Introduction

On April 22, 2024, 198 days following the assault on Gaza on October 7, 2023, the public's attention was drawn to Columbia University. There, students had occupied the square outside campus, put up tents, and declared civil disobedience until their principal demand was met, namely that the university withdraws its investments from the ongoing genocide in Gaza. When the students refused to leave the campus, the Egyptian-born president of the University, Ni'mat Shafiq, decided to deploy the police against students. The police proceeded to quell the rebellion and arrested hundreds of demonstrators, which quickly sparked a reaction from the student movement throughout North America. Civil disobedience spread like wildfire through other North American universities, including New York University, Yale, Harvard, and the University of Michigan. Student movements occupied university campuses and declared them “Liberated Zones.” At the peak of this moment, Columbia was joined by nearly 100 student alliances of diverse student movements inside and outside the US, including Canada, the UK, Spain, and Italy. They erected tents on various university campuses and declared what they named “The People's University for Gaza.” That movement was not spontaneous, but rather came as a violent outburst of efforts exerted since October 7, and was based on decades of organization, activity, and support by pro-Palestine groups in the US.

Several factors have contributed to the formation of what we now call the “Student Intifada” in the US. But before discussing the history of this movement or its objective and subjective circumstances, we need to understand that the primary motive which impelled these youth was the profound pain which they felt towards the suffering of our people in Gaza; That movement reflects an increasing worldwide anger towards the ongoing genocide, livestreamed on screens with no end in sight. In the case of American students, this anger is intensified as they perceive themselves to be citizens of a country that actively supports this genocide and students in universities which are complicit in it. Students of all nationalities also feel directly responsible for what is taking place in Gaza, and this makes the US student movements distinct from other pro-Palestinian student movements around the world. The US uses its taxpayer money to finance arms shipments to Israel, and US universities, where students pay the highest tuition rates in the world, and rather than investing in educating their students, invest their endowments in and profit from arms companies that are complicit in the genocide. Therefore, the primary concern of this student group is, in the short term, to stop the ongoing genocidal war. On the longer term, their goal is to put an end to the material, moral and ideological support that the US government and universities extend to the Zionist settler-colonial project in Palestine.

Despite experiencing periods of retrenchment, this student movement continues to develop and accumulate new experiences and skills in its organization and political conduct. In this modest study, my aim is not to divert attention from Gaza to the US, but rather to emphasize the importance of fighting the US colonialist and imperialist institutions that are partners in the genocide. As the protesting students keep insisting, we must “keep our eyes on Gaza”. Meanwhile, it is also noteworthy that Gaza is keeping her eyes on the student movement, as we have seen from slogans written on some tents in Gaza which, amidst famine, genocide, and evictions, thanked the revolting students. That movement has become one of many popular fronts that oppose the genocidal war on the world scene. The central importance which the movement gained reflected a bitter reality: the absence of any political actor, whether states or organizations, capable of stopping the genocide or even alleviating the suffering of the people of Gaza. This situation raises our level of responsibility, requiring a deeper understanding of the organizational aspects of the Student Intifada, its capabilities, and its prospects.

Amidst this reality, how could we understand the historical circumstances which the pro-Palestine student movement are witnessing in the US (or Turtle Island, the land's indigenous name often used by the movement members)? I will attempt to capture these long-term transformations from three intertwined perspectives: the expanding political alliances at the level of grassroots organizing; the increasing confrontation at the level of political action; and the radicalization of the youth's collective political awareness.

Historical framework: the “Student Intifada”

Today, the movement to support Palestine in the US is a comprehensive movement which comprises diverse organizations and groups in society. However, when it comes to the “Student Intifada”, we are find at the nucleus of the movement a youthful and educated Palestinian generation, which believes in national liberation. They stand beside a generation of American youth from diverse ethnic backgrounds who possess organizational abilities, both on streets and on campuses, and a political discourse which emphasizes solidarity and liberation. The Palestinian Arab community in the US and its youth segment in particular ascended through that movement from a collapse in its organizational and political realities. Following the Oslo accords, and with the disintegration of the Palestinian national student organization which is represented in the diaspora by the General Union of Palestinian Students (GUPS), the student political scene became dismembered and the organization assumed the shape of an alliance which came to be known as Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP), founded in 2001 at the University of California, Berkeley. The aim of SJP was to enhance solidarity with Palestine on university campuses through political education, to create alliances in common struggles, and to carry through the demands of the BDS movement, including boycotting Israeli academic and cultural institutions and divesting from commercial companies complicit in the Zionist project. The BDS movement has been unprecedentedly the target of repeated campaigns of repression, incitement, and slander at the hands of the Zionist lobby in the universities and the media—which had been profoundly Islamophobic ever since September 11. That prejudice and hostility were not confined to the media, but also included the US academic community, its racist professors, and Zionist student movements. That repression also assumed the surveillance form of “Doxing” which targeted activists with the goal of destroying their reputation and endangering their careers, aiming to have them dismissed from their teaching posts or workplaces. Furthermore, and especially during this past year, police forces on the university, city and state levels joined in repressing the movement. All these means and methods aimed at eventually repressing and silencing pro-Palestinian individuals and groups, but they have not succeeded.

