T, Shop steward at Tel Aviv University and Socialist Struggle, Israel/Palestine
In April, before the start of the murderous invasion of Rafah, the international solidarity movement with the Palestinians in Gaza and beyond intensified and gained momentum. Students at Columbia University in New York set up the first encampment, in the belly of the beast of US imperialism. This inspired a wave of protest actions across the United States, Canada, Europe, Australia, South Africa, as well as the Middle East, including Palestinian students on both sides of the Green Line.
Among many examples, Tunisian journalism students at Manouba’s Institute of Press and Information Sciences (IPSI) successfully pressured the institution to cut ties with the German Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung (KAS) in response to the latter’s statement in October that it “stands with Israel”. Palestinian students at Birzeit University in the occupied West Bank established their own encampment, despite the heavily escalated repression in the West Bank by the occupation forces, as well as the Palestinian Authority, since October 7. Notably, the struggle reached Palestinians in Gaza, especially youth, who have expressed their thanks to those standing in solidarity and making their voice heard. This wave has also been a factor inspiring some Palestinian students within Israeli universities to organize actions under heavy repression.
As the Israeli genocidal onslaught on Gaza continues to unleash new horrors by the day, with a death toll reaching tens of thousands and many still missing under the rubble, it is imperative to amplify the pressure to stop the killing, end the war on Gaza, and struggle for massive reconstruction and the complete eradication of national oppression and expropriation of the Palestinians. Beyond the relentless bombing, starvation, and deprivation of water and medicine, Israeli state terrorism has also targeted Palestinian cultural life, obliterating all the universities in Gaza, and damaging or destroying ancient cultural and archaeological sites.
The systematic destruction of Gaza’s educational institutions and targeting of Palestinian academics epitomizes the broader assault on Palestinian life. As described by Gaza academics and university administrators in a statement (May 29): “Our civic infrastructure — universities, schools, hospitals, libraries, museums and cultural centers — built by generations of our people, lies in ruins from this deliberate continuous Nakba. The deliberate targeting of our educational infrastructure is a blatant attempt to render Gaza uninhabitable and erode the intellectual and cultural fabric of our society. However, we refuse to allow such acts to extinguish the flame of knowledge and resilience that burns within us”. The statement appealed to the solidarity movement to stand with this resilience, and coordinate support to effectively reopen Palestinian universities, for a long-term reconstruction, and to address the immediate financial crisis of the universities and their staff.
The current stage, when encampments in the US and worldwide were dispersed, either by force or by decision, merits an examination of the campus encampment movement so far, its achievements and demands, and lessons necessary for moving forward in the struggle against the genocidal onslaught and oppression of the Palestinians.
Administrations and Police Crackdowns
Many of the encampments faced violent crackdowns, including police brutality, with fierce arrests including thousands in the US, but also administrative sanctions such as suspensions and expulsions. These oppressive measures have been challenged, including with calls for amnesty for the protestors.
Significantly, faculty in places such as Columbia University, and the University of California, have organized themselves against the barbaric onslaught on Gaza and to defend student protests against repression. On June 10, following a repressive court order, thousands of University of California workers, unionized in UAW, ended a weeks-long strike against the administration’s crackdown on the protests. A major catalyst for the strike was the police brutality and arrests of 210 protestors, including workers unionized in UAW, on May 2. The strike, which spanned across six of the University’s campuses, was the first union-backed measure in support of the student movement. The local UAW did not let the court order deter them from announcing further protest actions within days.
European student encampments and protests also suffered crackdowns, including in the Netherlands, France and Germany. Reactionary politicians in the state of Berlin are pushing to reinstate a law that was repealed in 2021, allowing expulsion for disciplinary reasons. The law, originally passed in the late 1960s, was a reactionary measure to crack down on student protests against the Vietnam War and the rehabilitation of Nazi officials in the then-West German government.
