Classes From Pitzer’s Gaza Solidarity Encampment

The Gaza solidarity encampments at universities reimagine political actions as communities the place we materialize our commitments to a greater world. From co-leading Pitzer School’s encampment, I discovered the ability of the invitation: American college students have been invited by our friends in Palestine to decide to inventive, principled types of protest that make our motion for peace not possible to disregard. For years college students have demanded that our faculties divest from Israeli apartheid. However even amid genocide, our establishments weren’t listening, so we reclaimed college area as a “liberated zone” in an effort to not be ignored.

Once we arrange the primary tent of Pitzer’s encampment on April 26, 2024, I had no concept that main a Gaza solidarity encampment could be essentially the most impactful studying expertise of my school profession. A few of us had been involved in regards to the dangers of making an encampment and potential penalties, together with police violence, arrest, expulsion, and the chance that we’d not have sufficient folks to execute the plan. All of us knew that to make significant change now we have to take dangers, however as a small college we had been involved we didn’t have the numbers. The largest danger of radical motion is that you may be alone. The police and politicians attempt to isolate those that oppose battle. 

Over the previous months, American leaders have referred to principled college students as exterior agitators or even terrorists in an effort to discredit our motion for the security and dignity of all folks. In our concern we nearly referred to as the encampment off, however we had been reminded of recommendation from our fellow college students main encampments throughout the nation. Understanding the ability of the invitation, they advised us: Construct it and other people will come.

They usually had been proper. We started with two tents. Then there have been 10. Then 25. All of the sudden I used to be surrounded by folks discussing books from the encampment library and sharing meals, household histories, and visions of a freer world. We made choices and led the encampment as a group, guided by a shared dedication to embodying the social justice values we discovered within the classroom. As a result of the coed motion for Gaza reimagines political actions as communities, we invited everybody—college students, college, group members, and our board of trustees—to affix our encampment as a welcoming area to study, envision, and construct a brand new world collectively. As our encampment grew, professors taught courses there and group members exterior the school answered our invitation.

I used to be deeply moved by the quantity of people that joined the encampment, particularly one couple who drove two hours to supply assist. As they nervously approached, carrying do-it-yourself banana bread, an additional sleeping bag, and a Palestinian flag, we welcomed them and launched ourselves, explaining why being in solidarity with Gaza issues to us. By then the 2 appeared much less nervous—extra drained than something. “We got here right here at this time,” they advised us, “as a result of there may be nothing left for us to do. Yesterday, my sister’s baby was killed in an airstrike on Rafah. He was 17 years previous. It’s completed. However we got here to assist you as a result of as college students at American universities, there’s one thing you can do.”

Supporting Palestinian freedom is particularly essential to me as a Jewish American. A yr in the past I traveled to the occupied West Financial institution and noticed the violence of Israel’s occupation firsthand. I witnessed the struggling at army checkpoints, in tear-gassed refugee camps, and in Palestinian households’ day by day confrontation with settler violence. 

Afterward, I returned residence to my protected, comfy life, however I used to be basically modified. I used to be remodeled by the folks I met in Palestine who, regardless of generations of struggling, violence, and oppression, think about a world wherein they’re free. It’s a privilege to affix my Palestinian friends’ imaginative and prescient of a world that values the rights, humanity, and desires of all folks. As members of highly effective political and tutorial establishments, now we have leverage to finish Palestinian struggling and spend money on peace.

The encampments, as an emergency response to circumstances in Gaza, are a strong instrument for negotiating divestment from Israel, however they’re just one tactic in a wider motion for collective Palestinian freedom. In response to the encampment, the board of trustees agreed to reveal Pitzer’s investments in army and weapons manufacturing. 

With the assist of our Palestinian classmates, one other Jewish pupil and I led negotiations with our board of trustees chair, Don Gould. We positioned these negotiations as an invite for Pitzer to reside as much as its social justice values because it did in 1986 when the varsity divested from South African apartheid. Whereas disclosure is tangible progress within the combat for divestment, till the school severs ties with weapons producers and firms cashing in on Israeli apartheid, Pitzer stays complicit in crimes towards humanity. 

After the board agreed to a partial disclosure, we started planning for our commencement ceremony the place college students and allied college confirmed the president and board of trustees that the world’s name for Palestinian freedom can’t be ignored. As my classmates and I walked throughout the commencement stage, we handed our president and board of trustees Palestinian flags. 

When college students proudly elevate the Palestinian flag at protests, at encampments, and through commencement, we achieve this as a result of so many Palestinians can’t. By elevating the Palestinian flag, we pressure our universities to confront their complicity in Israeli apartheid and the continued genocide in Gaza. Each flag handed to our president and trustees was an invite for Pitzer and all establishments of upper training to apply the social justice values they educate, and to spend money on books over bombs. 

Whereas I’m so pleased with the motion that college students internationally have constructed, I consider Gaza, the place there can be no graduations this yr as a result of each college has been destroyed. As flags pile like our bodies on the ft of college presidents throughout our commencement ceremonies, our invitation nonetheless stands: Be part of us by investing in peace and divesting from weapons and apartheid. And, if you’re disheartened and disturbed by a world that excuses genocide and apartheid, I invite you to affix us in constructing a extra liberated world wherein all of us—together with Palestinians—are free.

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