In fact, the movement grew apace to comprise now around 200 groups, spread across US and Canadian universities. Although the SJP is usually headed by young Palestinians, as is the case in Chicago which has the largest Palestinian community in the US and over 12 SJP branches, it nevertheless is an alliance that includes student groups from all classes of US society, embracing whites, Arabs, Muslims, and a large group of anti-Zionist Jews involved in the struggle against racism and imperialism. In each campus, these student groups assume different organizational forms and are independent in their structure and decision-taking modes. Yet, they operate within a larger student framework and under the umbrella of the National SJP, considered to be an independent national guidance body which holds national conferences, attended by organizers from all over the country to discuss and decide upon modes of activity and discourse, aiming to build alliances and to confront repression. The movement operates within a yet larger network of Palestinian, Arab and Islamic organizations which transcend university campuses, including popular, cultural, political and youth parties and associations.[1]

The movement has surely embraced the demands of the BDS movement, which originated in 2004 when a group of Palestinian academics and intellectuals launched in Ramallah the Palestinian movement for the academic and cultural boycott of Israel, known as PACBI.[2] What distinguishes the BDS movement, however, is its emphasis on human rights and the fact that it took on the form of a popular organization, a role later adopted by other groups on university campuses, such as the SJP. Furthermore, this movement has predecessors in university activism, having drawn its inspiration and support from the struggle against apartheid in South Africa, a struggle in which student movements at US universities had been a principal element. They had adopted the same methods and, following decades of struggle and innumerable challenges, they finally succeeded in the late eighties of the past century.

In our present context, US universities play a special role in this activism after having turned into neoliberal entities closely allied with the Military-Industrial-Academic complex, of which Israel is considered a central part. Many US universities, through endowment portfolios managed by trustees, invest in companies heavily involved in human rights violations in Palestine. For instance, Cornell University invests in technological and military companies like Elbit Systems, Lockheed Martin, and Boeing, which manufacture weapons and technology that Israel employs in its military repression of the Palestinians. Another example is Columbia University, which invests in companies like Google, Amazon and Microsoft that partner with Israel in such projects as NIMBUS which enhances the repression and continuous surveillance of Palestinians. Columbia further has research partnerships with Israeli security and military companies and institutions. Israel's therefore has considerable influence inside US universities, which have become an inseparable part of the Israeli system that exports instruments of repression. For example, the University of Chicago hosts The Israel Institute which works with many US universities and cooperates with the Israeli Institute for National Security Studies (INSS). This Institute is not only involved in offering politically biased courses, but also seeks to recruit students who spread the official Israeli narrative through training programs directed towards that end.[3]

Over the past twenty years, the pro-Palestine movement has conducted diverse campaigns, involving activities and cultural programs aimed at raising awareness on Palestine, challenging lectures and forums which advocate normalization of relations with Israel, protesting the presence and activities of Israeli institutes inside campuses, boycotting certain courses and exhibitions, passing resolutions by student councils, and organizing strikes and encampments. These campaigns further comprised organizing widespread protests, strikes, marches, and collaborations with other movements for social justice, aiming to strengthen solidarity with the cause of the Palestinians. The movement has found some success, such as resolutions of divestment taken by many student and faculty councils at US universities (which have multiplied since the start of the genocidal war).[4] Despite the widespread adoption of these resolutions, university administrations have largely ignored student council decisions, except in very rare cases.[5] Reacting against this movement, the Zionist lobby increased its involvement in universities through supporting Zionist student movements and activities which promote the Israeli narrative[6], while also keeping a close watch on professors and students who support Palestine, spreading slander and incitement against them.[7] Many states were also pressured to pass laws that prohibit pro-Palestine activities, especially those of the BDS movement.

Yet, the movement has not stopped. Rather, it grew considerably since 2021 following the Karama uprising, which added new momentum to the solidarity with Palestine movement in the USA. We came to witness for the first time a pro-Palestine demonstration in the city of Chicago, including tens of thousands from all local classes who backed the young Palestinians and their slogans. This was largely the result of building alliances with other groups, a subject which I deal with in the following section. The events surrounding this uprising constituted a turning point, where social media became an alternative to traditional media, and people started to hear the voices of Palestinian youth more clearly. This transformation also gave increased importance to the role of the youth in this movement, enhancing their influence and helping to spread their message and legitimize their viewpoint that runs counter to the official international and Palestinian state narratives. In the past two years, it may be argued that the Palestinian youth movement has become one of the most active political movements on US campuses.[8] Following October 7, there has been considerable popular sympathy and the Palestinian movement, both student and popular, was ready to mobilize and garner support from other allied groups. On October 12, following five days of massacres in Gaza, the national SJP movement declared a National Day of Resistance on university campuses.[9] This was the beginning of the Student Intifada.

