How Columbia’s Campus Was Torn Apart Over Gaza, Forever Palestine 🇵🇸

The University Asked the N.Y.P.D. to Arrest Pro-Palestine Student Protesters. Was it a Necessary Step to Protect Jewish Students (The Zionist 🐗🐖🐷 🐖), or a Dangerous Encroachment on Academic Freedom?

— By Andrew Marantz | April 25, 2024

Photograph by C.S. Muncy/NYT/Redux

In the Predawn Hours of Wednesday, April 17th, more than a hundred student activists walked onto a lawn in front of the Butler Library, in the middle of Columbia University’s campus. The center of campus is usually open to city foot traffic, but, because of recent tensions, campus administrators had restricted access to Columbia I.D. holders; many of the activists, trying to stay anonymous, were careful not to swipe their I.D.s on the way in. They set up a few dozen green tents, a couple of Palestinian flags, and some handwritten signs (“columbia funds genocide”; “while you read, gaza bleeds”). One of the signs in the encampment read “liberated zone,” a reference to a wave of protests at Columbia in the late sixties. “We’re calling it an occupation,” Maryam Iqbal, a first-year Barnard College student wearing hoop earrings, told me. “We’ve been building up to this action for months.”

Since October 7th, Columbia, like many universities, has been roiled by protests and counter-protests. (“It’s basically the only thing anyone here can talk about,” one student told me.) Iqbal, an eighteen-year-old from Seattle, is a leader of the Columbia chapter of Students for Justice in Palestine, an organization that was suspended in November, after administrators alleged that the group had “repeatedly violated University policies.” Next to the lawn, about a hundred more protesters marched in support of the encampment, though here the message discipline was more lax (“we will not be silent,” but also “globalize the intifada”). Eventually, some counter-protesters showed up, chanting “Am Yisrael chai” (“The people of Israel live”) and waving a huge Israeli flag.

In the past six months, several students have reported being physically assaulted on or near Columbia’s campus. Some of these students were apparently targeted for being visibly Jewish or pro-Israel, others for being visibly Muslim or pro-Palestine, and some for being Jewish but critical of Israel (including some who were called “self-hating Jews”). “Any time there is violence in the region where Israelis and Palestinians kill each other, there is an increase in antisemitic and anti-Muslim incidents in the U.S. and Europe,” Yinon Cohen, a professor of Israel and Jewish studies at Columbia, told me in November. The majority of the controversy at Columbia, though, has concerned not violence but speech: radical slogans, hastily planned protests, even contentious discussions in classrooms. This included squarely political speech (“Free Palestine,” say, or “Israel is an apartheid state”) of the sort that many members of the Columbia community might disagree with, but which few would be inclined to punish. (“Some of these reported antisemitic incidents are not really antisemitic but rather anti-Israel or anti-Zionist,” Cohen added.) And, even when the speech was abhorrent, or plainly antisemitic, it was still generally protected by the First Amendment. Still, for Columbia’s administration, the First Amendment was not the only guiding principle; the university also has an institutional duty, and indeed a legal obligation, to foster a safe environment for its students. According to Title VI of the Civil Rights Act, entities that receive federal funds are required to prevent discrimination on the basis of race or national origin. “Columbia is mandated by federal law to ensure equal access to all University services for Jews and Israelis, including those who identify as Zionists,” a group calling itself Columbia Faculty and Staff Supporting Israel wrote in an open letter.

Maytal Polonetsky, a Barnard first-year and a modern Orthodox Jew, told me, “I have a necklace with a pendant in the shape of Israel, and in class I’ll often tuck it in, because I don’t want to deal with the blowback.” Polonetsky grew up in Potomac, Maryland, and spent a year studying at a religious school in Jerusalem before college. She said that she thought of the necklace as both a political symbol and religious one. Obviously, it would be unacceptable to ostracize anyone simply because of her Jewish identity; being criticized for one’s political ideology, however, might be painful but not beyond the pale. “For the past month, my mom has been seeing stuff on the news about Columbia and telling me, ‘Come home, you’re not safe there,’ ” Polonetsky said. “I told her, ‘Mom, it’s emotionally wrenching, it’s exhausting, but I’m not in physical danger.’ ”

