200 days of destruction, starvation, raids, executions, abductions, genocide, ecocide, and ethnocide against Palestinians in Gaza and across 48 by “Israel.” Over 34,000 people have been martyred by the Zionist entity, with tens of thousands more still unaccounted for, either taken into captivity, missing, or buried under rubble.
The Gaza Ministry of Health announced over 77,000 have been wounded in Israeli attacks, as genocide and the environmental conditions Palestinians are surviving through contribute to a mass disabling event. 72 percent of those killed are women and children, according to an update by Gaza’s Government Media Office on Tuesday. The U.N. estimates that a child in Gaza is killed or wounded every 10 minutes.
As the stories of executions, assaults, and multiple discoveries of mass graves trickled out of the remnants of Nasser and al-Shifa hospitals, the Popular University for Gaza kicked off a coordinated intergenerational, interfaith, and cross-class mass movement of students, faculty, alum, and staff standing in solidarity with Palestinians. All across Turtle Island, institutions like Columbia, NYU, Cal State, UC Berkley, Vanderbilt, Rutgers, MIT, and so many more have unified under a shared banner to demand:
disclosure of endowments and finances from universities to ensure accountability and transparency around investments,
a complete divestment of tuition dollars from the Zionist entity and companies profiting off of the colonization of Palestine,
stand in solidarity with Palestinians as they resist the Zionist onslaught,
restructure universities from pillars of imperialism, colonialism, and racialized and gendered neoliberal capitalism,
and, in the case of NYU and Columbia, close their campus in “Israel” and end dual degree programs with Tel Aviv University.
These are some images from the NYU Gaza solidarity encampments before the NYPD attacked during Salah prayer. Under the direction and collaboration of NYU leadership and top brass, the NYPD raided and destroyed the encampment and beat, maced, and arrested at least 120 students, alumni, faculty, and community members.
Since I've had time to process (mostly regulate my nervous system), here are some toplines I’m ruminating on:
Regardless of how well communicated, organized, or “branded” these actions and deoccupations are, they will always demonize those involved as terrorists or outside agitators. Do not repeat the peaceful versus violent protestor dichotomy or engage with people who criticize tactics in bad faith. No institution built on genocide and enslavement deserves peace, and unserious critiques are part of the counterinsurgency playbook.
Police repression and crackdowns on protest are bipartisan efforts; whether it is a Democrat or a Republican sitting at the White House or at Gracie Mansion, their loyalties lie in the protection and extension of the Western settler colonial project. Party politics is an illusion.
Even if the “vote blue no matter who” crowd is panicking about a potential second Trump term, voting will not stave off fascism because fascism is already here. Project 2025 has been on its way, and “voting as harm reduction” discourse or choosing the lesser of two evils helped get us where we’re at. We’ve made so many concessions over the years to uphold these systems and we’re worse off because of them.
There is a coordinated and well-funded campaign by the Zionist entity to churn uncritically pro-Israeli stories, messages, and narratives across legacy media, making them indistinguishable from state media. If you noticed, it seemed like every elected official who has been bought by the Zionist lobby had identical messaging aimed at spewing vitriol and disinformation against the anti-war movement. Some went ahead and called for violence. These strategies manufacture consent for the apartheid state to continue to commit atrocities sight unseen against Palestinians and allow state-sanctioned brutality against anyone who challenges the genocidal status quo across college campuses and in our communities.
In the so-called United States, we are told we can’t have student debt forgiveness, guaranteed child care, universal education, housing for all, an actual living wage adjusted to inflation, or comprehensive health care, but we can send a genocidal ethnostate close to $18 billion with no strings attached. The suffering of people in this country is a policy choice our elected officials make every day. Don’t gaslight yourself — they can improve our material conditions, they just don't want to. While denying us our right to live fully and abundantly, they are denying the right for Palestinians to be freed from their oppressors and experience self-determination for the first time in many generations. In this way, too, our oppressions intersect.
I will leave you with three things to reflect on. One is a zine written by activists at Yale and Columbia and is addressed to everyone taking action in solidarity with Gaza across campuses. It was frst circulated by hand at the Columbia encampment in New York on Sunday, April 21st. In it is a list of lessons from the 1968 Columbia occupation against ‘Gym Crow,’ and one of the lessons I’m sitting with is around autonomous action and the differences in ideology, strategies, and tactics between the sub-occupations across campus. And if you don’t know what happened in Harlem that year, the parallels between 1968 and 2024 are palpable.
The second resource is a report from within the Cal Poly Humboldt deoccupation of Siemens Hall. It also includes lessons from the deoccupation so far. I’d recommend reading both of these resources and sharing them with comrades in the struggle, especially in response to the question of escalation.
And the last is a quote from “What is Palestine to the U.S.” by Mumia Abu-Jamal, who will be 70 tomorrow, April 24:
Palestine is a minor afterthought to the U.S. empire and its empirical apologists. Her pain, her sufferings, her gross humiliations fon’t bother the empire one whit.
Yet, to millions of people throughout Europe, Africa, Asia, and the Americas, their unjust and cruel treatment at the hands of the Zionist finds purchase in hearts worldwide.
From their epic losses spring the fruits of solidarity that bind us, human to human, oppressed to oppressed.
wonderfully done! thank you for writing and for your movement photography 💗