Expanding political alliances: working in solidarity

In recent years, we have been witnessing a large-scale transformation in the building of alliances in support of Palestine in the USA, which reflects in a historic moment of change in student activism on western campuses and in popular American political culture. Following a long period of repression, Palestine began to appear successfully in progressive political discourse. Previously, Palestine had been shrouded in darkness in US media, education, and politics, both by the Islamophobic right and the Christian Zionism on the left (what is called “Progressive Except for Palestine.”)[10] Indeed, many factors have contributed to the emergence of this new solidarity, the most pertinent being the drift towards political radicalism by youth groups in the US who believe in common causes, solidarities and liberation on the one hand, and the unceasing activism by the Palestinian youth movement in coalition building on the other.

By doing so, the Palestinian movement has established coalitions with other progressive groups who face oppression on the basis of identity, such as Arabs, Africans and local Islamic communities, as well as coalitions with groups holding common political values, such anti-racist, anti-patriarchal, anti-capitalist and anti-colonialist movements. These coalitions broadened the student and popular base which support the Palestinian cause and made Palestinian national liberation a comprehensive social movement in the US.

In the past decade or so, a trend towards radicalism has been noted among the youth and in universities, where these groups began to develop ideas that ran counter to capitalism and racism. All these movements relied on coalitions, and the Palestine movement, particularly SJP, were able to join all these active groups based on common causes.[11] The beginning of this trend could be traced to the “Occupy Wall Street” movement in 2011, which represented a revolt against the economic class structure and witnessed setting up encampments on campuses calling for economic justice and condemning corporate greed. These in turn were inspired by the Intifadas of the Arab Spring, which demonstrated the ability of popular protests to achieve change. The SJP joined the “Occupy Wall Street” demonstrations in New York and on the University of California, (UCLA) les campus, where they learned from and exchanged knowledge with earlier occupations.[12]

This activity highlighted the relationship between resentment regarding local economic conditions and US government policies, which favor excessive investment in Israel at the expense of neglecting the development of deprived local US communities. This was followed in 2014 by a wave of protests against systemic racism of the state and the police forces, which were fully exposed by police violence. An important transformation occurred when the riots in Ferguson coincided with the events in Gaza. During this period, the Palestinian liberation movement began to build a strong alliance with the movement of Black Americans, exchanging support and mutual experiences and enhancing ideological and organizational links between the two liberation movements.[13] The movement of Black Americans came to believe that police violence in the US was not separate from the reality in Palestine, especially that US police forces had received training in Israel.[14] This matter was well known among activists in the Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement, who clashed violently with the police during the protests in 2020. Thus, it was a period when the Palestinian youth movement became increasingly involved in local protests, building coalitions and acquiring experiences.

We ought to pause here to explain the importance of the university as a battlefront, especially in the US as seen by students today, where there is another level of solidarity that is related to the struggle on the campus itself. As universities have become more privatized and turned into profit-driven corporations, the negative role played by the boards of trustees who run the universities' finances has come into view. These boards manage the finances for profit without any regard for educational aspects. They invest in profitable schemes such as fracking, which is vigorously opposed by students. This is happening concurrently with economic deterioration, where students find themselves burdened with huge debts to join the world's most expensive universities, making it difficult for them to find jobs after graduation, spending their lives repaying these debts. Universities have also become instrumental in a process of gentrification of the marginal regions in which they are located.[15] For example, the University of Chicago is in Hyde Park and Columbia is in Harlem, areas with a majority of black inhabitants. These universities purchase and renovate real estate, and then elevate their prices, making it more difficult for the predominantly Black population to remain in their neighborhoods. This has been accompanied by the militarization of universities, whereby these institutions are managed by militarized university police forces that deal violently with students. For instance, the University of Chicago has one of the largest private police forces in the US that answers to no state and is under the direct control of the university's administration. This police force is deployed in residential areas surrounding the university, armed with repressive weapons and excessive surveillance equipment, thus increasing social tensions and aggravating racism, poverty and violence. This is how activism for Palestine needs to be understood in universities, i.e. as part of that confrontation between many alienated students and an academic system built on profit and militancy.

This sense of solidarity was undoubtedly enhanced during the genocidal war on Gaza, since the events of that war drew together longstanding allies such as Arab student clubs and clubs that bring together descendants of Asian emigrants, including those from India, Pakistan, China and the Philippines, in addition to student and workers' unions. But new alliances were also formed, such as movements that support the rights of Native Americans where more solidly organized alliances have formed in recent years. Many veterans also joined the movement following the self-immolation of Aaron Bushnell who set fire to himself outside the Israeli Embassy in Washington earlier this year, in solidarity with the people of Gaza and in protest against his country's support for the ongoing genocide. In addition, Christians who oppose Zionism have joined the movement in protest against the dominance of Zionism over their religious beliefs, similar to Jewish students who struggle in various ways to dissociate their Judaism from Zionism. Indeed, Jewish students have come to constitute a large part of the movement's activities and occupy the first line of confrontations, seeing themselves as supporters and partners in the Palestinian liberation movement. Each of these groups has its own narrative and its own reasons to join the struggle, and one cannot discuss them all here. But the essential idea is that Palestine has afforded a chance for each group that has its own interests and motives to join the struggle for Palestine and work in unity. Each of these groups aimed to enhance itself as a radical movement that does not subscribe to the narrow American political spectrum, whether of the left or of the right, which are both dominated by Zionism.