Columbia’s administrators seemed at pains to show that they had things under control. They set up a Doxing Resource Group, after the identities of many student activists were revealed by outside agitators, and a Task Force on Antisemitism, to insure that Columbia would be “safe, welcoming, and inclusive for Jewish students.” (Many people noted, with indignation, that there was no Task Force on Islamophobia.) Still, the more the administration intervened, the worse things seemed to get. In February, a Jewish student sued Columbia under Title VI, claiming that its failure to “prohibit discrimination and retaliation against Jewish persons” had rendered the university a “hostile environment.” Later that month, in a separate lawsuit, fifteen more students filed a hundred-page complaint, which detailed several allegations of antisemitism on campus; it also argued that “anti-Zionism is not merely a political movement—although many try to disguise it as such—but is a direct attack against Israel as a Jewish collectivity.” While these students maintained that the university had not done enough to crack down on demonstrations, another lawsuit, filed by the New York Civil Liberties Union and the advocacy group Palestine Legal, argued that the university had already gone too far, violating the demonstrators’ legal rights in the process. “The tactic of our administration, and of other people in power, has been to conflate critique of Israel with anti-Jewish hate,” Debbie Becher, a sociology professor at Barnard, told me. “It’s not a novel tactic, but it’s been very effective and very damaging.” Becher is Jewish, as are the members of Jewish Voice for Peace, another student group that was suspended from Columbia in November after protesting the war. On Wednesday, a couple of the activists on the lawn wore yarmulkes, as did many of the counter-protesters. “ ‘To protect the feelings of some of our Jewish students, we’re going to ban the political speech of our other Jewish students,’ ” Ilan Cohen, an undergraduate pursuing a dual degree at Columbia and the Jewish Theological Seminary told me, paraphrasing what he saw as the university’s position. “Make it make sense.”

Photograph by Mark Peterson/Redux

Another student at Barnard and the Jewish Theological Seminary was more muted in her critique. “Is there antisemitism at Columbia? Of course,” she told me. “We’re in New York City. Even before this protest, we had a self-declared neo-Nazi standing outside the campus gates and shouting things. Now, it’s only gotten worse.” She has found it hard to discuss this honestly with her progressive friends, she continued, “because of how antisemitism is exploited. The conservative pro-Israel position is ‘Columbia is this horrible den of antisemitism. People are only protesting Israel because they hate the Jews’—which is wrong, so then the pro-Palestine students’ instinct is to deny that there’s antisemitism within the movement at all.” She maintained that the antiwar protests were not primarily motivated by antisemitism. “Those people, they’re in no way a majority—often they’re not even Columbia students,” she said. “But, still, it’s the movement’s job to acknowledge it, and root it out.” Jameel Jaffer, the executive director of the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University, wrote that he was “deeply troubled” by “the University’s severe and seemingly viewpoint-discriminatory enforcement of rules relating to student demonstrations.” Although the university obviously had “a responsibility to take action against genuine threats and harassment,” he continued, it also had an obligation to encourage “free inquiry and the production of knowledge.”

At the Center of the Encampment, shortly after 10 a.m., Mahmood Mamdani, an anthropologist at Columbia, spoke about the protests against segregation in the American South and apartheid in South Africa, and added, “This is the next great international-solidarity movement.” A police helicopter hovered overhead. “I won’t talk too loud. I don’t want the police to hear,” he added—a joke, or maybe a half-joke. The rumor passing through the crowd was that anyone who did not leave the lawn by 11 a.m. would be risking suspension, and possibly arrest. In April, 1968, when hundreds of students were occupying several buildings on campus, the university’s president, Grayson Kirk, asked the N.Y.P.D. to remove them. Police officers in riot gear stormed in, arresting more than seven hundred students and beating many of them in the process. (The Times later referred to Kirk’s “ill-fated decision” as “an emblem of the generational conflict characterizing the Vietnam War era,” and it ultimately cost Kirk his job.) Since then, the N.Y.P.D. has been invited onto the campus only in rare circumstances, and never without controversy. A professor standing near the lawn told me, “If they think they can calm down this situation by arresting students, that will absolutely have the opposite effect.”

The demonstration had been timed to coincide with events in Washington, D.C. The current president of Columbia, Minouche Shafik, was about to testify in Congress, before the same committee that had grilled the presidents of Harvard, M.I.T., and the University of Pennsylvania four months earlier. Representative Elise Stefanik—a Harvard alum, and a former Bush Administration moderate turned pugnacious Trump loyalist—implied that the college presidents had allowed students to call for the “genocide of Jews.” Her framing was disingenuous, but she was rewarded with glowing coverage in the conservative press and mentioned as a potential running mate for Donald Trump. Four days after the hearing, Liz Magill, the president of Penn, resigned. “One down. Two to go,” Stefanik tweeted. Claudine Gay, the president of Harvard, also resigned a month later.