The crackdowns have exposed to many young people the hollowness of the “free-thinking,” “progressive” image these bourgeois institutions boast. The movement has once again highlighted the role of universities as servants of big business. Police repression has illustrated that role graphically. In the US a group of pro-Zionist influential capitalists was even exposed in its clandestine intervention to pressurize the NYC mayor and university administrations to repress the protests, as reported by the Washington Post. Calls to divest and disclose investment portfolios underscore the absurdity of research and teaching institutes operating like corporations. These should serve as a reminder to the movement that the struggle for Palestinian liberation is tied to the fight against the capitalist, imperialist system as a whole.
The movement has added to radicalization of layers of young people who notice the hypocrisy of “Western liberal democracy.” University administrations are committed to restraining the solidarity movement from popularizing anti-establishment demands. While the encampment movement is currently in a relative lull, it has expressed some impressive tenacity in the face of repression — including setting up the encampment anew at least three times at Columbia University.
As noted, in some cases, symbolic concessions have been won: for example in England, Trinity College Cambridge council, which administers the College, voted to divest from all arms companies “by the summer” (as they told students). Other universities claim to consider demands, such as Brown University in the US, which agreed to invite student representatives to present their arguments to divest Brown’s endowment from “companies that facilitate the Israeli occupation of Palestinian Territory”, towards an alleged decision on divestment in October.
Prominent Demands
The disclosure of university funds raises important questions: Why are universities being run like private businesses? Why are alien commercial and military interests involved in research that claims to be unbiased? Digging deeper, why is academia, internationally, taking investments from and investing in companies involved in selling arms that kill ordinary people en masse in Gaza, the West Bank, Lebanon, Ukraine, Sudan, China, Iran, and elsewhere? Academic research should not be funded by arms companies — neither those enabling and encouraging the genocidal war in Gaza, nor those fueling imperialist and reactionary military aggression anywhere else.
Divestment is an immediate demand, which although generally symbolic, is directly tied to students’ and staff places of work and study, thus serving effectively to strengthen mobilizations for action within the campuses — pointing towards potential immediate gains. However, the argument often made for divestment is the right of the students to “see where our own tuition money is going and have a say in what our tuition money is going towards,” as Victoria Hinckley, a student organizer from the University of South Florida, explained. There is a danger for such rationale to become a superficial gesture, as expressed by Sam, a McMaster University student and encampment participant: “we want to make sure that our university is not complicit in genocide — the university we attend to and the money we spend in our tuition does not go towards contributing to a genocide.” This sentiment is understandable, and winning concessions is important, but it can also become a trap if not leveraged to strengthen the broader movement against the genocidal war and its US imperialist backing, the real issue at stake. For the university authorities, limited concessions come down to a moralistic “washing of hands,” as if the institute “not being complicit” is enough and no further action is needed.
However, it is clear that most encampment participants intend to make a significant impact, as UC Berkeley Divest coalition put it — “we must leverage our unique position within the heart of empire and flow of global capital to call for a free Palestine.” Chris Marsicano, a researcher of divestment campaigns, argued that the possible impact of divestment would not be economic but political, pointing out the Israeli government taking notice of the encampments and protests. The Israeli coalition government of Netanyahu and the far-right indeed paid attention to the demonstrations, inciting against them as antisemitic. The government aims to generally de-legitimize opposition to the barbaric onslaught on Gaza, and cynically portray itself as a defender of Jewish people, in an attempt to bolster its weak popularity among the Israeli Jewish population. Yet, divestment actions could ultimately add only limited political pressure in the face of the staunch support by US and Western imperialism of the Israeli genocidal occupation and aggression.
In the meantime, the genocidal onslaught is ongoing, with relentless bombings and forced starvation. But while many encampments have faced repression and were dispersed by force, some encampments have voluntarily dispersed following commitments from university administrations, with semesters ending a significant consideration. In the case of Brown University, for example, the encampment ended even before the university administration decided whether to divest or not. In the case of Trinity College, the encampment ended after the college did divest £61,735 ($78,089) from the largest privately owned Israeli arms company, Elbit Systems (which produces 85% of the drones and land-based equipment used by the Israeli army).
