USA : « I don’t think the students will be silent, I think they’ll come back with more anger »

Can you tell us more about what happened in the past months in the United States and the mobilization on the American campuses?

Campuses are complicit in the genocide in Gaza. They fund indirectly and directly the genocide by investing in corporations that fund the genocide, that supply weapons to Israel, like Raytheon, Boeing, and other corporations. So, these demonstrations were to advocate and to push the campuses to disengage with these corporations, to disengage with Israeli universities, because also, with the genocide going on, they’ve destroyed all the university campuses in Gaza. There’s what we call a scholasticide, basically like the killing of all facilities of teaching. So, we were basically saying that us, universities here in the United States, have a responsibility to stand up against that: you can’t be having partnerships with Zionist universities that are complicit in this genocide, that are calling for this genocide, that are destroying infrastructure in Gaza, that are killing innocents in Gaza. And in addition to that, just fighting against the repression that was on campuses, against student organizers that were organizing for Palestine, they were facing severe repression from the universities. There are stricter rules than usual, they make up new rules just to punish these students for advocating and using their freedom of speech.

We always hear the U.S. talking about freedom of speech, human rights, freedom of assembly, and all that stuff, but when it comes to something that the United States is heavily invested in, like the settler-colonialist movement of Zionism, they will clamp down on you, they will remove all of those rights.

That’s what we saw on the campuses, with the cops showing up and arresting people, using brutality, pepper spray, beating people, inhumanely arresting people that have disabilities and that are in wheelchairs, destroying people’s properties just for being in solidarity or actually taking part in the protests.

Did you manage to make U.S. universities disinvest?

Yes, some universities disengaged with the Israeli entity and with some of the corporations. But obviously the work is not done. There’s a lot more to be done. We won’t be satisfied with a little crumb, we want the whole thing.

We’re fighting for people that are dying, we’re fighting for our brothers and sisters, we’re fighting for a just cause.

There’s a lot more work to be done, and as much as they’ll try to fight us back and repress our voices, our goals are the same, to fight back against repression on the campuses, to get the campuses to stop investing in Israeli companies and in Israeli universities, and for them to recognize what’s going on in Gaza for what it is, and it is a genocide, and to have them finally admit that would be important.

Have some students been sanctioned for participating in the demonstrations?

Yes, definitely they have. Many people that took part have even been banished off the campuses, told that they’re not allowed to come back to the campuses, they’ve been suspended from the universities, they’re not allowed to finish their degrees anymore, because of their peaceful demonstrations. The universities are chasing after these people. Even in some cases, we’ll make deals with the universities, and they’ll renege on them and lie about them, and then start reintroducing the sanctions that they did before on the students. There is no good faith negotiations with them. As much as we try good faith negotiations, they use all their power against the student movement, because they don’t like what they’re seeing.

Do you expect the movement on the campuses to start again at the end of August, when students come back?

I can’t be sure, I can’t speak on behalf of the students, but I’ll say in my personal opinion, I don’t think the students are done, I don’t think they’ll quiet it down, they recognize this for what it is, they’re people of consciousness, they’re people of morals, and they realize that they can’t be silent, like after seeing what has been done in Gaza, the horrors that the Israeli and the Zionist entity have done to the people in Gaza, I don’t think they’ll be silent, I think they’ll come back with more anger.

Washington, 6 of July 2024