionist entity. Shame! Only three years since the start of the genocide, Brown is sending its students to study in the very universities that codify and enable the destruction of Gaza.
“Brown is supporting these genocidal institutions as if nothing has happened in the past three years, and we will not let them get away with this. We rally today to demand that Brown University shut down its study abroad programs to Israel as part of a broader academic disaffiliation with a nation that murders families, that steals land, that starves children while sending their fathers to be tortured in prison. We look to history. In the 1980s and 90s, Brown students fought to disaffiliate the university from apartheid South Africa. Like them, we fight to be on the right side of history. The fight against colonization has persisted across generations, and we inherit the legacy of a struggle that continues long after we graduate.
“We will not allow the struggle for change to disappear. As the Palestinian youth movement stated in the wake of three years of genocide, we affirm today that if everything in Gaza has changed, then the world must change because of it. In this way, we honor our martyrs’ sacrifices and the fight for liberation for the living and the land.”
“I moved to the U.S. three years ago, just a few months before the genocide against the Palestinians reached a level of brutality we hadn’t seen before. Ever since then, people here in Providence, across the U.S. and the world, have brought Palestine into our workplaces, universities, unions, city councils, neighborhoods and streets. People who had never organized a day in their lives have been pulled into political struggle. That’s because the effects of this genocide aren’t just something we feel in our hearts or see on our screens. They’re felt in our material conditions, in our daily lives right here in the U.S.
“Just as Palestinians struggle against Israel’s brutal and genocidal tactics, Oppressed people in the US struggle against brutal terror tactics from the police and from ICE. We know that police in the US and IOF soldiers share tactics with one another about how to best brutalize and torture people. This is documented. Cops in the US engage in exchange programs, often funded by the Zionist Anti-Defamation League, but also by local city budgets, where they go to Israel to get trained in the brutal tactics of the IOF. Shame. These are two sides of the brutal capitalist imperialist project of the U.S.
“The U.S. and Israel brutalize Palestinians in order to steal more land and resources. And at home, the U.S. brutalizes immigrants, undocumented people, black and brown people, so the ruling class can maintain its grip on power and maximize profit.
“The ruling class knows that if united working people could easily overthrow them, they would also have to construct racist narratives to divide us and use the brutality of ICE and police to terrorize people in hopes of quelling our resistance. Look at Brown University Health. In July, they hired Jason Owens, the former head of Border Patrol. Shame! We know this is an agency responsible for the violence and abuse inflicted on migrants, and now he oversees security in our hospitals. This is the same hospital system that says it can’t afford to pay frontline workers what they deserve, yet it is willing to pay a former border enforcer a seven-figure salary.
“They’re telling us exactly where their priorities are. They’ll spend big to police our communities while making us pay the price. The greatest solidarity we can offer the people of Palestine in their struggle for liberation and all people fighting under the grip of U.S. imperialism is to build a movement that fights imperialism on every front.
“That means bringing Palestine into our struggles against ICE and policing, connecting these fights and building a mass movement right here. Last Tuesday, people in Central Falls put this into practice. When ICE vehicles showed up circling a factory and a bank in the neighborhood, the community mobilized all day. Waves of people took the streets to make it clear that ICE was not welcome. For hours, we knocked on doors. For hours, we talked to workers and spread the deportation defense line number. We even had elders bake bread to feed the people holding the line. After hours of mobilization, ICE left the neighborhood without taking any of our people.
“This is what community looks like. This is what resistance looks like. Palestine showed the world the true nature of US imperialism and the dark reality that it has planned for this century if we leave it unopposed. Are we going to leave it unopposed? Hell no! Palestine also showed the world the true nature of resistance: fighting steadfastly, believing in freedom, and never letting go of that belief. We look to Palestine as our compass. So before I go, I have two asks. First, save the deportation defense line number: 401-675-1414.
“Get involved in the fight against ICE. We’re more than a hotline. We’re always looking for volunteers, and we’re out in our neighborhoods organizing, doing outreach, and building political consciousness. My second ask is to fight defeatism. Fight your negativity, your pessimism. This is a long fight, and we cannot afford to give up. We know they want us to be exhausted, discouraged, and to believe nothing can change. We cannot let them win, even if it feels like an eternity has passed since October 7, 2023. We’re only beginning to see how deeply Palestine has changed the world. We’ll keep fighting until we win a full two-way arms embargo on Israel, sanctions on Israel, and a free Palestine.”
