Pro-Palestine university encampments are a source of inspiration

What started at Columbia University in the United States has grown into a global phenomenon spreading to over 100 universities around the world including here in Australia. The student and staff protestors hail from many backgrounds, most not Palestinian, many of them Jewish.

Their demands are straightforward and honourable. They are calling for their universities to stop being complicit in the Israeli genocide against the Palestinians in Gaza. To divest from Israeli and other organisations that enable the killing and prop up the occupation including weapons manufacturers like Lockheed Martin, Boeing, and BAE Systems. And to be fully transparent about the purposes of their joint research projects.

These encampments are not antisemitic and do not endanger Jewish students. In fact, it is the pro-Palestine encampments that are being provoked, abused, and viciously attacked by marauding Zionist thugs including former IDF soldiers.

How more poignant is our universities standing with Gaza could not be. Israel's genocidal forces have destroyed all of Gaza's universities in a deliberate attempt to extinguish the hopes and aspirations of generations of young Palestinians.

"Israel's barbarity knows no end. The murder and maiming of tens of thousands, the mass starvation, and destruction of Gaza's schools, hospitals, mosques, churches, and homes is unprecedented in its scale and vengeful savagery. We commend the courageous students and staff at the Universities of Melbourne, Sydney, Queensland, and others for their righteous stand and for proclaiming loudly 'No to genocide! No to complicity! Not in our name!'" said ICV President Adel Salman.