Pro-Palestine Campus Organizers: Demilitarization & Democratization Go Together

Universities have lengthy been pivotal hubs of the worldwide solidarity motion with Palestine. Throughout Israel’s genocidal siege of Gaza and its annihilation marketing campaign in opposition to Palestinian instructional establishments, college students the world over reworked universities into websites of protests and encampments. A central demand united this motion: that universities lower their ties with Israel’s equipment of battle and occupation. Concretely, this meant divestment from companies enabling the Gaza genocide, and pushing establishments to interrupt with weapons analysis. This upsurge constructed on long-standing traditions of campus actions challenging college energy constructions linked to battle and militarism.

Over the previous yr, campus actions for Palestine have used techniques like compiling reports documenting their college’s ties to the Gaza genocide, and a few have even sought a voice on the governing our bodies at universities. Truthout lately spoke to representatives from three completely different organizing efforts tied to this motion.

Richard Solomon and Mila Halgren are Ph.D. college students on the Massachusetts Institute of Know-how (MIT), who helped analysis a December 2024 report printed by the MIT Coalition for Palestine on MIT’s ties to militarism and Israel’s occupation.

Benicio Maesa is an undergraduate on the College of Warwick in England who helped publish the same October 2024 report by the Warwick Scholar Employees Solidarity Community.

Huwaida Arraf is a Palestinian American lawyer and human rights activist who co-founded the International Solidarity Movement and was an organizer of the Gaza Freedom Flotilla that was brutally attacked by Israeli commandos in 2010. Arraf is an alumnus of the College of Michigan and has supported Palestine solidarity organizers on campus, most notably by running for a seat on the college’s board of regents and offering legal support for college kids.

Derek Seidman: What’s the background of your Palestine solidarity coalitions at MIT and Warwick?

Richard Solomon: The MIT Coalition for Palestine emerged after October 7 with the central demand that MIT lower its ties to the Israeli army. It’s made up of over 20 campus teams. We grew out of a earlier acknowledged pupil group, the Coalition Towards Apartheid, that was banned from campus.

There’s a convention right here. The identify Coalition Towards Apartheid was a reference to the MIT group that called for divestment from apartheid South Africa within the Nineteen Eighties and Nineteen Nineties. Through the U.S. invasion of Vietnam within the late Nineteen Sixties, there was a mass pupil and college motion at MIT, with luminaries like Noam Chomsky. Folks see MIT because the “Pentagon on the Charles” and suppose engineers are pretty apolitical, however there’s additionally a vibrant custom of activism at MIT.

Benicio Maesa: The Warwick Student Staff Solidarity Network (SSSN) has been round for a decade. We even have one other coalition, Warwick Stands With Palestine, a pupil group centered particularly on Palestine that works with SSSN.

Warwick College was fashioned in 1965 and the tradition of activism has been there because the starting. There was previous organizing round South African apartheid and solidarity with West Berlin, but it surely was lately with the genocide in Palestine that we actually discovered our sense of solidarity on campus.

The principle inspiration for our coalition is the Palestinian individuals. We’re pushed by our need to see a free Palestine throughout our lifetime. We had been additionally impressed by Palestine campus activism within the U.S., particularly within the face of maximum repression. Our encampment was established after the U.S. encampments had been erected.

Seidman: Why did you determine to publish your reviews, and what had been some essential findings?

Solomon: The report was impressed by comparable efforts on the University of Michigan and the London School of Economics. The most important findings are, first, that MIT researchers develop applied sciences immediately sponsored by the Israeli army. They are saying it’s “primary analysis,” however these applied sciences have army functions.

Second, MIT has direct institutional collaborations with corporations that revenue from the Gaza genocide, like Lockheed Martin, Maersk and Elbit Programs, certainly one of Israel’s largest army contractors. Corporations like Lockheed and Elbit manufacture bombs and artillery, however particularly drones which might be utilized in Gaza and the West Financial institution.

Elbit has been a very stark grievance for us as a result of it has an engagement with MIT via the Industrial Liaison Program, which supplies Elbit privileged entry to the campus and to MIT college and workers. [Editor’s note: facing protests, Elbit ended its lease of office space in Cambridge last year.]

Maesa: Warwick is an enormous analysis college, so we checked out analysis tasks which have arms corporations as companions. Rolls-Royce, for instance, is a large British-based multinational that’s actually powering the genocide in Gaza. We discovered that their engines are utilized in automobiles and plane that Israel is utilizing in opposition to Palestinians. One other instance is Rolls-Royce subsidiary MTU, which produces engines for Israeli Merkava tanks and armored personnel carriers. They’ve been used to destroy buildings in Gaza and kill individuals.