“I have stood on these very steps before to speak about Palestine. Before the genocide, during countless citizen strikes, and even during the encampment. I am one of the many Palestinian students who have called Brown University home. And while I may have graduated, I’m here today to thank you for your solidarity, your courage, and your steadfastness, your samud. These past three years have been an open wound in an already bleeding Palestinian reality. We know that the mass killings of Palestinians, Lebanese, Syrians, and Iranians did not begin on October 7.
“What the world witnessed that day was the eruption of decades of dispossession, occupation, siege, and denial of fundamental rights. Palestinians have been deprived of their freedom, subjected to land theft, restricted in their movement, and denied the right to determine their own future. For Palestinians in Gaza, this history stretches back generations.
“Many families were uprooted from their villages during the Nakba of 1948 and forced into exile and refugeehood. Palestinians have been made to bear the consequences of a catastrophe they did not create. I’m not here to summarize seven decades of Palestinian struggle. The devastation of the last three years speaks for itself. I’m here to implore you: never stop talking about Palestine, never stop organizing, and never apologize for resisting injustice. Universities like Brown are not simply financially invested in the Israeli occupation. They’re also implicated when they restrict students’ ability to protest, threaten severe disciplinary consequences for political expression, and make speaking openly about Palestine a source of fear.
“As students, we have an obligation to uphold justice, just as generations before us stood against the Vietnam War and fought for civil rights, and as students today challenge ICE raids and sexual violence in higher education.
“What does it say about a university when students protesting genocide face expulsion, while institutions fail to adequately confront sexual abuse? Our university should be a place where we confront injustice, not a place where we protect it from scrutiny. And we must be clear. The suffering in Gaza did not end with a ceasefire. A ceasefire does not mean freedom or justice. Families in Gaza continue to struggle for food, clean water, medicine, and adequate shelter. Israel continues to restrict essential supplies and carry out attacks. Beyond Gaza, Israel continues to expand settlements, seize Palestinian land, and facilitate settler violence through the occupied West Bank.
“My own family in the West Bank lives under the constant pressure of checkpoints, road closures, and settler attacks. Their freedom of movement is systemically restricted. Yet a Brown student participating in a study abroad program in Israel can travel on modern highways through the occupied West Bank, enjoying freedoms of movement denied to Palestinians.
“Is this not inherently political? If apartheid South Africa still existed today, would Brown allow students to study there, enjoying the privileges afforded to white South Africans while millions of black South Africans remained confined to the Bantustans? Would we call that academic neutrality? Of course not. Brown must end its academic ties with institutions that normalize and sustain the occupation and oppression of Palestinians. So what can we do after three years of oppression and intimidation?
“First, provide material support. Donate to Palestinian families in Gaza who need food, clean water, medicine, and shelter. Solidarity must mean more than words. It must help people survive.
“Second, support Palestinian education. Volunteer to tutor students in Gaza in English. Despite the destruction of their schools and universities, students remain determined to continue their education. They deserve access to knowledge just as much as students who can afford six-figure tuition.
“Third, consider joining protective presence initiatives alongside Palestinian farming communities threatened by settler violence. Use the privileges you possess as Americans to stand alongside those whose land and livelihoods are under threat. And finally, keep organizing here. Challenge Brown’s investments in institutional partnerships, defend the right to protest, build coalitions across movements, because Palestinian liberation is inseparable from the broader struggle against racism, colonialism, militarism, and state violence. I know that many of you are tired. Three years of watching unimaginable suffering while facing repression at your own university can leave you exhausted.
“You may wonder whether your organizing makes a difference. But solidarity is not about guaranteeing that we will win tomorrow. It’s about refusing to abandon one another today. The Palestinian people have taught the world the meaning of sumud.
“Steadfastness in the face of dispossession, the determination to remain, and the insistence on living with dignity despite every attempt to deny it. Do not allow time to normalize genocide. Do not allow a ceasefire to erase the demand for accountability. Do not allow university administrators to convince you that silence is the price of an education. Palestinians deserve freedom, dignity, and the right to live on their land without occupation, siege, and displacement. Until that day comes, our responsibility remains. Keep speaking, keep organizing, keep showing up, and keep standing with Palestine. And above all, remain steadfast.”
First, I want to give some context for the poem. Enemy of the Sun is a resistance poem by the Palestinian writer Samih al-Qasim. However, it is often associated with the martyred black revolutionary George Jackson. After Jackson’s assassination, a handwritten copy of “Enemy of the Sun” was found in his prison cell, which the Black Panther Party published and attributed to Jackson. Decades later, when this editorial accident was discovered, it represented a sign of the deep ties between the Black and Palestinian struggles.