These coalitions necessitated the creation of a new organizational structure. In each university, movements, clubs and student unions have come together under a single coalition, forming tens of coalitions with unified objectives. For example, at the University of California, Berkeley, the SJP Coalition is made up of more than 60 student organizations, including Black Students for Freedom, Union of Latin Students and Jewish Friends against Occupation. At the University of Michigan, the TAHRIR coalition includes more than 70 student groups[16], including the union of active graduate students, the Black Students Union, the Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP) and the Arab Students Society. At Columbia, the coalition Columbia University Apartheid Divest, which embraces more than 80 student societies, was formed after the punitive measures taken by the University Administration to repress the pro-Palestine activities of groups such as SJP and JVP. These coalitions coordinate their efforts jointly and independently, in line with local conditions and relations with a particular university or state. This new coalition is too broad and deep to be shut down, and is cross-generational, forming a movement that cannot be arrested.

A mounting challenge to the Establishment: from political representation to revolutionary political action

Since the beginning of the barbaric assault on our people in Gaza, the movement in support of Palestine has been following a decentralized strategy which may be described as “waging the battle on all fronts.” This strategy included such tactics as continuous popular mobilization on the streets and obstruction measures, including blocking bridges, roads, and ports; organizing convoys; and pressuring municipal councils to sign declarations that call for a ceasefire. It further included the “Uncommitted” campaign, which sought to pressure the Biden Administration to change its policy on Palestine by threatening not to vote for him in the upcoming elections. The objective of all these tactics has been to create a social, political and moral crisis for the ruling class, which can decide to either prolong or stop the genocide. The student movement was essential to achieve that objective, namely through creating instability in daily life, holding that there can be no normalcy in life as long as the genocide persists. There was also a massive activity to pass resolutions that call for a ceasefire by municipalities and local councils, drawing up petitions, drafting public statements and contacting Congress. While these efforts achieved success in some cities, they did not lead to a change in government policy, which carried out some symbolic steps to limit Israel's barbaric violence, even though it supported it in reality. This has led to the creation of a deep discrepancy between civil society and the state, which revealed the true dimensions of hypocrisy and double standards. In addition, the attempts to quell the protest movement exposed the readiness of the state and of university administrations to abandon all claims to “democracy” and freedom of opinion for the sake of defending a foreign country. Thus, all “democratic instruments” for change such as political appeals have failed, and the energy of the people was largely exhausted, a matter which enhanced the legitimacy of direct confrontation among the youthful generation in particular and promoted revolutionary political activity.

What is taking place on US campuses is an insurrection which broke out when universities refused to respond to the legitimate demands of the movement. Alongside the widespread strategies on streets, the student movement focused in an essentially and persistently on pressuring universities to sever ties with Israeli universities, and to divest from companies involved in the settler-colonial project in Palestine. To achieve this, the movement used several tactics, such as passing resolutions at student assemblies and diverse student and teacher societies, which often achieved success[17] despite savage attempts at repression taken by university administrations and agents of the Zionist lobby. Their tactics also included occupation of administration offices, direct confrontations, disruptions of diverse administrative routines, worker and student strikes, and even hunger strikes. A principle tactic which also emerged was encampments on campuses, which we are witnessing today. When administrations failed to deal seriously with student demands or even to sit down and negotiate with them, although students exhausted all possible means of protest, there was mounting escalation which eventually led to the using encampment as a form of protest.

Encampment is a tactic of protest that aims at pressuring university administrations by setting up tents and occupying certain areas of a campus for an unlimited period, until negotiations commence and the students' demands are met. This is a tactic with a long tradition of student action on American university campuses[18], whereby an area of organized protest is marked out within an institution from which different activities emerge, aimed at increasing pressure on an administration. Meanwhile students in encampments hold training and educational, cultural, and political sessions among protesters. These encampments are referred to as “liberated zones” which represents a sort of assertion of sovereignty on campuses and the reclaiming by students of the university space. In many universities, the movement decided to occupy entire halls and buildings, taking them over and declaring them as liberated zones, then attributing to them Palestinian names.[19] The social relations established during encampments are considered part of the experience of revolutionary reeducation and activism, since the occupation is distinguished by a sort of socialist cooperation and consensual decision making in the organization of daily activity, from preparing food and collecting garbage to defining the demands of the movement and deciding on escalation and its timing. This common experience enhanced relations among individuals who joined the struggle and come from very diverse ethnic and political backgrounds, united by enmity towards the official institution. Encampments have also shattered the ivory towers of academia and formed links with other local movements and groups, which increased financial support by Arab and other communities and attracted radical youth movements. The movement's media voice resonated widely and placed the issue of divestment at the center of popular struggle.

