{"id":284653,"date":"2026-04-25T00:25:09","date_gmt":"2026-04-25T00:25:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/284653\/"},"modified":"2026-04-25T00:25:09","modified_gmt":"2026-04-25T00:25:09","slug":"a-s-recognizes-the-genocide-in-palestine-with-the-mokat-act-the-daily-aztec","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/284653\/","title":{"rendered":"A.S. recognizes the genocide in Palestine with \u201cThe Mokat Act\u201d \u2013 The Daily Aztec"},"content":{"rendered":"


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After seven hours of debate, the SDSU Associated Students University Council voted to approve a resolution that defines the Israel-Hamas war as genocide, calls on SDSU to divest from Israel and demands the university affirm support for Palestinian and Muslim students.<\/p>\n

Student leaders amended almost every clause in the \u201cPalestine Resolution: The Mokat Act,\u201d before overwhelmingly voting to adopt the resolution on April 22, with only one vote in opposition and two abstentions.<\/p>\n

An A.S. resolution is meant to represent the collective voice of the student body. This one changes important language to recognize the genocide in Palestine and acknowledges the censorship of a former A.S. leader<\/a>, Mohamed Erekat, after whom the resolution is named, over his use of the word \u201cgenocide\u201d in a personal statement on the A.S. Instagram account.<\/p>\n

The A.S. Council Chambers were packed inside and out with students, and dozens spoke both for and against the resolution during public comment.<\/p>\n

Audience members came and went over the seven hours of debate, but dozens stayed to celebrate the ratification.<\/p>\n

Yucef Bouzina, the A.S. student diversity representative and main author of the resolution, couldn\u2019t contain his excitement as he listened to the votes for the resolution.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s the biggest relief that I could have,\u201d Bouzina said after it passed. He and other activists had been working on the resolution since last July.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis was a community feat,\u201d he said. \u201cThis meant so much for so many people.\u201d<\/p>\n

Samar Ismail, vice president of executive affairs for the Graduate Student Association, was also celebrating with a small crowd after the vote.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is the first time the university acknowledged Palestine in this way,\u201d Ismail said of the resolution, which she co-authored.<\/p>\n

\u201cAssociated Students will close the gap, because historically, institutions have not been on the right side of history,\u201d she said. \u201cStudents will step up where the institutions fall [short].\u201d<\/p>\n

The resolution passed with only one vote in opposition from Ari Cohen, student representative of the College of Professional Studies and Fine Arts.<\/p>\n

Cohen emphasized the importance of Israel for SDSU\u2019s Jewish community and proposed the majority of major amendments to the document.<\/p>\n

\u201cEven though the resolution got passed, it got passed a lot better than the original draft,\u201d Cohen said. \u201cAnd to me, that\u2019s a success.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"Photo of the second reading of the Mokat Act during an ASUC meeting inside the Council Chambers. The finalized resolution has not yet been published. April 8, 2026. (Roman Fong<\/a>)<\/p>\n

One of the biggest changes Cohen pushed for was removing the clause that demanded SDSU sever ties with the Murray Galinson San Diego-Israel Initiative, which has a program that places Israeli professors in SDSU classes.<\/p>\n

Cohen argued this program should not be discredited or eliminated, while proponents of the resolution argued the program platforms propaganda and hate speech.<\/p>\n

This clause, among many others, was heavily edited, leaving the final resolution very different from how it was presented<\/a> to the university council three weeks ago.<\/p>\n

Noah Stuart, an A.S. Board of Directors member and resolution co-author, said he believes too many compromises were made.<\/p>\n

\u201cI feel like we sanitized what the initial intention of it was, which was the acknowledgement of Palestinian struggle,\u201d Stuart said.<\/p>\n

He still celebrated the resolution\u2019s passage and remains optimistic that it will lead to administrative changes at SDSU.<\/p>\n

\u201cI really do hope that they will consider a divestment from defense corporations that have an active partnership with any state [involved in] active, ongoing violence, especially in violation of human rights,\u201d Stuart said.<\/p>\n

Karen Sawouq, another Board of Directors member and resolution co-author, said she is excited for the impact this document could have in pushing for a Southwest Asian and North African center on campus.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s something that I\u2019ve been working on with some student leaders in this room, and I\u2019m happy that in this resolution we\u2019re imploring for a designated space on campus because of all of the harassment and multifaceted concerns that our community faces,\u201d Sawouq said.<\/p>\n

A.S. will release the final version of the \u201cPalestine Resolution: The Mokat Act\u201d next week.<\/p>\n

The Daily Aztec will continue to monitor this story.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" After seven hours of debate, the SDSU Associated Students University Council voted to approve a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":284654,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[74,76,75],"class_list":{"0":"post-284653","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-san-diego","8":"tag-san-diego","9":"tag-san-diego-headlines","10":"tag-san-diego-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/284653","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=284653"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/284653\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/284654"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=284653"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=284653"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=284653"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}