Final yr we occupied a constructing on campus known as the Worldwide Digital Laboratory, residence to the Warwick Manufacturing Group (WMG). Corporations like Rolls-Royce and BAE Programs had been concerned within the creation of WMG, which we take into account essentially the most complicit division on the college.

Seidman: Huwaida, as an alum, how did you become involved supporting college students on the College of Michigan?

Huwaida Arraf: The scholars at College of Michigan initiated every part on their very own, and so they had been phenomenal. After October 7, I joined alumni teams that had been supporting the coed organizers. We helped unfold the information and flow into petitions, and we rotated going to the encampments, typically bringing meals. We pledged, as alums, to not help the college financially or in any other case, in solidarity with the scholars. I did some talking and webinars. Now, I’m making an attempt to help them by suing the University of Michigan for violating their constitutional rights after it singled out pro-Palestine protesters for tutorial self-discipline and shut down the College students for Justice in Palestine chapter on campus.

I used to be happy with the younger Palestinian and Jewish American organizers for what they did, and in addition proud that this was occurring on the College of Michigan. I wished to function a useful resource for ethical help and assist with no matter I may.

Michigan is likely one of the solely states within the nation the place you possibly can elect the board of regents for our flagship universities. The scholars wished to run anyone to symbolize them on the board. They knew in regards to the work I’ve carried out on Palestine and that I used to be uncompromising about Palestinian rights, and so they reached out.

Seidman: Why did the technique of making an attempt to get on the board of regents make sense to you?

Arraf: The scholars wanted anyone contained in the board of regents. I might have solely been certainly one of eight regents if elected, however the college students wanted a voice inside to attempt to shield them and their civil liberties. That was my primary motivation. However I used to be additionally impressed by their willingness to have interaction in electoral organizing, significantly as a result of so many younger individuals don’t become involved within the political course of, and I wished to encourage that. My slogan was “Leadership that Listens.” The scholars, the workers, the school, the group: that’s who the board of regents works for, and so they don’t have sufficient of a voice. In truth, the college administration and the board of regents are utilizing their energy to silence these voices.

So, my choice to leap in was actually to help the scholars. They wanted to mobilize shortly to register as many individuals to vote as doable. They registered over 2,000 individuals as Michigan Democratic Get together members in only a few days and began to mobilize. We solely had lower than three weeks, however the college students, and pro-Palestinian voices typically, dominated the conference. They introduced their neighbors and their households. There have been roughly 1,400 individuals there, and I bought over 800 votes, greater than half of the uncooked votes, although the votes are weighted otherwise. However extra necessary than the votes was simply the presence of such a younger and vibrant group.

As an alternative of welcoming these new members and this new vitality into the get together, the Michigan Democratic Get together handled us terribly, participating in voter suppression and voter intimidation techniques, refusing to be clear, and violating their very own bylaws to get the outcomes they wished. This prompted me to file a lawsuit in opposition to them, which is now being litigated in federal court docket.

Seidman: Again to MIT and Warwick. How did your reviews help your organizing?

Mila Halgren: Our primer centered on informing our targets of chopping MIT’s egregious ties with the Israeli army and the bodily enforcement of apartheid. We’ve despatched the primer to senior members of the administration and college members on advisory committees that make selections over analysis sponsorships, so ignorance of those direct ties is not an excuse for the MIT administration.

The report has additionally led to worldwide coordinated motion in opposition to MIT’s collaboration with Elbit, which is actually highly effective. We’ve seen Elbit contested at MIT symposiums in Tokyo, South Korea and Thailand, partly as a result of these activists learn our report and realized that MIT and the Industrial Liaison Program was coming to their nations.

One other purpose with the report is to foment media scrutiny over MIT’s complicity, as a result of that may put extra strain on MIT than campus activism that may not break into the bigger information cycle.

Maesa: The report has been actually useful for publicity on campus. Totally different teams and people have been utilizing the report, and it’s additionally supported our arguments on the negotiating desk with the college. We additionally despatched it to media contacts and to United Nations Particular Rapporteur Francesca Albanese.

Our report drilled in on Rolls-Royce, which is the darling of Warwick College. Our subsequent marketing campaign known as Drop Rolls-Royce from the HetSys CDT. HetSys CDT is a collaborative doctoral challenge between the college and quite a few industrial and tutorial companions funded by the Engineering and Bodily Sciences Analysis Council (EPSRC). Rolls-Royce is thought to be concerned within the challenge because the begin, and we’re calling on the college to drop Rolls-Royce from the challenge.