Confronting repression

One cannot proceed without dealing with the issue of repression, since confronting the instruments of repression is not only a threat to the continuity of the struggle and its legitimate means, but also implies confronting the military-industrial complex which reinforces US-Israeli colonial violence.[20] Since its inception, the “Student Intifada” was met with severe and unprecedented repression from state and university police forces. As this confrontation persists, it could be argued that the movement has developed techniques and a moral and legal infrastructure to protect protesters and challenge university and court decisions against students. The movement has further succeeded in surmounting the fear of repression and has, in fact, transformed that confrontation with the instruments of repression into a tool to enhance the legitimacy of struggle and solidarity.[21] On the one hand, the clashes with the police during these protests have revealed the true nature of the academic institution, uncovering the fact that when its financial and political interests are challenged, slogans such as “academic freedom” and the so-called “DEI policies” (Diversity, Equality and Inclusion) are hollow slogans. They further uncovered the falseness of the administration's claims that the financial decisions taken by university trustees cannot be affected by political considerations. Such claims are rejected as an attempt to politicize university endowments. Continued investment in genocide and the university's resort to violence against students demanding an end to it, is a political stand that wholly serves the interests of Israel's occupation, US geopolitical interests, and international arms companies.[22] On the other hand, the Palestinian student movement was able to turn repression into an instrument of mobilization and organization, namely through using social media to expose police violence and garner support for those arrested. Such was the case at Columbia University on April 22 last, when violent police intervention sparked off a wave of protests in other American universities, invigorating solidarity to the point of creating a worldwide student insurrection. During that period, students developed material and legal tools for self-defense against police attacks, thus increasing their ability to challenge the system and offer sacrifices for the sake of the struggle. The infrastructure created by the student intifada became better organized and more widespread, allowing the movement to persist despite the arrest of more than 3000 persons since last April.

The current encampment has mostly been non-violent, despite some violent confrontations. That violence came principally from the police who disbanded and shut down most tents through using excessive force. Additionally, we have witnessed violent assaults by Zionist groups against the protesters. For instance, at UCLA, pro-Israel protesters violently assaulted a pro-Palestinian encampment using baseball bats, metal pipes and fireworks, and it took hours before the police intervened. Indeed, protests had with various outcomes depending on the state and the university where they took place; Some were quickly subdued and destroyed, some were revived several times, while others lasted for long periods and are still ongoing. Quite naturally, there were intensive acts of struggle during these protests. They came to dominate the university campuses, both physically and from the educational point of view, and developed their methods from one day to the next according to new realities on the ground. Yet, one cannot argue that repression had no effect. In fact, a principal reason behind the movement's decline was that in many cases, the movement was busy defending students facing legal charges (in addition to the summer break when educational activities are curtailed).

Negotiations

During protests and encampments at US universities, several movements expanded their list of demands and conditions for negotiation, the principal part of which was divestment from companies directly involved in sustaining Israel's occupation. Each encampment followed its own course of negotiations with the university administration, but the demands generally included financial transparency, accountability, boycotting Israeli academic institutions, dismantling university police forces, a general pardon for all protesters, protecting the right to protest, and an end to all anti-Arab, anti-Muslim and anti-Palestinian incitements on university campuses.[23] Furthermore, and on several campuses, these demands included support for a scheme to rehabilitate university education in Gaza through offering scholarships and fellowships to a number of Gazan Palestinians whose institutions were destroyed, or by supporting Palestinian efforts aimed at rebuilding educational institutions and enhancing higher education in Gaza.[24]

In sum, one might argue that these negotiations produced limited progress. In many cases, university administrations promised to negotiate in order to quell the protests and encampments, which is what HOOP (Harvard Out of Palestine) warned against when it broke up its encampment, as was also the case at Rutgers University. There, protesters decided to arrive at an agreement by which they give up their divestment demand in return for other secondary goals, such as the creation of an Arab cultural center and support for Palestinian students, a concession that many other encampments considered unacceptable. Demands were met in very few cases, as in the case if Evergreen State College in Washington, the alma mater of American activist and martyr Rachel Corrie who was crushed to death by an Israeli bulldozer in Gaza in 2003. At Evergreen, protesters reached an agreement with the university to divest from companies complicit in human rights violations in occupied Palestine and to suspend study abroad programs in Israel. In general, however, the divestment movement has not achieved any real progress despite all the pressure. Yet, the snowball has been rolling, while the establishment bets that the struggle will abate and that in time it will be able to quell the protests without offering any concessions to the students. Nevertheless, activism has been persisting for the past two decades and will not subside before achieving its objectives.

