Support the students backing Palestine!

At about eight weeks into the new semester on U.S. campuses, the following has become clear:

Students who started political activity and struggle last year opposing the U.S.-funded and armed genocide against the people of Gaza had an enormous political impact. Their actions sparked similar struggles in the European Union countries and around the world. The encampments in particular gave hope to the embattled population of West Asia, which had joined in common resistance against the U.S.-EU-Israeli onslaught.

The first response from the imperialist ruling class last year was irregular. Some administrations immediately called in the police, who made arrests in their usual brutal manner. Some negotiated with students. A few even promised concessions.

Right-wing forces in Congress and pro-Zionist organizations managed to browbeat some top administrators — who were themselves not at all pro-Palestinian — into resigning from some of the most prestigious universities such as Columbia, Harvard and the University of Pennsylvania. Thousands of students were arrested, many were suspended from school. Despite the repression, the students fought on. 

The summer break gave the university administrations time to prepare. U.S. politicians clarified that they wanted the struggle squelched. University bosses dependent on government and especially on Pentagon funding felt the pressure, with all corporate funding at risk. Administrations met to coordinate repression of the students. The media played their usual role defending U.S. imperialism and Israel against the student struggle and Palestine.

The universities that had made some concessions to students in the spring, including Brown and Fashion Institute of Technology, have reneged and are now stonewalling the movement. When the ruling class has time to mobilize, it will close ranks and increase repression.

During the summer the two big national conventions made clear that both Republican and Democratic candidates support Israel’s genocidal actions. This joint position indicates that the terrorist massacres are no spasm of a rogue state but part of the imperialists’ overall strategy. Meanwhile, Israel’s genocide in Gaza continued and now has expanded to Lebanon. 

There is every reason for the activist students on all campuses to strengthen their activity. In the U.S., signs are that the struggle is continuing, with students varying their tactics. The strong reaction on the one-year anniversary of the October 7 uprising gave evidence of this.

Some corporate media have argued that the movement in the United States is growing more militant, more pro-resistance, which they present as a danger. They make the false argument that this is growing “antisemitism.” This lie has always been part of the phony defense of Israel’s most criminal actions, and it is a credit to the campus movement — whether it be Students for Justice in Palestine, Within Our Lifetime, Jewish Voice for Peace or Not in Our Name — that it has rejected this lie.

Of those spokespeople grilled by media now, with demands made on them to condemn Hamas or Al-Aqsa Flood — or be called “pro-terrorist” — many are making an answer something like this: “All our demands, all along, to stop genocide, to stop the massacre of children and the starvation of a people, you called pro-terrorist. So it doesn’t make a difference what we say or how reasonable we act. If we are on the side of the oppressed, you will call us terrorists. And we are on the side of the oppressed.”

Workers World supports now and will support the demands and actions of the anti-imperialists and pro-Palestinian students on the campuses and on the streets.