Workers World is in full support of the heroic U.S. student uprising that has mushroomed in the form of Gaza solidarity encampments. This national uprising was sparked on April 17, Palestinian Prisoners’ Day, by Columbia University students in Harlem, New York, demanding that this Ivy League school divest all its endowment funds from companies doing business with the Israeli apartheid state, including weapons manufacturers. This is the same state, armed by U.S. imperialism, that has massacred over 34,000 Palestinian civilians — a great number of them children — and wounded over 76,000 more since the Al-Aqsa Flood on October 7.
Fashion Institute of Technology encampment at the museum at 26th Street & 7th Avenue, SW corner, New York City, April 25, 2024. WW PHOTO: John Catalinotto
Following the arrests of over 100 students at Columbia by the New York Police Department less than a week ago, over 40 more encampments have sprung up countrywide in just one week, with “liberated zones” demanding a free Palestine. No amount of police repression has been able to discourage the resolve and determination of these students, which continue to grow stronger.
Even faculty members have staged walkouts at their schools where encampments are taking place, surrounding student protesters and risking arrests, for example at Emory University in Atlanta and Columbia and The New School in New York City. We salute New York City bus drivers who refused to drive arrestees to jail on behalf of the NYPD.
The false narrative of “antisemitism” pushed by reactionary college administrations, the right wing and the Biden administration is being obliviated by the sheer large numbers of anti-Zionist Jewish students who have joined these encampments. They are saying loud and clear that this horrific genocide will not be carried out in the name of Judaism.
Workers World condemns the brutality being carried out by the police that proves once again which side this repressive force is on. The cops protect the private property of the billionaire ruling class, which includes the superrich college endowments that prop up the Zionist, terrorist death machine.
The Resistance News Network, the main voice of the Palestinian Resistance, has been providing 24-hour coverage and support to this student uprising. The network states that these encampments have taken place so far in 20 states.
Just as the Palestinian armed resistance must be defended by the global community, it is imperative that every sector of U.S. society, especially the workers of all nationalities, come to the defense of these defiant students. They are carrying out their own fightback alongside their Palestinian siblings, to not only help bring down the illegal Israeli state but to justifiably resist the police storm troopers that do the bidding of the oppressive capitalist class on a global scale.
Workers World demands: Drop the charges against ALL student and faculty protesters! END all police repression! Victory to the Palestinian Resistance! From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free!