Now it was Shafik’s time in the barrel. The title of her hearing—“Columbia in Crisis: Columbia University’s Response to Antisemitism”—seemed to assume that the sole cause of campus turmoil was antisemitism, and that a more robust “response” might be needed. Going into the hearing, Shafik seemed determined to demonstrate to Congress that she was not afraid to take the situation in hand, with force if necessary. “This isn’t like the anti-apartheid protests we had here in the eighties, and this isn’t like 1968, either,” someone familiar with the thinking of Columbia’s administration told me. “These protests are pitting groups of students, and some faculty, against each other. They can turn vicious, hateful at times, and quickly become about personal identity.” Shortly after Shafik announced that she would testify, Becher and two dozen other Jewish professors at Barnard and Columbia drafted an open letter to Shafik, acknowledging that antisemitism “exists everywhere, including at Columbia,” but objecting to “the ways charges of antisemitism are being weaponized.” Becher and her colleagues mentioned McCarthy-era “Red-baiting” and recent book bans in Texas and Florida, and urged Shafik to respond “with an affirmation of our values”—academic freedom, for instance—“that refuses to concede the premise of these traps.” (I, too, signed an open letter last year, calling for “a diplomatic path towards peace.”) Some students had sympathy for Shafik, who was both the first woman and the first person of color to serve as Columbia’s president, and who seemed to be in a nearly impossible position. “I don’t see things getting better if she gets fired,” one told me. Others were unmoved. “She’s our ‘first African president,’ ” a student of Black and Arab ancestry told me, with an eye roll. “But, trust me, we do not claim her.”

In Columbia’s student center, in a lounge called the Audre Lorde Community Space, the leaders of a few student-activist groups were hosting an impromptu hearing watch party. A projector and a Bluetooth speaker had been set up between the Community Conference Room (a sign outside the room read “What does community mean to you?”) and the Liberation Conference Room (“Without community, there is no liberation”). One of Columbia’s trustees, Claire Shipman, was on the screen, testifying in a tone of steely resolve: “We’ve suspended two student groups for noncompliance—more than a dozen individual students—and we disciplined faculty members,” she said. “We are far from done.”

Members of the committee questioned Shafik in tones that ranged from lightly veiled intimidation to theocratic farce. Rick Allen, a Republican congressman from Georgia, shared his opinion that “Washington, D.C., is not the center of the universe—Jerusalem is the center of the universe,” and suggested that Columbia should offer “a course on the Bible.”

“The Bible is in our core curriculum!” a student at the watch party cried. “Did this man even Google us?”

Allen loosely quoted Genesis 12:3—“ ‘If you curse Israel, I will curse you’ ”—and asked Shafik, “Do you want Columbia University to be cursed by God?” (Shafik clarified that she did not.) “ ‘Columbia: Cursed by God,’ ” a student in the lounge said. “Somebody has to put that on a T-shirt.” When it was Stefanik’s turn, the room grew quiet. In the back of the room, a student knitting a scarf nervously picked up the pace of her stitches. Stefanik brought up, by name, several professors who had made controversial statements since October 7th, asking what disciplinary actions had been taken against them. “She is really out for blood,” Becher, the Barnard professor, said.

Shafik could have condemned some of the speech she’d heard on campus while asserting the rights of students and scholars to free expression. Instead, when lawmakers urged her to discipline her students and faculty, she sometimes seemed almost eager to comply. If one of the goals of the hearing was to strike fear into the hearts of student activists, then, judging from the silence in the Community Space, it seemed to be working. And yet some observers, especially on the right, still insisted that Shafik had not done enough to prove her commitment to protecting Jewish students. “Watch Columbia President Shafik squirm, hem & haw,” Jason Greenblatt, Donald Trump’s former envoy to the Middle East, tweeted. “Wake up America.”

Before Shafik’s testimony was over, campus-security officers handed out flyers to the students in the encampment, warning them to “stop your disruption now.” The next day, Shafik sent an e-mail to the “University community.” “Out of an abundance of concern for the safety of Columbia’s campus, I authorized the New York Police Department to begin clearing the encampment from the South Lawn,” she wrote. “ ‘Clear and present danger’ is the language used by Columbia University in their letter to us,” John Chell, a bureau chief at the N.Y.P.D., said, at a press conference.

Police officers moved in, wearing riot helmets and carrying plastic zip ties. The campus was packed with hundreds of people who supported the encampment, forming a picket line on all sides of the lawn; when the police broke through, the supporters erupted in chants and jeers. According to the National Lawyers Guild, the officers arrested two legal observers; they also arrested more than a hundred students, cuffing their wrists and loading them onto white Department of Correction buses. “We walked past the entire school, everyone we knew, chanting ‘Disclose, divest, we will not stop, we will not rest,’ ” Iqbal, the Barnard student from Seattle, told me. “Almost all of us made the decision not to resist.” (“The students that were arrested were peaceful, offered no resistance whatsoever, just saying what they wanted to say in a peaceful manner,” Chell has said.) Once the protesters had been removed, the police broke down some of the tents and banners and tossed them into an alley. Among the scattered belongings that were left behind on the lawn were a few rumpled Palestinian flags, some sleeping bags, and a copy of “Culture and Imperialism” by Edward Said.