When we say Palestine is our compass, we mean that it marks the direction between truth and falsehood, between justice and oppression. Palestine is our compass because it points the way towards the liberation of the oppressed peoples everywhere. I invite you in this poem to hear the echoes of all forms of liberation struggle. This is “Enemy of the Sun” by Samih al-Qasim:
I may – if you wish – lose my livelihood
I may sell my shirt and bed.
I may work as a stone cutter,
A street sweeper, a porter.
I may clean your stores
Or rummage your garbage for food.
I may lie down hungry,
O enemy of the sun,
But
I shall not compromise
And to the last pulse in my veins
I shall resist.
You may take the last strip of my land,
Feed my youth to prison cells.
You may plunder my heritage.
You may burn my books, my poems
Or feed my flesh to the dogs.
You may spread a web of terror
On the roofs of my village,
O enemy of the sun,
But
I shall not compromise
And to the last pulse in my veins
I shall resist.
You may put out the light in my eyes.
You may deprive me of my mother’s kisses.
You may curse my father, my people.
You may distort my history,
You may deprive my children of a smile
And of life’s necessities.
You may fool my friends with a borrowed face.
You may build walls of hatred around me.
You may glue my eyes to humiliations,
O enemy of the sun,
But
I shall not compromise
And to the last pulse in my veins
I shall resist.
O enemy of the sun
The decorations are raised at the port.
The ejaculations fill the air,
A glow in the hearts,
And in the horizon
A sail is seen
Challenging the wind
And the depths.
It is Ulysses
Returning home
From the sea of loss
It is the return of the sun,
Of my exiled ones
And for her sake, and his
I swear
I shall not compromise
And to the last pulse in my veins
I shall resist,
Resist—and resist.
“I’m honored to be here. I’m here on behalf of Jews for Palestinian Liberation, a political and spiritual organization here on campus, and today I am calling on Brown to end its study abroad program to Israel. When I say cut ties to Israel, when I say anti-Zionist, I don’t say it lightly or without pain. Unlike the 5.9 million Palestinian refugees who cannot return home, as Aboud mentioned earlier, my Jewish blood allows me to travel easily into the country right now. And I went there once when I was nine for my aunt and uncle’s wedding in Tel Aviv.
“At my Jewish elementary school, Brawerman, we sang the Israeli national anthem every week before class. A couple of weeks ago, I had a difficult conversation with a Jewish classmate of mine who attends Hillel regularly, and he told me that his Judaism has three pillars: God, the Torah, and Israel. I told him that I understand, that I too was raised and programmed to idolize this country, but that Israel is a false idol.
“Growing up at Brawerman Elementary School, we memorized Israeli geography, including the Negev Desert in the south. By using the word desert and nothing more, my teachers, many of them former IOF soldiers and pilots, implied that the southern region of Israel was uninhabited. I left Brawerman early in fifth grade and moved to a secular middle school. It was around that time that a climate activist that I followed on Instagram posted a story, a reel on their Instagram story of an Israeli bomb destroying a building in Gaza with a Palestinian man trapped inside, and I’m not sure I’d ever heard the word Palestine before I saw that.
“Palestine did not exist on our maps at Browerman. Gaza did not exist on our maps at Browerman. And that wasn’t an accident. The existence of the state of Israel hinges on our ignorance and our apathy of the Jewish community in America and Americans more broadly. So back in middle school, I saw this, I saw this real, and I did some research, and I posted some statistics about genocide to my Instagram story, and I didn’t think too much of it. And then the next morning, my friend Johnny came down the school steps, and Johnny and I had gone to Browerman together, and we’d gone to Jewish summer camp together, and he looked me in the eyes, and he said, “What happened?”
“I was confused because I didn’t know that posting about Palestine to my Instagram story was threatening this ignorance that is the foundation of Zionism. And he was sneering a little, and he said, when did you become a self-hating Jew?Frankly, I’m tired of debating what counts or does not count as Jewish while the only Jewish state in the world kills or wounds a Palestinian in Gaza every 90 minutes during this supposed ceasefire, so if I must be called a self-hating Jew for saying that this is a genocide, so be it. If I’m a self-hating Jew for saying that Brown must end its study abroad program to Israel, so be it, because I’m a Jew with regrets and with sadness for my people.
