Students for a Democratic Society calls for nationwide encampments for Gaza, stands with Columbia students for Palestine

Fight Back News Service is circulating the following statement by the New Students for a Democratic Society (SDS).

While standing in solidarity with Palestine, the student movement has once again escalated protests on campus with the campus encampment movement. Students are calling out their universities and its administrators for their decades’ long support of Israel’s genocide of Palestinians and are demanding that our universities divest and cut all ties to Israel! University administrators have no right to ignore the students as university administrators continue to support the genocide in Gaza and maintain support for Israel. 

Rather than carrying out the demands of the student movement to divest, cut ties with Israel, and end U.S. aid to Israel; university administrators, the Biden administration, and Congress have chosen to attack students’ First Amendment rights. In order to justify the arming and funding of the genocidal Israeli government, they have felt the need to silence and attack students for standing bravely for a Free Palestine. Since October, congress has passed legislation against students’ right to protest in solidarity with Palestine and have labeled students demanding a free Palestine from the River to the Sea as antisemitic. SDS condemns these cowardly and illegal attacks on free speech, the right to assemble, and academic freedom. It is right to stand with Palestine! 

As students standing in solidarity with Palestine, and against the actions of our universities, President Biden, and the actions of congress, we need to have each other’s backs and join forces with pro-Palestine student groups like Students for Justice in Palestine in an effort to spread these encampments across the country! SDS understands that university administrators will attack the student encampments every opportunity they get by sending the university police departments to attack and tear down the encampment, arrest students, lie to the press and media, and threaten students with code of conduct charges. We need students across the country to be ready to show support by showing up to the encampments, holding solidarity actions, sharing updates on social media, participating in call-ins if and when students are arrested, and having their own protests and encampments. We are the student movement, and we are far more powerful than the administrators and their police! 

Students for a Democratic Society stands with student encampments and all students demanding a Free Palestine! We took inspiration from Columbia Students for Justice in Palestine, and the Columbia students who started the encampment movement. We stand in unconditional solidarity with Columbia students, NYU students, and all student encampments demanding divestment, cutting ties with Israel, and demanding an end to Israeli genocide in Gaza. We call on students to stand in solidarity with the campus encampments and start encampments on their campuses. We must escalate actions to demand an end to U.S. aid to Israel, and for universities to cut all ties! 

National SDS demands:

1. Universities fully divest from Israel.

2. Universities carry out an academic boycott of Israel. 

3. Universities condemn Israel for its genocide in Gaza. 

4. The protection of first amendment rights to free speech, protest, and academic freedom. 

5. President Biden and Congress end all U.S. aid to Israel.

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