The administration claims Rolls-Royce additionally manufactures civilian plane engines, not army ones, however we argue that you could’t separate the 2. Our report’s deal with Rolls-Royce creates a powerful argument in opposition to the presence of those corporations on campus, as a result of arms corporations can disguise themselves in civilian garments.

Seidman: Do you see any hypocrisy with the MIT and Warwick administrations round Palestine? And have you ever confronted repression?

Halgren: When Russia invaded Ukraine, MIT immediately cut its ties with the Skoltech Institute in Moscow and condemned the invasion. MIT additionally supplied full transitional funding for labs and college students affected by the chopping of those ties.

MIT additionally pledged to not renew Saudi Aramco’s membership within the MIT Vitality Initiative, and declined any additional sponsored engagements between MIT and Aramco, after the homicide of journalist Jamal Khashoggi. This contrasts strikingly with Gaza, the place 170 journalists have been murdered by Israel. MIT has not condemned these murders, however when a single journalist in Saudi Arabia was murdered, it lower its ties.

MIT has reacted to us with fast repression and misinformation. As an illustration, we launched an op-ed within the pupil newspaper about one professor’s ties to the Israeli army, and in response, MIT pressured the coed newspaper into retracting the op-ed. MIT additionally restricted access to its inside grant-tracking software program after we printed our findings.

Maesa: After Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022, Warwick College instantly put out an announcement condemning the invasion, saying that it’s unlawful and immoral. It was nice they condemned that injustice, however two years later, they refused to place out an announcement on Palestine. We even requested them to simply launch the identical assertion they put up for Ukraine and alter it to Palestine, however they wouldn’t do this. The college has additionally created a number of scholarships and tutorial alternatives for Ukrainians, however they haven’t carried out something to that extent with Palestinian college students.

They haven’t actually mentioned something in regards to the report itself. It’s like they don’t need to acknowledge that it exists. There hasn’t been specific repression in opposition to Palestine activism at Warwick College, although they invoke “proscribed groups” and the U.Okay.’s “prevent” framework to indicate you possibly can’t say sure issues, and this will have a chilling impact.

Seidman: What are your core calls for? And finally, what ought to a simply college appear like?

Solomon: We had three core calls for within the primer. First, the MIT management should publicly condemn the Israeli genocide in Gaza and Israeli occupation and apartheid. Second, MIT should instantly and publicly finish all analysis funding and sponsorships by the Israeli Ministry of Protection, which is engaged in crimes in opposition to humanity. Third, MIT ought to publicly pivot away from complicit company companions like Elbit, Maersk and Lockheed Martin, and decide to divesting the company’s endowment from companies implicated within the occupation of the Palestinian territories.

The perfect college is one which has moved away from army sponsorship typically. Everyone knows when the tobacco business funds analysis into lung most cancers, or the fossil gasoline business sponsors local weather analysis, these research are sure to be biased. The identical factor applies to the army. It’ll sponsor tasks which have belligerent functions. This isn’t suitable with a broader imaginative and prescient of human flourishing.

Maesa: Our essential purpose is to have a demilitarized campus. We wish arms corporations off the campus as a result of we think about this college as a spot for data manufacturing that truly advantages humanity fairly than kills them. We wish a future college that’s free from guilt and complicity within the genocide of Palestinians and different individuals as nicely.

I additionally suppose the longer term college needs to be extra democratic and extra clear. We’ve discovered that the college is extremely bureaucratic, undemocratic and never clear in any respect, particularly to college students and workers. Now we have a stake within the college and needs to be concerned in deliberations round partnerships.

Demilitarization and democratization go collectively. We can’t democratize the college with out democratic enter from college students, and we’re not going to have a democratic college if arms corporations’ pursuits prevail within the minds of college bureaucrats that dictate energy relations on campus.

Arraf: These prestigious establishments are presupposed to be sources of free thought and innovation that create the following era of people that will make a greater world. They symbolize our college students, our state and our future. When these establishments are complicit within the crimes in opposition to humanity being carried out in Palestine, it’s completely shameful.

However the college students have been exposing it, regardless that they’re being suspended and repressed. They know what they’re risking. These are younger college students with their complete lives forward of them, and so they’re jeopardizing that to face up for what’s proper. They’re an inspiration, and people main these establishments are completely shameful.

These interviews had been carried out individually and edited right into a roundtable format afterward.