“But to me, as I told this Hillel classmate, Israel is just not a pillar of my faith. And to me, laboring to free Palestine and to heal my people is not an act of hatred, but an act of love, and many days I look to God, to the God of Abraham, to guide me in this organizing, in this effort to free Palestine and in my other organizing work. And so I want to end today by speaking very briefly about this week’s Torah portion. Every Saturday on the Jewish calendar, a small portion of the Torah, which is like the Old Testament, is assigned to be examined. And today’s Torah portion is special because it’s the first; it’s the very beginning: Genesis. Genesis 1-1 to Genesis 6. And it goes from separating light and dark to the creation of Adam and Eve to Cain and Abel.
“Finally, humans expand across the land, but it turns out they have evil within them. Sort of one of the first times the Bible says the humans had evil within them. The Torah is about to go on to talk about Noah and the great flood, but it pauses first. And Genesis 6:8 says, “And the Lord regretted that he had made man on earth, and his heart was saddened.
“I feel God’s heart is sad now.
“I feel it like in the breeze, even. And at the same time, I feel a lot of love emanating here on this green together. It’s love for our relatives in Palestine and love of life. And to me, that’s resistance. And this revolutionary love that we have here, the reason we’re all gathered here, threatens the structure of Zionism, which I know is built on hate and fear. And so with all the love I can muster, I say, from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free!”
“My name’s Raya, and today I want to share a poem by Noor Hindi with you all. It’s from her 2022 collection, Dear God, Dear Bones, Dear Yellow. Noor is a Palestinian American author, and she’s calling on all of us to join the fight for the survival and liberation of Palestinians and all oppressed peoples. She says, everywhere and anywhere you are, you can disrupt, advocate, speak out, and refuse in small ways and big ways. Revolution until freedom. This poem is specifically written for Razan al-Najjar, a medic killed in Gaza, and it’s in defiance of a piece published by the New York Times about him.”
“For those who don’t know, my name is Victoria, and I’m the vice president of Local 6516. Shout out. We’re a union of undergraduate, graduate, and postdoc workers here at Brown. As we come together as the Brown community, we are reminded that our institution continues to use the wealth produced by our labor as workers to invest in genocide, apartheid, and the occupation of Palestine.
“Today, you have heard about how Brown is reopening its study abroad programs to Israel. What I think is important to name is that Brown could not run or fund any program like this without the labor of the workers who make this institution run. Our labor. The teaching we do, the research we do, the grants we bring in, the wealth Brown is choosing to send towards denormalizing genocide instead of towards us.
“Brown is showing us exactly what it thinks of us workers. Graduate workers are at the bargaining table with Brown right now. And do you want to know what raise they’re trying to convince us is normal? Zero percent. Being a working-class person in this country means living and working through multiple crises. It means watching prices climb while wages don’t move. It means ICE terrorizing our communities. It means seeing transphobia being passed into law. It means every program that helps poor people faces, or has already faced, cuts. While the wealth in this country keeps piling up at the top in fewer and fewer hands. And it means continuing to watch this country’s aggression spread around the world from the war on Iran, to the blockade strangling my people in Cuba, to the genocide and occupation of Palestine.
“And still in the middle of all of that, Brown looks to us workers in the university and offers us a 0% raise. But we as the Brown community get to make a choice too. It was the choice of the workers who many years ago first started the union. The graduate workers who started Brown’s first-ever student worker union didn’t achieve that because of Brown’s goodwill. It happened because they got organized.
“And since then, we have been able to bargain for a precedent-setting contract, nationally precedent-setting contract wins, and we won them because we stood together. Similarly on campus and across higher ed, we have seen the birth of a new movement, one in solidarity with Palestine, one in opposition to how higher ed falls in line with the war machine rather than standing with its community. To bring about material change, we need to become too powerful to ignore.
“But we know momentum is not enough. Any organizer will tell you, without organization, momentum will fade. Without collective action, nothing changes. So here’s what I’m asking everyone here, and what we share with our friends. Don’t let today be the only day. Organize with one of the organizations on campus that you’ve heard about and help nurture this movement. Talk to your coworkers about what’s happening at the bargaining table and what Brown is choosing to fund instead of us. There’s a slogan we say in labor: united we bargain, divided we beg, and right now the stakes are too high to beg, but it is our collective power that will allow us to bargain.”