In 1966, Ronald Reagan, a former actor running for governor of California, gave a campaign speech about what he called the “morality and decency gap at the University of California at Berkeley,” which he blamed on “a small minority of beatniks, radicals, and filthy speech advocates.” In his opinion, these “so-called ‘free-speech advocates’ . . . should have been taken by the scruff of the neck and thrown off of the campus permanently.” Richard Nixon sounded a similar note two years later, during his Presidential campaign. None of this rhetoric did much to pacify the campuses in question, and it certainly did nothing to address the root causes of the unrest, such as Jim Crow and the Vietnam War. It did, however, help both candidates win their respective elections.

Although Columbia is a private university, it is not immune to government pressure. Its Manhattan real-estate holdings are exempt from more than a hundred million dollars in property taxes, an exemption that could be reversed by state legislation. It receives federal grant money, which could also be rescinded. (On April 23rd, Stefanik wrote a letter to the Secretary of Education, demanding that he “revoke any federal funding flowing to Columbia and similar institutions.” The following day, Mike Johnson, the Speaker of the House, gave a speech at Columbia, while onlookers heckled him. “We respect diversity of ideas,” he said, “but there is a way to do that in a lawful manner and that’s not what this is.”) The ostensible purpose of the congressional hearing had been to protect Jewish students, but some on campus argued that the lawmakers’ true motive was to exert control and ideological influence. “I think they want to frame élite universities as engines of woke indoctrination, and this gives them a perfect pretext,” Becher said, of “maga Republicans” in Congress. “And meanwhile they hope they can strong-arm administrators into doing their bidding, like hiring more conservatives or firing professors who seem too far left.”

Every politician, college president, and public intellectual claims to be in favor of free speech, a stance that is about as brave as being in favor of puppies and ice cream. The more difficult question, not just for politicians but for all of us, is not whether freedom of speech is an essential value but what to do when it comes into tension with other essential values, such as, in this case, Columbia’s mandate to insure that it does not create a hostile environment for Jewish students, Muslim students, or anyone else on campus. For the past few years, the prevailing narrative, culturally dominant even when not entirely justified by the facts, has been that conservatives are champions of free speech and progressives are delicate snowflakes who can’t handle challenging ideas. Now, suddenly, the left was sticking up for unfettered expression, and Republican legislators were the ones asking Columbia to provide a safe space. In the opinion of some Jews (including, full disclosure, the one writing this piece), Judaism and Zionism are closely related, but they’re not the same, something that has seemed to be a source of confusion not only at Columbia but around the world. Title VI protects Jewish students from discrimination on the basis of being Jewish, but it does not shield anyone from experiencing discomfort over political disagreements. In other words, it seems to me that antisemitism is against the rules, but criticism of Israel’s actions is not, or at least it shouldn’t be.

After the encampments were cleared, much of the protest activity was pushed off campus, and the mood became even more volatile. On Saturday night, Polonetsky, the Orthodox Jewish student from Maryland, was walking across campus, on her way home from Shabbos services. She told me, “Some Jewish kids I knew were standing on the Sundial”—a raised platform in the middle of campus—waving Israeli and American flags. She stood off to the side, waiting to see what would happen. The students sang “One Day,” by the vociferously pro-Israel singer Matisyahu. (“There’ll be no more wars / And our children will play / One day.”) They were surrounded by protesters, but, for a while, things were relatively calm. Then one of the Jewish students dropped an Israeli flag, and one of the protesters ran over and tried to grab it. A lot of people seemed eager for a confrontation. Another protester—blond hair, face obscured by a kaffiyeh—stood next to the Sundial holding up a handwritten cardboard sign that said “Al-Qasam’s Next Targets,” with an arrow pointing up at the Jewish students. (Al-Qassam Brigades are the military wing of Hamas.) Polonetsky and a few friends decided to leave campus in a group, so that none of them would have to walk home alone. When they got to the only gate that was open, on Amsterdam, protesters heckled them, shouting “Yehudim! Fuck you!” and “Stop killing children!” and “Go back to Poland!” Most of these antisemitic hecklers seemed to be unaffiliated opportunists, not Columbia students, but in the chaos no one could tell for sure. Polonetsky got back to her dorm safely, but she found it hard to sleep. “The next morning, I called my mom, and said, ‘You’re right, I’m not sure I’m safe here,’ ” she told me. She had not been planning to leave campus until the following day, for Passover, but instead she booked a ticket on the next train home.