While this shows how the encampments can secure some gains, this is nevertheless a nominal sum for both the university and the corporation (Elbit Systems reported a revenue of $6 billion in 2023, rising 8.4% compared to 2022). The institutions keep the full details of their holdings secret, and thus the demand to “disclose,” although in relation to US institutions, the Washington Post found some signs for investment in relevant companies. However, the impact of divestment from them would be limited in the context of the massacre in Gaza and the struggle for Palestinian liberation. The forthcomingness of some academic administrations to divest therefore questions how much of a threat these demands pose to the status quo.
A decision to consider divestment should not have been grounds enough to end an encampment. The protests’ central demand to end the murderous onslaught on Gaza underlines the necessity to build the struggle beyond the scope of the campus, with the aim of strengthening the broad solidarity movement. In the US, this includes building pressure and posing direct demands towards municipalities, states and the Biden administration. Linking up with the broader movement can be done by following the example of the Hackney encampment in the UK (the first encampment in a city municipality — which has recently ended), or the walkouts organized by dozens of school students in New York City. Encampments could “occupy” city centers. They could also help point towards the need for joint actions with workers’ unions, for example, coordinate targeted actions against arms shipments.
Various encampments have demanded forms of academic boycott, up to completely cutting off ties with Israeli academia, including research projects and student exchange programs. In Belgium, under pressure, Ghent University has severed ties with all Israeli universities and research institutes, ending 18 ongoing projects. In the Spanish state, while some universities adopted decisions for a blanket boycott, the confederation of Spanish universities (CRUE) announced that it will cut ties with Israeli universities and research institutes, “that have not expressed a firm commitment to peace and compliance with international humanitarian law,” along with decisions to strengthen cooperation with repressed Palestinian higher education institutions, and to combat antisemitism and Islamophobia in campuses. Deep sentiments of revulsion mobilize around such protest boycott measures. However, while some concrete demands for protest boycotts can definitely play a role in building up overall pressure, their material impact is generally limited, and, as explained later, their political impact may vary significantly.
Impact on Israeli campuses
The international solidarity movement has contributed to inspiring local actions by Palestinian students in Israeli campuses, as well as raising Israeli academic administrations’ fears of (relatively) increased international isolation due to their complicit role in national oppression and support of the genocidal onslaught.
Youssef Taha, the head of the Arab Student Union, and an organizer in Al-Tajammuʿ/Balad (a national liberal Palestinian party), suggested that, “while the world is looking at them, Israeli universities would have a hard time to show that they are repressing the students… [the universities] fear a further decline and we are taking advantage of this to initiate events and activities.” Although repression still generally prevails, the international pressures on Israeli academic institutions have certainly been one of the factors influencing the administrations. This has corresponded with a developing generalized crisis of the Israeli regime, and a general upsurge in protests in Israeli society.
Among the Israeli-Jewish population, the initial shock from the October 7 Hamas-led surprise attack, including the massacre of Israeli civilians, has been harnessed by the ruling class to whip up severe nationalist reaction. Repression of dissent reached very high levels. Workplaces and Israeli campuses saw moves by administrations to suspend Palestinian students with no hearing, tied to a categorical rejection of any, particularly Palestinian, voice of dissent against the historic massacre in Gaza.
However, the depth of the crisis has led to sharp divisions among the Israeli ruling class itself, and simultaneously, to the eruption of popular anger. As the initial shock subsided, rage grew amongst sizable layers of the Jewish-Israeli public against the Israeli government, the far-right, and particularly around the hostage issue. This has meant also that the weak and unpopular Israeli government was not able to fully crack down against dissent inside the Green Line.
Israeli academic institutions have been propelled into a direct conflict with the government of Netanyahu and the far-right. The current coalition government (no longer including the center-right party of the former general Gantz, which temporarily entered coalition on behalf of ruling class interests after October7 ), has been massively unpopular and also at odds with the bulk of the Israeli ruling class since coming to power. Thus, prior to October 7, the government faced a cross-class mass movement against the “judicial coup” plan, which had already pulled Israeli academic institutions into an open conflict with the government. Tensions have now re-surged.