Fortifying political consciousness

In addition to confronting the institution, the police and the government, one must not underestimate the importance of active and persistent work of political education, which plays several important roles in the student intifada. First, it plays a role in dismantling the Zionist narrative and solidifying the historical Palestinian narrative. American media and universities are part of a large propaganda machine that strives to distort facts and disfigure the true nature of the Palestinian-Zionist conflict in conformity with the Zionist view. Through cultural education, students have been able to expose these lies and uncover the truth, thus contributing to change in public opinion. Second, political education constructs a clear political vision which includes all historic Palestinian rights, since it contributes to formulating the movement's slogans and demands in accordance with the interests and aspirations of the Palestinian people. Educational activity has been and still is the guarantee that the movement is not confined to the ceasefire demand—which in itself is a basic humanitarian demand—, but rather a movement which strives to dismantle settler-colonialism and liberate the Palestinian people. Thirdly, political education links the Palestine question to other liberation movements around the world, and contributes to revealing the diverse aspects where the question of Palestine intersects with the values of social, ethnic, gender, and environmental justice, which joins together diverse interests and contributes to a widening in the support and solidarity base in a single battle against the establishment.

The student movement carried out a program of political and historical education that radically impacted the status of Palestine in the consciousness of students at US universities. These activities have been intense before and after the current war and included a number of diverse of educational and cultural programs; The SJP organized a number of teach-ins that set forth the Palestinian narrative and the history of the Palestinian struggle, created intensive reading sessions to deepen understanding the history of Palestinian resistance, delivered many lectures that outlined the Palestinian struggle in all its aspects. Here, it is worth noting that these activities did not pass without punishment. At Columbia University, for instance, students were punished for organizing a seminar entitled “Resistance 101,” revealing the impact of such activities and their threat to the establishment. The student movement also hosted art exhibitions that highlight Palestinian life and culture, portraying Palestinians as a living people with a rich, longstanding, and continuous culture. These exhibitions included songs and poetry and were an essential part of student activism that helped to highlight Palestinian artists and amplify their voices. This in turn raised the movement's morale and linked the public to the culture, aspirations and emotions of the Palestinian people.

Nowhere was this educational process more apparent than in the sit-in encampments, most of which assumed the name “The People's University for Gaza/Palestine.”[25] The emergence of these groups was a symbolic warning to the world that Israel was carrying out a policy of educational genocide (scholasticide), referring to the complete and systematic destruction of the educational infrastructure in Gaza aimed at destroying the foundations of Palestinian society, including the destruction of most schools and universities and killing thousands of students and hundreds of university professors. The People's University is an idea inspired by the popular university program attached to the Sulayman al-Halabi Center for Colonial Studies in Palestine, which is focused on popular education and its political role in generating knowledge in the struggle for liberation. Indeed, these encampments constituted an alternative university to the dominant colonial university space, where educational sessions were held daily and without interruption, and assumed a non-hierarchical, non-central and youthful dimensions. Everyone joined in preparing the material, giving lectures, moderating sessions and even writing articles that were added to the “liberation library.” A “liberated” space thus came into existence which placed Palestine and the production of knowledge about Palestine at center stage inside colonial universities that historically marginalized and contributed to erasing Palestinian history and existence. This process helped to create consciousness by making sympathizers see the world through the eyes and the language of the Palestinians. At the University of Michigan encampment, for instance, I have seen students discussing Nadira Shalhoub Kevorkian after announcing her arrest, and debating the relationship between racist colonial prisons and the worldwide economic and political system. Students also read and debated the works of Walid Daqqa after his martyrdom and analyzed his work on colonialists' tools of “molding consciousness” among the colonized and the means to counter it. They also read about Basil al-A`raj and were inspired by his concept of the “committed intellectual” and debated ways of espousing it.

It is important to emphasize that this educational campaign did not seek to isolate Palestine as a special and exclusive case study, but rather strove to build up Palestine as a global issue. Diverse groups with different beliefs and values, whether socialists or anarchists or Islamists or nationalists or supporters of LGBTQI+ rights or of environmental reform, all engaged in daily dialectical debates where Palestine and Gaza were central themes. They held daily discussions where they analyzed the meaning of solidarity, resistance, and liberation, and the significance of their collective slogans: “There is only one solution: Intifada, revolution,” and “We are thousands, we are millions, we are all Palestinians.” At the Michigan University encampment, the emphasis was on discussing interconnections and similarities between diverse struggles. An Armenian student talked about the struggles of his grandparents during the Turkish massacres, comparing them to the Nakba. A young Tigre woman spoke about the struggle of her people in the shadow of collective genocide and how racism had hidden that struggle, hence the need to talk more openly about it. A young Sudanese man spoke about the atrocities of civil war in his country. The complicity and corruption of Arab regimes that had normalized relations with Israel, such as the Emirates, were also debated. This sort of activity enhances the understanding of the Palestine question as a central issue and a mirror of all other struggles against injustice, and helps to expand the political imaginary of the movement which has come to regard Palestine as a global liberation issue that embodies the crimes of the global financial and political systems.