When I asked a university spokesperson to comment on the mass arrests, she pointed me to the letter that Shafik had sent to the N.Y.P.D., requesting its presence on campus. The letter read, in part, “Columbia is committed to allowing members of our community to engage in political expression—within established rules and with respect for the safety of all.” And yet, at least in the short term, none of this seemed to be making anyone feel safer. Jonathan Greenblatt, the head of the Anti-Defamation League, visited Columbia, and then suggested in a video that it was time to “bring in the National Guard” to protect Jewish students. “This is an unhinged thing to propose,” Harry Reis, formerly Greenblatt’s special assistant and now a student at Columbia Law School, wrote in response, arguing that Greenblatt was “actively ‘causing us harm’ by cosplaying as the Tom Cotton of Jewish-American politics.”

On Saturday night, Columbia’s School of General Studies held a gala at the Museum of the City of New York. An Arab American student who attended told me that the event was full of tense confrontations between students who wore kaffiyehs, including herself, and others who were supporters of Israel, including former members of the Israeli military. “One of them called me a sharmouta, the Arabic word for ‘bitch,’ ” she told me. “Another student was punched in the face.” Shortly before Iqbal, the Barnard student from Seattle, was arrested, she was given an interim suspension, meaning that she was banned from campus, effective immediately. Another student suspended from Barnard was Isra Hirsi, whose mother, Ilhan Omar, was one of the representatives who had just finished questioning Shafik on Capitol Hill. Campus-security officers were given printouts with Iqbal and Hirsi’s photos and disciplinary records, in the style of a “Wanted” poster, with “No entry” scrawled at the top. On her way to jail, Iqbal received an e-mail from a dean, written in brusque bureaucratese. “You will not have access to the residence halls, dining facilities, classrooms, or any other part of campus,” it read. “If you need to come to retrieve any of your belongings from your residence hall . . . you will have 15 minutes to gather what you might need.” That night, when she came back to gather her possessions, Iqbal told me, “They literally set a timer. They stood there next to me, watching me, and I haphazardly threw my stuff in a bag.” She was staying with a Barnard alumna near campus. She was trying to decide whether to keep staying nearby, in case her suspension was lifted, or to go back to Seattle for the rest of the semester, or possibly for good. Her suspension hearing and her nineteenth birthday are both this week.

On Friday, after the encampment had been cleared, a lot of supporters stayed on the lawn, singing and giving speeches. Eric Lerner, who participated in the 1968 demonstrations as a Columbia undergrad, drove to the campus from his home in Warren, New Jersey, to encourage them. That evening, after the students took a prayer break—Shabbos for the Jews, Salat-al-Jum'a for the Muslims—Lerner addressed the crowd. “This is a historic step forward,” he said. “We have to escalate.” These days, Lerner is a physicist working on nuclear-fusion technology, which he sees as an extension of his anti-capitalist aims. (“Fusion,” he told the students, “is essential to socialism.”) Afterward, I reached him by phone. “Shafik isn’t interested in free speech,” he told me. “She was just trying to demonstrate to Congress that she’ll do their bidding.” Over the weekend, Columbia’s campus filled with encampments again, and some classes on Monday were held online to accommodate suspended students. There had already been rallies at Yale, the University of North Carolina, and the University of Michigan, in solidarity with the Columbia students, and there would be more to come. “The Vast Majority Of Youth Oppose This War,” Lerner Said. “Their Movement Will Only Grow From Here.” ♦

It's absolutely disgusting that people will scam people by claiming that they're actual victims of the ongoing genocide in Palestine. What makes it even more disgusting is that they're stealing money from actual victims.

I lost count of how many scam accounts I blocked at this point. :/

I refuse to stop posting and sharing the horrific ethnic cleansing, a GENOCIDE that it is happening in 2023!

I am ashamed of these so called politicians and leaders especially of the Arab world and Muslim countries! How can you see your neighbours being massacred??? As a Muslim, how does your hurt not hurt for your Ummah? For the delicate little children and babies?????? How can you be so oblivious and not see your own family within these people??? HOW?

“im tired of seeing posts about palestine!” you know what im tired of? people either downplaying the genocide or simply not giving a fuck.

this is a full ethnic cleansing. this is 100% a genocide. isreal soldiers are straight up creating snuff films. ive seen more gore just from this war then i ever have in my life. how can people be so desensitized that a child hanging from a building, a child being ran over by a tank, people being tortured, a mother looking for her childs hair in a pile of hair and a child talking about how his friend in kindergarten was killed. how do you not see how absolutely FUCKED this is?