The Israeli government, aiming to stir up national chauvinism, sought the help of the ultranationalist head of the National Union of Students (affiliated to the European Students’ Union), which launched a campaign to promote a McCarthyistic “anti-terrorism” law that mandates academic institutions to fire lecturers who speak out “against the state.” Non-compliance will be sanctioned with a withholding of budgets. This has caused outrage, with student protests and pressure leading several local student associations to withdraw their support for the legislation. The heads of academic institutions have opposed the law, citing fear it will embolden academic boycott campaigns internationally. They are also concerned with a governmental power grab, which threatens their relative autonomy.
The combination of international pressures and domestic conflict with the Israeli government have pressed Israeli academic administrations to pose as having “democratic” credentials. Thus, for example, the Tel Aviv University President publicly requested that police reconsider their refusal and grant permission for the annual Nakba Day ceremony. The university exploits such actions for international PR, as part of a pushback against boycott initiatives, as well as to nurture a “democratic” image for Israeli capitalism and occupation at large.
This was evident in the case of professor Anat Matar, who faced backlash after expressing condolences for Walid Daqqa, a veteran Palestinian prisoner who died of cancer in Israeli prison (convicted by a martial court for indirect responsibility for a PFLP killing of an Israeli soldier; later joined the Al-Tajammuʿ/Balad party). Ultranationalists targeted Matar, and the university publicly stated it “condemns and decries the statements made” by her. Although the university refused to fire Matar, it continued to denounce her. Yet, the university used this case in a statement countering international boycott campaigns, titled “Setting the Record Straight: The Truth about Tel Aviv University”, where it claimed that it “staunchly defends the principle of free speech even when it comes to the most contentious issues” and that “not a single TAU student or staff member has now or ever been punished for expressing pro-Palestinian views”.
Haifa University has generally been repressing and preventing Palestinian and anti-war protests in the campus area. However, recently, the administration responded to an ultranationalist incitement against professor Asad Ghanem, who participated in a discussion panel that included a Hamas official, by stating that: “as long as there is no violation of the law, the university does not intervene in issues related to civil activities of the members of the university.”
On May 28, the Hebrew University was forced to approve a 300-strong Palestinian-led anti-war demonstration, as part of a day of action organized by Palestinian students across several Israeli campuses, including a 1-hour protest strike, in response to the atrocities in Rafah.
In the same month, the police arrested and interrogated Palestinian professor Nadera Shalhoub-Kevorkian from the Hebrew University about her academic study of the occupation, in what was the culmination of one of the worst cases of persecution and harassment towards a faculty member in Israeli campuses. Shalhoub-Kevorkian was initially suspended by the university after participating in a podcast where she criticized the genocidal war. The slander campaign involved mainstream media, to which the university unprecedentedly responded by condemning Shalhoub-Kevorkian’s academic research conclusions.
This did not prevent the Israeli Association of University Heads, in a reply to the aforementioned CRUE decision in the Spanish state over potential boycotts, from stating: “We do not punish our students or staff members for expressing pro-Palestinian views. We are institutions that prioritize freedom of expression and we protect the rights of our faculty, staff, and students to express ideas that challenge the prevailing consensus.” The letter’s cordial and ingratiating tone reflects the fear of increased international isolation.
Israeli academia and Palestinian oppression
In a statement by Dutch universities that is positioned against protest occupations in campuses, they explain why they will not cut ties with Israeli academia, as they believe it is “important not to isolate [politically] critical Israeli scientists.” For them, it is merely a hypocritical excuse while they aim to take no serious measures against Palestinian oppression.
As mentioned and exemplified by the repression of encampments, academic institutions worldwide ultimately act as servants of the interests of the ruling classes, a pillar of the capitalist system, marginalizing dissenting views and perpetuating the social order founded on exploitation and oppression via “knowledge production.” Israeli academic institutions, as well as their counterparts that prop up US imperialism, for example, have of course also been vehicles of ruling class policies, including national oppression.