“I’m here today because when I bear witness to an ethnic cleansing, we have the capability to help fight to stop it. Apathy is not an option. Grief, yes. Frustration, yes. Anger, yes. Apathy, no. The fight for Palestinian liberation is our moral duty intertwined with our own liberation. We gather here today because Israel’s genocide has begun its fourth year. Over the last three years, we’ve watched as Israel bombs the tents of the same people whose homes they had already bombed to rubble. We watch as the IDF threatens to kill children for flying kites and does kill them for going to school and getting firewood to cook food.
“We watch as the death toll in Palestine surpasses at least 74,000. We watch as Palestine has the highest number of child amputees per capita in the world. For two decades, the Israeli government has adopted the dehumanizing strategy of mowing the lawn, periodically bombing Gaza in 2008, 2011, and so many other years, preventing any sense of safety from ever forming. The official strategy of the US and Israeli government is to keep Gaza on the brink of ever surviving with an economic blockade.
“Today, people across the world are marching for Palestine. We are here alongside everyone on the International Day of Action because, despite our continuous struggle, the institution we are closest to, Brown University, has decided that after 15 years of refusing to divest, they are going to reopen seven study abroad programs to Israeli universities that are inextricably linked to fueling Palestinian oppression.
“The schools listed include Hebrew University, which is home to an Israeli military base; Technion, which developed the remote controls for armored bulldozers that demolished Palestinian homes; and Tel Aviv University, which houses a joint research center with the Israeli Air Force and created the Dahiya Doctrine, which outlines a military strategy of destroying civilian infrastructure.
“As Brown students, we have the privilege of studying across the globe, building an international perspective and memories we cherish for a lifetime. However, this opportunity comes with a responsibility to engage in our studies ethically. Choosing to interact with institutions on the front line of genocide is the antithesis of communicating and preserving knowledge and understanding in a spirit of free inquiry. Bombed schools can’t preserve knowledge. Dead children cannot live curious lives.
“U.S. universities have conferred on Israeli institutions an exceptional status, offering them a broad range of funding opportunities, joint research ventures, and study abroad programs, when no such parallel collaborations exist with Palestinian universities or any other university system in the Middle East. For funding, publications, and legitimacy, Israeli universities rely heavily on the U.S. higher-education system. This gives those of us reproducing US universities, students, staff, and faculty a critical opening to effectively intervene and chip away at the infrastructure of American support that enables Israel’s genocide.
“And we aren’t alone. Across university campuses and cities, in the US and beyond, we continue to attack exploitative institutions. Brown’s willingness to engage with these inhuman institutions legitimizes the Mossad’s propaganda campaign, whitewashing Israel as the only democracy in the Middle East or the startup capital of the world. These narratives serve as a bulwark justifying Western support of Israel. Only, we know you can’t be the only democracy in the Middle East when you ban Palestinians from voting in national elections and throw Palestinian people into government-made ghettos.
“And it is an oxymoron to be revered as the startup capital of the world when your startups test surveillance tech on Palestinians and then export it to repress immigrant communities in the U.S. here. We see day in, day out that no matter what image Israel tries to portray, they are a settler colonial genocidal apartheid state. Watching people remain complacent while Palestinians are being murdered in broad daylight is infuriating and soul-crushing. It’s okay to hold this grief. It’s just crucial that we ground ourselves and get back on the horse.
“Some people may pose the question: “I get that all of these horrific acts are happening in Gaza and the West Bank, but that’s halfway across the world. What power do I have to stop Israel?” To this, I reply: Benjamin Netanyahu, a designated war criminal by the International Criminal Court, was literally just in New York City. Our government has sent $22 billion to Israel since 2023. And our university is actively legitimizing Israeli universities, fueling the genocide of Palestinian people.
“Let’s be clear here: The Israeli state is horrifically evil, yes, but it could not and would not exist without the support of the United States government, both financially and in legitimacy. Thus, as residents in the belly of the beast, we hold the unique power to cut off the lifeline of the outpost of imperialism in the Middle East. Our taxes go to 2,000-pound bombs while the politicians we elect continuously vote to send these bombs to Israel. A free Palestine means the US applies the money we spend on bombs to education and housing.
“A free Palestine means the IDF no longer shares tactics with ICE on how to shoot our neighbors and throw them into deadly detention centers. A free Palestine means that the US is no longer determined to destabilize other countries in order to maintain control and dominance. A free Palestine Means that the same billionaires who fund genocide in Palestine, who profit off the exploitation and murder of Congolese, Sudanese, Venezuelan, and other peoples across the global South, no longer have the power. We have the power when we fight for Palestine; we aren’t just liberating Palestine and other victims of billionaire-funded imperialism, but also freeing our minds.