Watch "UN official on the devastating impact of war on Gaza’s children" on YouTube

it has been genuinely devastating to see major governments, global news outlets and ignorant celebrities spreading a narrative that supports and upholds a regime responsible for the genocide of thousands of innocent lives. palestinians have been suffering for decades and nobody has cared; nobody has offered them the empathy that is now being so generously handed to a military force that is brutally murdering and displacing the palestinian people. 2.2 million people in gaza have had their electricity, food, water and fuel cut off. we are witnessing firsthand the utter annihilation of a population — dehumanising media coverage, blatant islamophobic propaganda, hundreds of children massacred — please understand that taking a "neutral" stance is siding with the oppressor. free palestine today, tomorrow, forever. from the river to the sea 🇵🇸

global conflict tracker

palestine resource library

donate to islamic relief worldwide

donate to medical aid for palestinians

donate to the palestine children's relief fund

🇵🇸 May We Be Free, Together. One genocided peoples to another. We stand with Palestine, now and forever. 🇦🇲

Care for Gaza (Direct Paypal)

E-Sims for Gaza (Showing Where/How to give them)

Palestine Children Relief Fund

Medical Aid for Palestinians

Daily Click For Palestine (Help by at least clicking this daily, it may not be much but it counts for something at least.)

BDS's website, remember to follow the boycott.

I know I haven’t been posting much about stuff I like recently due to the genocides happening in Palestine, The Congo, and Sudan. My heart goes out to the people who suffer daily, and I want to also remind you to keep hope in your heart. Remember. People still care. People will forever care. History will care.

https://www.instagram.com/sams_purpose?igsh=MzRlODBiNWFlZA==

https://www.instagram.com/rahafmarwan20?igsh=MzRlODBiNWFlZA==

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https://www.instagram.com/reel/C30dr5iqlUp/?igsh=MzRlODBiNWFlZA==

More links!

Remember, our voices will be heard!

From the River to the Sea, Palestine Will be Free!🇵🇸🇵🇸🇵🇸

Let's Talk Palestine's latest updates today (November 24th, 2023):

1st:

A glimmer of hope as the truce started early this afternoon.

The Hostages:

• A total of 39 Palestinian female and child hostages were released today by Israel at Ofer military checkpoint in the occupied West Bank as part of the first phase of the deal.

• The first wave of hostages kept by the Palestinian resistance were also released, including some foreign nationals.

• Some Palestinian hostages needed medical attention due to Israeli medical neglect during captivity, including Nehaya Sawan, a cancer patient.

• Israel banned Palestinians from celebrating 🎉 the liberation of the hostages. They fired tear gas at anticipating crowds at Ofer Checkpoint.

Israeli authorities also threatened to recapture the hostages if any celebrations took place or any Palestinian flags were waved. One father was threatened to not “show any signs of joy” following his daughter’s release.

2nd:

The truce in Gaza:

• Hundreds of displaced Palestinian families returned to their homes in northern Gaza, but Israeli forces opened fire at the civilians to try and prevent them from returning, killing 2 people and injuring 11. Yes, Israeli soldiers killed two civilians during a “truce”.

•”They destroy, and we rebuild.” A Palestinian man says, sitting amidst the rubble of his home destroyed by the Israeli occupation in Gaza.

• 200+ aid trucks entered Gaza today, crucially including fuel for the first time as part of Palestinian conditions for the deal. But this is a drop in the ocean. For context: ~500 trucks used to enter Gaza daily pre-genocide.

• Palestinians describe first sense of relief in 48 days since the start of the Gaza Genocide: “This is the first time that we have not heard Israeli drones [since October 7],” said Tareq Abu Azzoum. “People sense that there is a glimmer of hope that this short-term pause will pave the way for a longer ceasefire.”

3rd:

This truce has forced Israel to break 3 of its “taboos”.

1) to accept that there would be an exchange including a release of Palestinian hostages.

2) accepting a pause.

3) accepting that Israel was wrong about the only way to deal with the Palestinian resistance being to “eradicate” them completely. Israel has been forced to negotiate with them and even honor a deal with them.

Israel has insisted it would use “full military might” in Gaza after the truce and that it wouldn’t stop until it “destroys” the Palestinian resistance.

But being forced to break its taboos and conceding to the terms of the Palestinian resistance is an implicit confession that Israel will fail.

Growing international pressure is the main reason Israel knows it can’t continue forever. Let’s be energised by the glimmers of hope we’re seeing in Gaza and the overjoyed families of the Palestinian hostages. We’re fighting for life, hope & freedom.

We’re not done. We need maximum to ensure the pause is permanent.

You can access this on their broadcast channel for free, which is on their Instagram account:

✊🏻❤️🇵🇸

Israel Death Toll

Let me tell you about my day, after all I get told by my friends that I'm a great story teller, today I went by my day looking through posts about the genocide, googling resources for future posts & dealing with harassment in the replies to my blogs as always.