Maya Wind, an Israeli left-leaning liberal academic who appeals internationally for a generalized boycott of Israeli academic institutions, discusses the role of Israeli academic institutions in depth in her book, Towers of Ivory and Steel: How Israeli Universities Deny Palestinian Freedom (2024). She describes how Israeli universities have historically been integrated into Israeli state nationalist policies of oppression and expropriation, and prior to 1948, the policies of the central Zionist institutions. Moreover, Wind details how “Israeli universities were planned and built to serve as pillars of regional demographic engineering and Palestinian dispossession.”
However, Wind’s contribution suffers from an overly abstract method and misses out on generalized conclusions, also because of a general lack of understanding of the more fundamental role of academia in class, capitalist society — not mentioned in her book. This also affects Wind’s suggestions, rooted in liberal illusions, to resolve the problem: “Israeli universities could cease to serve as the scaffolding to repress the Palestinian movement for liberation and transform themselves into the infrastructure that anchors free academic exploration and debate for all its students. Administrations could offer institutional support for and allocate resources toward critical research on the structural racialized violence of the Israeli state and the study of Palestinian experiences of dispossession and oppression.” (p. 97).
Can universities be ‘independently’ reconstructed to simply detach themselves from the national oppression policies inherent in the Israeli capitalist state? Where would the resources needed for such education against national oppression come from? How would an Israeli institution seeking to fully implement Wind’s program cope with an inevitable backlash by the ruling class?
In a response to Wind’s book, Barak Medina, a former rector of the Hebrew University and an anti-Netanyahu proponent of liberal Zionist nationalism and supporter of the war on Gaza, clarifies his rejection of Wind’s critique of policies he himself advocated. He portrays Israeli academia as a progressive stronghold against the Netanyahu government, and asserts that a potential flight of Israeli scholars in the scenario of a comprehensive international boycott would open the gates for the strengthening of the Israeli far-right: “A strong Israeli academia is crucial in pushing Israel in the right direction. It should be supported, not attacked.”
Medina opposes a boycott from the point of view of the Israeli establishment and as a “liberal” apologist for the atrocities in Gaza. But Israeli academic institutions are made up not only of wealthy officials serving the ruling class, and an exclusive senior staff. They also employ low-paid researchers and teaching staff with no job security. There are the ordinary administrative staff and the most exploited workers on campus — the cleaning staff, composed mostly of immigrant and Palestinian women. And then there are the students, with those from working-class and poor backgrounds, especially from various discriminated populations, facing a rougher time — including Palestinians with Israeli citizenship, who despite an increase in registration over the last decade up to 18%, are under-represented and systematically face national oppression.
This does add an important aspect to the discussion over international solidarity tactics, including what protest actions and what type of boycotts may be most useful, also in the context of academic institutions.
While the demand for a complete end to the national oppression of Palestinians is key, advocating cutting all ties with Israeli academic institutions contingent on a maximalist demand of renewing ties only once national oppression is fully toppled, relies on the assumption that no effective resistance could develop within Israeli academia — which we have seen not to be true.
A professor from Ghent University published emails he received from Israeli academics who argued for academic boycotts because, as one of them wrote: “Nothing within Israel can change its government’s position and actions, as we are in effect living in a dictatorship (that lost all humanity). It is only hopeful that pressure from without can change anything.” This expression of fatalism in the face of aggressive reaction in Israeli society skips conclusions from revolutionary experiences in the region against dictatorships, as well as the importance of Israeli mass alienation from Netanyahu and the far-right.
Boycott tactics and a class approach
An approach that doesn’t distinguish between the administration and staff and students, and strives to isolate Israeli society as a whole, would have a lower potential to get an echo among Israeli working class and youth against powerful ruling class propaganda. Such an approach, linked to the view that the Israeli population is generally one reactionary bloc and should be collectively punished, has also been propelling an upsurge of generalized “gray boycotts” — with academics rejecting collaborations and declining to write recommendations, review articles, or grade PhD and master’s theses.