Conclusion

The past two decades have witnessed the emergence of a radical Palestinian youth movement which is heavily involved in Palestinian political discourse and in the discourse of social and ethnic justice and anti-colonialism, which the Palestinian national liberation movement had always considered itself part thereof. The Palestinian student movement and its supporters who led the student protests have been working for decades to mobilize American university campuses and street, and were ready to act as soon as the genocidal war on Gaza erupted. While the official Palestinian national movement began to fade away on the organizational level among the migrant community in the US, the efforts exerted by Palestinian youth have largely succeeded in integrating the question of Palestine within the concerns of the young generation. This vision of liberation, grounded in the right of return and total Palestinian national rights “from the river to the sea” has become the exemplar for all progressive movements. But it was not simply a question of publicizing the Palestine issue in conformity with the ideals of social justice. Rather, this activism helped to create an anti-colonial camp in the US which brings together all struggles, which are often marginalized by both the “left” and the “right”. In my view, the protest movement for Palestine has led to a radical transformation of political awareness among the protesting students, whereby to express solidarity with Palestine is also to stand against the US system and the entire global financial and political establishment. Thus, as one of the students' chants runs: “Palestine shall liberate us all.” Indeed, Palestine's global flag has created a third space to exercise political thought and collaboration amongst diverse currents that fall outside the banality of the “cultural war” between liberals and conservatives, a space that promises to build a truly radical alternative concerned with ending Zionism and all similar racist and colonial ideologies throughout the world. Viewed in this light, the protest movements at US universities are not simply a front of struggle for Gaza, but part of a global front calling for ending Zionism and all other colonial and racist regimes worldwide, and achieving sovereignty and the right to self-determination for oppressed peoples everywhere.

Has the student uprising achieved its goals, particularly a ceasefire? No, this did not happen in the short term, and the principal reason being that US policies are determined by lobbies and not by public opinion. Yet, the student movement is in a constant state of escalation and war and works patiently and without regarding surrender as an option. Furthermore, students have always been at the forefront of change, forestalling future changes. Student radicalism constitutes a qualitative transformation of awareness among a new generation which is likely to impact the country's future. In the long term, at the level of the battle for awareness, we could say that we have certainly achieved victory.

This experience has undoubtedly revealed a number of challenges and limitations to the organizational structure of the “student Intifada”. There exists a lack of continuous communication and coordination among the various groups, whether at the level of SJP or on that of coalitions. While these structures of organization succeeded in building coalitions with a firm infrastructure, it is yet to transform from being local groups that confront a particular university within a particular state to becoming a nationwide student movement that confronts universities and the government as a united body with a unified voice. The decentralized and spontaneous character of that movement was a point of strength which helped to enlarge the movement to encompass all sorts of groups. Yet, this has also led to some organizational disarray which appeared clearly in the encampments, where decisions to escalate the protests were adopted at haphazard moments and without a clear strategy. However, the major problem was the manner in which many local movements adopted decisions regarding negotiations with the administration, which were regarded as concessions by other universities, thus weakening the overall position of the movement. The movement has not yet abated, though it has become more destructive and individualist, amidst a period of reflection and preparation for the coming academic year. The phase of encampments has ended and there is an agreement on the need to move towards a new phase that will overcome repression, disappointment and internal contradictions. The more important lesson to be learnt here is to realize that the student protests movement in the US is a single and small front which cannot be relied upon to fulfill all aspirations, and it must vigorously join the struggle of all groups in society, in all fields, and wherever they may be. The student Intifada is a mere drop in a larger flood that must grow and flow more strongly.

[1] These organizations include the Palestine Youth Movement, American Muslims for Palestine (AMP), the Arab American Action Network (AAAN), the United States Palestinian Community Network (USPCN), and others.

[2] In July 2004, the campaign issued an appeal calling on the international community to boycott all Israeli academic and cultural institutions until Israel withdraws from all territories it occupied in 1967, including East Jerusalem, removes all settlements in those territories, complies with UN resolutions on the rights of Palestinian refugees, and dismantles the apartheid system.

[3] The institute brings in professors, such as retired Israeli General Meir Eilran, who teaches courses in counter-terrorism, to train students in the methods of repression used in Israel. According to an article published by Students for Justice in Palestine in the University of Chicago's student newspaper, this course taught by Eilran represents “the infiltration of the Israeli military into our campuses and classrooms,” as these classes seek to “instill the Israeli military's mindset and perspective in American students.” The movement has campaigned extensively and multifacetedly against the presence of Elran and the institute that hosts him on their campus.

[4] For example, in 2014, the student council of the University of California, Los Angeles passed a resolution calling for divestment, as did the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor in 2017. In 2018, Barnard College students overwhelmingly voted in favor of a resolution calling on the university to divest from companies involved in Palestinian human rights violations. At Swarthmore College, the Student Government Council in 2019 joined other student movements in supporting divestment.

[5] On February 7, 2009, Hampshire College became the first educational institution to divest from companies involved in the Israeli occupation of Palestine.

[6] “Birthright”.

[7] “Campus Watch” and “Canary Mission”.

[8] According to the author's testimony.

[9] Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) called for a National Day of Resistance on campuses across the United States and internationally on October 12, 2023, and stressed the importance of dismantling Zionism and using the political power of student organizations to support the liberation of Palestine. The movement also encouraged various forms of activism, including demonstrations, teach-ins, media distribution, and statements of solidarity, to frame the Palestinian struggle as a legitimate struggle against colonialism and oppression, highlighting the interconnectedness of global struggles for justice and liberation.