One of the funny replies was that I was "spreading Hamas propaganda" only cause I'm talking about Palestine and not Israel, another one was "you're demonising Israel" for the same reason, but those will be discussed in a later post when I have the time to gather those crazy replies, but throughout the day one person's comments stuck by my mind throughout the day and you know why?

Cause that person kept on repeating the number 1400, now you gonna ask: what does that number even mean?

So here are the comments & for the little bit of decency I still have regarding with dealing with those people I'll hide the account:

It's funny ain't it?

How even though Palestine documents deaths day by day, family lines getting removed from history forever yet all we know is 10k+ deaths, we still don't have a certain number for real yet Israel has "1400 civilians dead" according to that person who I told her every little thing she told me got debunked.

Well guess what Gabby, I'm debunking your death toll too & oh I'm not debunking it using middle eastern lies or "Hamas propaganda" no no no, I'm using CNN, enjoy it baby:

Oh and since you love links so much & telling me that a single Google search would show me your casualties, I will save you the Google search and here's the link honey:

Now let me repeat it one last time, this is a pro-palestinian blog, don't come near it if you're on the other side, I won't tolerate you or whatever you wanna spread over here, you wanna write about Israel, write about it cause I won't so don't come at me for it cause as I said & I repeat again:

From the river to the sea Palestine will be free.🇵🇸🍉

Reminder that if you're pro-israel block me. Dni. Or even if you are remaining neutral!!!!!! 🇵🇸

There is a genocide still ongoing! Read this post before interacting with my page as it's important.

__________________________________________

And no. By supporting Palestine I don't mean supporting Hamas.

I mean supporting the civilians who have been bombed, killed, and displaced by Israeli attacks. The innocents who are being slaughtered. Those who are the victims in this horrific genocide.

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Block me if you remain neutral. I just can't fathom how anyone can remain on the fence after hearing about the one-sided onslaught in Gaza. Stand with Palestine or stay away from my page as you are not welcomed here. Please, if you don't know alot about the situation that well- ATTEMPT to educate yourself! It is not an excuse to remain neutral due to not knowing the extent of the situation. The resources are readily available.

Sorry if this sounds blunt, my intentions are just in support of spreading awareness for Palestine.

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here is a link to a useful masterpost of ways you can educate yourself about Palestine and support them.

Please take a look.

While most of us sit privileged and comfortable there is a GENOCIDE ONGOING. This is not meant to be rude or come across as aggressive. it is just a fact. Alot of people (including myself) will probably (and hopefully) never have to firsthand experience such horrors that Palestinians are going through. the fact that innocent people, including innocent CHILDREN AND INFANTS are suffering in such unimaginable ways is vile. it's heartbreaking how cruel the situation is.

I am forever grateful that I am not in such a horrible situation and it's so important that we never take it for granted, so please, all of us can contribute in some way shape or form, no matter how small it may seem. Every contribution helps. Even if it's supporting in free ways without donating.

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Remember to DO YOUR CLICK EVERYDAY. IT TAKES A SECOND AND IT IS FREE.

-i understand some people can't donate. But there is no reason not to take a moment to CLICK A BUTTON everyday. Everything adds up and helps.

even if you don't, just remember to engage with any pro-palestine posts you come across in your feed. Please, spread awareness no matter how you do it. Educate yourself and others on what's happening in the world and about the conflict if you are able to.

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Yes I am aware I'm a ST blog, a show of which has Zionist cast members- I would like to make it clear now that I do NOT align myself with such vulgar and cruel views and neither should you!! I have no respect for Brett Gelman, Noah Schnapp or ANY other Zionists. I pirate any content I wish to watch from big streaming sites and I will not be streaming ST5 on Netflix or funding a subscription that will benefit Zionists. I won't shame anyone for doing otherwise but I advise people to look into alternative ways of seeing content... especially content of which could POTENTIALLY fund Zionists!!!

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That's all, thank you- please remember to stand with and support Palestine 🇵🇸🇵🇸.

"Thank You, US Universities"

Palestinians in Gaza express their gratitude to the students who are currently setting up camps on university campuses across the US to protest against the ongoing atrocities in Gaza by writing on their tents, in Rafah, Gaza on April 27.

Student-led protests demanding universities condemn Israel's war on Gaza and divest from Israeli companies have continued to spread, with new encampments erected in the face of law enforcement crackdowns from university administration and police interventions.

Just a reminder that if you support Israel you support mass genocide, forced relocation, collective punishment, racism, Islamophobia, human trafficking, mass starvation, and chemical warfare.

Also the founders for Jewish Voice for Peace are Jewish, so are the Jews supporting Palestine.

And also, technically you're anti-Semitic because there are Jews in Palestine.