While US imperialism is a decisive enabler of the oppression of the Palestinians and is responsible for an extreme scale of atrocities worldwide for decades, its decisive weight in the global system clarifies why boycott of US academia or society wouldn’t point a way forward, unlike the students’ revolt at the heart of that society, which has challenged US government policies and inspired students across the world to follow their example.
Recent examples, such as Russia’s war on Ukraine, show that indiscriminate national-based sanctions promoted by capitalist ruling classes — which Israeli capitalism is unlikely to face to such an extent within the Western imperialist bloc — do not stop oppression and conflicts. Instead, they are used by these oppressive regimes to promote further isolation and “fortress mentality” at home, bolstering their social base, while cracking down on dissent. Increased generalized academic and cultural boycotts of Russians have not assisted the brutally repressed opposition, on top of economic sanctions that, similarly to the case of Iran, have mostly inflicted misery on impoverished masses and increased their isolation with little or no effect on the oligarchs.
The case of the historic struggle against apartheid in South Africa is often invoked as an example for effective boycotts, including of academic institutions. However, not only was there no major section of the working class that could have been driven to accept the ruling class’s propaganda by such auxiliary solidarity measures, but also, the decisive factor in the toppling of the South African Apartheid regime was the rebellion of the militant black working class, not sanctions and diplomatic pressures. The revolution against Apartheid capitalism was snatched away, and decades later, the legacy of Apartheid in terms of the impoverishment of the black masses endures and underlies the decline in support for the ANC.
Similarly, the historic comprehensive Arab League boycott of Israel also did not push the Israeli regime to any concessions on the occupation and oppression of Palestinians.
International solidarity actions are vital of course. Nonetheless, the primary driver of change — which can be supported by auxiliary “external” pressures on the Israeli regime — remains the liberation struggle of the Palestinian masses themselves. They pose a more serious threat to the Israeli occupation than any international pressure, as exemplified particularly by the historic first Intifada. Mass popular struggle, under which armed self-defense would most effectively be democratically controlled, proved far more productive than a narrow focus on armed resistance.
At the same time, international solidarity protests may assist the efforts of the isolated genuine left opposition forces in Israeli capitalist society to advance conclusions and struggles of the Israeli masses against the government and the ruling class — rather than push ordinary Israelis towards the propaganda of the ruling class that Israelis have to “band together” against a hostile “antisemitic” world.
Concrete, focused boycott measures tied to direct demands may assist in the isolation of the most reactionary elements and in adding to overall pressure for the implementation of demands. In particular, demands should target the Israeli government, corporations, organizations — as well as academic officials, administrations and programs — who are concretely responsible for implementing or aiding the atrocities in Gaza and Israeli occupation and oppression of Palestinians.
Demands for targeted academic boycotts should consider contingency — on what grounds does the boycott end — on a case-by-case basis. Any action should seek to mark those complicit, and strengthen the divisions between administrations and between workers and students in Israeli academic institutions, while amplifying anti-war voices, including those of Palestinian students and staff who are struggling on the ground within these institutions. Calls that point in the direction of strengthening international links and channels of exchange and collaboration with the anti-occupation and anti-war opposition elements within Israeli campuses should also be considered.
Moreover, direct actions by organized working class groups internationally to intervene to disrupt “business as usual” for US and Western imperialism and for the Israeli ruling class could point a way forward, especially if linked to a class appeal to Israeli workers and youth alienated with the Netanyahu government and the Israeli far-right. This, of course, includes those layers in Israeli higher education institutions.
The backdrop of erupting popular protests in Israeli society, growing calls for a general strike for a hostage deal, which would necessitate an end to the genocidal war on Gaza, implies a potential progressive role of the Israeli working class versus the Israeli government, even while left forces are currently weak across the region and globally. This in no way underestimates the potent ideological offensive of the Israeli ruling class, whipping up horrific national chauvinism. However, it points towards contradictions and ultimately class divisions within Israeli capitalist society. While not the only factor, the Israeli working class remains crucial to the struggle to overcome Israeli capitalism and its inherent barbaric oppression of the Palestinians.