National Students for Justice in Palestine. "Day of Resistance Toolkit." October 2023.

[10] The term “Progressive Except for Palestine” (PEP) describes the phenomenon in which the Palestinian cause is excluded from support in progressive circles. Although these circles advocate for many human rights issues around the world, they often remain silent or opposed to Palestinian rights due to strong political and social influences in favor of Israel in the United States.

[11] Khaled Anabtawi explains the intersection between the struggle for justice in Palestine and the questions of justice in the world that occupy the priorities of different social movements: Anti-Black oppression, immigrant rights, women and asylum seekers, environmental justice, etc.

[12] From an interview with a student who was politically active there at the time.

[13] The “Abolition Movement” calls for the dismantling of the police and prison systems, as these institutions are seen as a continuation of slavery. The link to the Israeli military-industrial complex is emphasized by author and political activist Angela Davis in her book, Freedom Is a Constant Struggle:

Freedom Is a Constant Struggle: Ferguson, Palestine, and the Foundations of a Movement.

[14] For example, the NYPD is known to receive joint training with the Israeli police, deepening the connection between localized police violence and Israeli military policies.

[15] Gentrification is the process of transforming poor or low-income neighborhoods into more affluent and attractive areas for wealthy residents, usually resulting in the displacement of low-income indigenous residents due to the high cost of living.

[16] The truth is that the coalition unofficially includes up to 100 different movements and groups.

[17] Several resolutions in support of divestment from companies involved in the Israeli occupation were passed in student councils at American universities after the start of the genocidal war on October 7. For example, in April 2024, resolutions were passed at the American University in Washington, Columbia University, and Rutgers University. Similarly, Bowdoin College passed a divestment resolution in May 2024. In January 2024, the University of Michigan Ann Arbor Senate Assembly, which includes faculty representatives, passed a resolution in support of the divestment demands, a rarity for such a resolution to be passed by faculty rather than students.

[18] It dates back to student protests against the Vietnam War in the 1960s and 1970s, the anti-apartheid movement in the 1970s and 1980s, and contemporary student protests calling for divestment from Israel. This period witnessed large sit-ins at US universities, such as Columbia University, which saw massive protests in 1968 against the university's role in US Department of Defense research and against racial segregation policies on campus. In the 1970s and 1980s, sit-ins continued to be used as a protest tool during the anti-apartheid movement, when universities passed resolutions to divest from companies that supported the apartheid regime in South Africa. For example, students at Columbia University led sit-ins in 1985 demanding that the university divest from companies that supported apartheid in South Africa, which eventually led to the adoption of a divestment resolution.

[19] For example, at Columbia University, students occupied the famous Hamilton Hall and renamed it “Hind Hall” in honor of Hind Rajab, the Palestinian child martyred by the Israeli army in Gaza. Another example comes from the University of Pennsylvania, where students occupied Fisher-Bennett Hall and renamed it Refaat Alareer Hall, in honor of the Palestinian poet who was also martyred in Gaza. Students at California Polytechnic State University, Humboldt (Cal Poly Humboldt) also occupied Siemens Hall and renamed it Intifada Hall.

[20] According to the “Deadly Exchange” study by Jewish Voice for Peace, joint training programs between US and Israeli police forces lead to the sharing of worst practices of violence, mass surveillance, racial profiling, and suppression of protests.

[21] This strategy was based on the civil rights experience of the 1960s, when Martin Luther King Jr. used the same tactic to mobilize the masses and exploit repression to gain sympathy and expose the system.

[22] To clarify, as University of Chicago activist and scholar Christopher Yacovetti's article details, when students demand that universities take a stand on Palestine, these demands are rejected on the grounds of maintaining “institutional neutrality.” However, this “neutrality” is only used when the topic affects existing interests. However, this “neutrality” is only used when the topic has an impact on the universities' existing interests. For example, a university that takes a stance against the war in Ukraine A is considered apolitical because it does not fundamentally challenge the status quo. In contrast, a position supporting Palestinian rights is considered highly political because it challenges the economic and geopolitical interests associated with the US-Israeli alliance. The author states: “The fundamental issue is not that these universities are operating with double standards, refusing to support Palestinians while happily supporting Ukrainians. “More fundamentally, it is that American universities operate quite consistently with a single standard: Loyalty to the status quo dictated by U.S. power, no matter what form it takes.”

[23] See, for example, the list of demands from the sit-in at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, the sit-in at Cal Poly Humboldt, California Polytechnic State University, Humboldt, and the sit-in at the University of Pennsylvania.

[24] See: University of Chicago sit-in demands that use the phrase “Divest and Repair.” Students are asking the university not only to divest from genocide and ethnic cleansing in Chicago's South Loop, but also to take responsibility for the “scholasticide” in Gaza and help repair it by supporting an initiative at Birzeit University.

[25] Many camps have used variations of this name, such as “Palestine/Gaza Solidarity Encampment” and “People's/Popular University for Gaza/Palestine.”