(There is literally video and photographic proof of what's happening and y'all refuse to accept it, just admit you're a mass genocide lover)

Tomorrow, November 29th, is the International Day of Solidarity- the perfect time to start taking action and show your support for the Palestinian people while we SHUT IT DOWN FOR PALESTINE!

YOU have the power to stand up for justice and demand change from those complicit in genocide!

WAYS YOU CAN TAKE ACTION:

- Boycott: There are several companies that are profiting off the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians; Familiarizing yourself, spreading awareness and boycotting their products and facilities is an easy first step to standing up against Israeli apartheid. Capital disruption is how we hold corporations accountable!

- Raise your voice: Find out about and participate in protests, marches, rallies, sit-ins, pray-ins, walk-outs, vigils or other organized movements within your own communities. Go to as many as you can. Remember that a movement is only as good as the individuals who SHOW UP to support it. Stay safe and resist!

- Donate: If you have the means, consider donating to relief funds and organizations directly aiding those on the ground in Gaza and the West Bank- or advocacy and activist organizations here on the home front. I recommend Palestine Children’s Relief Fund, but no matter where you choose to donate, be sure to look into your charities before sending them your information. I like to use Give Well and Charity Navigator.

- CONTACT YOUR REPRESENTATIVES: YOUR! VOICE! MATTERS!! It is time to put the pressure on your elected representatives and DEMAND an IMMEDIATE CEASEFIRE NOW. Contact their offices by googling them and calling or emailing and make your message clear: Israel’s assault on Palestine must end immediately and forever.

USAmericans can implore their senators and reps to join Rep. Cori Bush and 47 other Congresspeople in signing the Ceasefire Now resolution in the House, H.Res. 786, calling for a ceasefire and immediate humanitarian aid to the millions of injured and displaced Palestinians.

Trust me, I know contacting politicians can be intimidating but you can copy directly from scripts, as long as you sign as a constituant.

REMEMBER FRIENDS, TO BE SILENT IS TO BE COMPLICIT!! RAISE YOUR VOICE, NEVER STOP FIGHTING FOR JUSTICE, AND STAND WITH PALESTINE!!! 🇵🇸🇵🇸🇵🇸

Hello

My name is Mohammed .. I am a sixth year medical student at GAZA

I was supposed to graduate THIS year. 2024 was supposed to be the year my dream came true. The finish line was so close and I could taste it. It was what I dreamed about.

Help me to complete my dream . I was able to evacuate from Gaza to Egypt seeking safety and to find an opportunity to continue my education and I want to save my family. They are still trapped in a tent in Gaza ,Although it breaks my heart to leave. I have no other options. I need your help. Gaza is a wasteland ,me and my family no longer have a home. They really want to escape from this Genocide and Evacuate from Gaza.

This is my gofundme link :

Please consider donating and sharing..every donation can help and make a difference.

Happy to help!

Please donate to Mohammed and his family using the link below,

Palestine WILL be free🇵🇸

On Saturday, I had the honor of meeting Motaz in Amsterdam at the world press event, The Stories That Matter: Press freedom. Going to demonstrations for the past 8 months, how can I begin to describe how much Motaz Azaiza and his imagines changed the world. What can I say to him? In my mind I wanted to tell him so much, I wanted to say how impactful his reporting has been as someone like myself who wishes to do significant journalism. The reality of it all is that I saw him and I froze. I’ve seen this person post videos and photos about losing his friends, family members and neighbors. The inhumanity he saw each day. His photographs are about showing to the world what was being done to Palestine. I wanted to thank him, he is the change that the world needs. I have seen in the past several days how he shares a sense of guilt that he isn’t in Gaza or that he gets to enjoy clean water, clothes and food and how he wishes his people could have all of it.  He is such an advocate by going to the demonstration showing US support when the whole world support him and us forever grateful for what he has done and he continues to do for the people in Palestine. He is Palestine and everywhere he goes. He is a reminder that we should never forget what is happening. We should never stop talking about what is happening. The genocide that is occurring every single day. His imprint leaves a very powerful and moving emotion inside that when you see him you can’t help but break in tears and realize why we go to demonstrations. We continue to talk about it. We continue to spread awareness on social media.  I was so nervous. I wanted to thank him, thank him for his truth, his bravery, and that his images will forever be seeds that have been planted all over the world and now all blossom for Palestine, we cry for Palestine and we fight for Palestine 🇵🇸 because of him and many brave journalists who risk their lives every single day for us to see the truth. We saw truth, the world has its eyes open. I want to continue to being always an advocate and an ally for the people of Palestine. Viva Palestina!! “It's not a war against Gaza only, it's a war against the Palestinian existence." - Motaz Azaiza