The calls for a general strike in the Israeli protests echo a broader trend globally and locally. Notably, last year’s general strike and centrality of the idea of a strike in the then cross-class Israeli movement against the government’s judicial power grab attempt. The Students Unions and even the Israeli National Union of Students were also pressed to take up the initiative for a partial students’ strike ‘for the hostages’ on June 13 — of course, with a reactionary leadership that wanted merely a lip-service measure dripping with national chauvinism. Nevertheless, the partial strike evolved in the context of generalized growing mass discontent that challenges the Israeli government in general and particularly pushes for a ceasefire deal. Among a large part of the Israeli Jewish population this is broadly understood as the only way to retrieve the hostages.
The opposition by a section of Israeli students and faculty to attacks on academic freedom and freedom of speech has also been important, albeit limited. The “Socialist Struggle” organization (ISA in Israel–Palestine), involved and intervening on the ground in protests to stop the genocidal onslaught since the start, has been cooperating with Academia for Equality, an organization of more than 800 Israeli Jewish and Palestinian academics. In the first week after October 7, we jointly launched an open letter which collected more than 400 signatures of students and staff, condemning the national-chauvinist witch hunt and calling for an end to the war. Academia for Equality has taken part in organizing anti-war protests on and off campus, and worked to defend Palestinian and Israeli Jewish students and staff against political persecution, as well as counter disinformation about the international campus movement. In Socialist Struggle, we have done our best to put forward initiatives against the political persecution campaign from our shop steward positions in the Teaching and Research Faculty Organization at Tel Aviv University, and have been challenging expressions of support for the war by union officials.
The way forward
The phase of retreat in the global encampment wave does not signify any decline in mass rage against the daily barbarity inflicted on Gaza. The international solidarity movement has inevitably seen ups and downs, also in response to bloody developments in the Gaza crisis. Sections of the movement are attempting to draw lessons from experience at each phase. Students are among those who continue to take part worldwide in ongoing protest actions and demonstrations to end the criminal bloodbath — in the US specifically, the new academic year begins in August, and will see a resumption of solidarity protest actions to one degree or another, as part of the broader movement. Thus, important questions of tactics, strategy and political program, will continue to require further discussion and debate.
What has been lacking from the conversation to empower this movement is a socialist, class-based approach. The simple minimalist urgent demand of an immediate ceasefire evidently requires the building of a more developed, massive movement to exert more comprehensive pressures, most decisively via mass mobilizations and organized labor actions. That task is intrinsically linked to challenging US and Western imperialism. Demands to disclose and divest should be generalized to the disclosure of all interests of capital, oppressive regimes and imperialist military offensives, and to get them out of academia. This should also be linked to demands to expropriate, and transfer to public ownership and democratic working-class control, all companies in any country profiting from the murderous attacks on the Palestinians, and convert those companies to serve socially useful purposes.
The very fact that the massive, militant international movement, expressed in campuses and beyond, has been insufficient in achieving a ceasefire for so long also implies the magnitude of the much more developed, revolutionary movement that would be required to uproot fully the underlying systemic national oppression of the Palestinians. That is centrally linked to the overthrowing of Israeli capitalism and Western imperialism, in the context of socialist change in the region. A socialist program, incorporating a complete end to all forms of national oppression, with equal rights to existence and self-determination to all nations, and to a life of dignity, welfare and personal security for all, in a socialist Middle East, including the recognition of the rights of Palestinian refugees — is necessary to point towards a genuine fundamental solution. Strategy, tactics and slogans put forward in the international solidarity movement should, beyond solidarity and vital pressure for an immediate ceasefire, reflect and help clarify the direction necessary for a way out of atrocities for the Palestinians and in the region.