“Americans today are being confronted with the truths Palestinians have been forced to recognize their entire lives. The comfort we take for granted is fueled by the suffering of billions. In a way, with Palestine being the catalyst for our internal decolonization, we are not liberating Palestine. Palestine is liberating us.
“Now is a crucial moment to act. In the U.S., we see a shifting tide in public awareness. 50% of voters now believe Israel is committing a genocide in Gaza. More importantly, Palestinians are still facing daily bombardments. Just on Thursday, Israel bombed the Sabra neighborhood in Gaza, killing a child and injuring six other people. We cannot go back to our normal lives while the IDF is shooting Palestinians as they drive through the West Bank, as settlers set fire to villages, and as bombs keep falling on Gaza. Our fight will not be easy. One rally is not sufficient to end state violence. This is only one small step in a constant campaign to pressure Brown University into disaffiliation with apartheid. Get involved. Talk to members from all the wonderful organizations here today. Analyze your skill sets. If you’re an artist, create art that centers Palestine. If you’re a writer, engage in critical writing and literature because the fight against imperial exploitation isn’t a part-time club, but a lifelong obligation.
“It is our duty to fight for Palestine. It is our duty to win. We must love and support each other; we have nothing to lose but our chains.”
“Your comment about why this is our duty reminds me of the Palestinian use of sumud. It is a steadfast determination in grim times. And these are undoubtedly grim times. And yet we keep fighting. We fight because we have something worth fighting for. We are fighting for Palestinian men, women, and children to be safe and live a life of dignity. We are fighting for our own futures to be free from surveillance and state-sanctioned violence. We are fighting for everyone to have their basic needs met. We are fighting for the people we love and those that we have lost.
“Change worth fighting for is not easy to win. But in the end, I believe that we will win. Maybe not tomorrow, or in a year, or in a decade, but we will win. Social movements are long. They ebb, and they flow. Losing a battle does not mean losing a war. We didn’t win divestment, but this isn’t the end. We aren’t giving up. SJP got suspended for a year. We weren’t even allowed on campus. Now we’re occupying the center of it again. We will never stop bringing Palestine to the heart of this institution. If there are few of us now, we have to keep working until there are many.
“And we aren’t alone. I hope y’all plan to stick with us when we go down to the community rally so you can feel that fully. Students are only one part of the much broader movement for Palestine. Today is a global day of action, and people are taking to the streets in cities across the world to demand an end to genocide. To end the genocide, we need everyone, and that includes students. That includes all of us here today. We need your help. This rally launches our campaign, but we won’t get anything done without strong student support…
“And finally, most importantly, we’re having an open general body meeting on October 19th, where you’ll have the chance to help bring more people into this campaign in whatever way you feel inclined. Whether it’s by making art, putting up posters, or tabling, we ask that you fill out the form at the QR code that says “Join SJP.” I want to end with a few words from a Palestinian student who cannot speak today. Today is a good day to remind folks that there’s still no ceasefire in Gaza.
“It itself is a form of violence to sit passively and watch violence as though it already belongs to the past. Israel wants you to see its genocide as being completed. They want you to see Palestinians as already dead. This has been true from its inception, from the claim that Palestine was a land without a people when millions of Palestinians were already there. We do not bear witness to a genocide as though it were a completed chapter of history to discuss idly and mourn. The West has destroyed what little credibility remains.
“The hypocrisy of Western governments and their elites has brought the so-called rules-based world order to the point of no return. What follows is the rehabilitation of this image through infiltration. So we must stay vigilant and hold accountable everyone who campaigns on the back of this genocide. We are in a difficult moment. We are grieving.
“We are witnessing apartheid and genocide unfold as never before. It’s hard to digest. But even as we cry and express solidarity amid suffering, we should recognize this is the moment we’ve been waiting for. People everywhere now see Gaza as a litmus test. Palestine measures what we can do to change the entire world. Stand together with the people of Gaza. There is a reason Palestine and its movement have always been under such attack, because it can hold evil accountable.
“And finally, A few words from Gazan journalist Tamer Nahed. He said this on Thursday. Gaza is under bombardment right now. We don’t understand what is happening here. The bombing is literally everywhere. The aircraft are flying extremely low, making terrifying sounds that are impossible to describe. Don’t stop talking about Gaza. Don’t let the world become numb to what is happening here. We are going to take up that call. And we are going to march.”
