Originally published to the Black Agenda Report on May 15, 2024
Hundreds of college student encampments across the country against the U.S.-Israeli genocide in Gaza have now spread to Europe, South America and the world. The acts of mass solidarity have seized the frontpages of mainstream tabloids for almost a month now. It all started on Wednesday March 17th at my alma mater, Columbia University, thanks to the leadership and solidarity of hundreds of student and faculty leaders. Mayor Eric Adam’s impressive squandering of our taxpayer money to harass and repress peaceful student protests will not soon be forgotten by voters.
I was one of the alumni and professors arrested for opposing this disgraceful holocaust of human life in Gaza that even the corporate media describes as a threat to the lives of hundreds of thousands of Palestinian families. The two-week encampment was a magical time of love, movement building and collectivity. While the NYPD arrested hundreds of us on the night of Tuesday April 30th, there were constant threats throughout the duration of the two-week encampment. As NYPD helicopters and drones circled overhead and hundreds of riot police prepared to invade Columbia for a second time in two weeks, here is a view from the inside of Columbia’s Gaza Solidarity Encampment.
A Second Sweep?
On the night of Tuesday, April 23rd tensions reached their highest point. An NYPD helicopter hovered above, low enough to make sure no one slept on the sixth night of occupation. A drone moved 10 feet every 5 seconds above hundreds of camped-out students who cried out for warmth and a Palestine free of apartheid, ethnic cleansing and genocide.
After midnight, there were movements and adjustments by the hundreds of student protestors in expectation of the second sweep by the riot police. Or would it be the National Guard , as the administration was threatening? The heavy specter of the Kent State , Jackson State and Orangeburg student massacres towered over us. On the second day of the camp the previous week, Columbia’s president, the Baroness Manouche Shafik , had sent the NYPD in to arrest students and destroy the first Butler lawn encampment. After the one hundred plus arrests, a second team swooped in and occupied the adjacent East Lawn.
In the swirl of rumors, there was the temptation to run around in confusion, like chickens with our heads cut off. The Palestinian and anti-Zionist Jewish student leadership’s calm confidence checkmated the untested fears. This is the unity Zionism most fears.
On East Lawn, the protests of past epochs hung heavily over the hallowed grounds in front of the beams and columns of the towering neoclassical-structured Butler library. The names Homer, Herodotus, Sophocles, Plato, Aristotle and others were written above in bold letters on the imposing imperial structure. Before the pending showdown below, these names meant nothing more than a Literature Humanities or Art Humanities paper deadline for the multitude below determined to halt the gears of genocide. Timidity and academia have never inscribed themselves into the pages of history. Emboldened by the examples of Shadia Abu Ghazaleh, Muna El Kurd, Ahed Tamimi, Shireen Abu Akleh and so many other anti-colonial Palestinian fighters and martyrs, this was their moment. To even utter the names of Palestinian people’s soldiers was an act of rebellion. The corporate media was in overdrive to dilute and pervert the anti-genocidal message of the student occupations across the U.S. The students repeatedly say Palestine has a right to live and prosper; the mainstream media repeatedly misreports , in subtle and forthright ways, that “the movement is anti-Semitic.”
On the other end of every one of our anxious breaths, Palestine remained the compass and heartbeat of the encampment.
The Importance of Leadership and Centralism
In the inflection points of this struggle, there was a higher probability of deeper police infiltration. The student leadership broke us into smaller units to minimize the impact of snitches. Our camp security used tactics of restraint and patience with Zionist provocateurs. Student leaders reminded us that under-covers most often arrive under the amorphous cover of anarchy. Any new face at this eleventh hour was deeply suspicious.
Before the asymmetrical show of force , there was no vacillating. There was no doubt. One student posed the million-dollar question to her brigade: “Why are they treating us like this? We are a bunch of geeks with books and disgust for Zionist genocide.”
Best friends, new friends and veteran comrades squeezed each other’s hands in the brisk spring air. Those April days from 56 years earlier hung frozen in the balance.
Every instruction from our trusted leadership emerged from a high degree of collaborative reflection and centralism. The highly democratic, representative student body came together through 7 months and 76 years of organizing against Israeli apartheid. We organized ourselves into brigades. A student team evacuated dozens of tents in a lightning-quick logistical move. Brigade Red tossed them over a fence, along with any cautions that persisted. We packed up all of our food and collectivity. Was this the end of the Gaza encampment, the end of our commune of stubborn tears and raised fists? The concerns from hours ago over sunscreen and tent flies to stay dry dissipated into the observant night. The moon was our only front-line witness, as the Baroness had closed the citadel’s gates. Alumni complained about not being able to enter campus. A crowd had assembled outside the ivy gates reminding this prison house of nations, that private property is theft. We could hear the chants and drums outside of the protest in solidarity with us on the other side of the police barricades. The support just seventy-five yards away and across the world was the background of our resolve. We were not alone. This encampment symbolized the frustrations of billions of forgotten and voiceless human beings. The Columbia students had started a prairie fire with their fearless spark.
Some three hundred of us sat at assembly in touch with the pulse of the beating earth. A row of rustic lanterns illuminated 76 years of anti-colonial dreams, its sharp light piercing the walls of our humble tents. A frigid, visible breath short of its one-week anniversary, Columbia’s Gaza commune was under threat.
For the Global Palestinian Family, sleep was again the privilege of the colonial enemy and their pets. For in Occupied Palestine, the colonizers’ Doberman Pinschers are considered superior to the Native. And this is what united us all. The revolutionary, in their essence, is the one who no matter the odds, stands up to the bully .
We carry the genocide in our throats and consciences. What would Refaat have written? How did Motaz stand strong? Wael had birthed a new family…the family of humanity.
Hundreds of students were in collective anti-state motion, divided according to the commitments they could make. “The 10’s” prepared for arrest. “The 8’s” assumed their supportive positions. “The 6’s” played their role. “The 2’s” and “the 4’s” were international students or immigrants who could not get arrested. We were subdivided into rank-and-file cells of civil disobedience. Bodies scattered in one thousand directions. Endless beams of celestial light bounced around the football-field sized grass encampment.
The cold, irate ground shook below
the hopeful grass
the unwashed gravity
braced the selflessness
the internationalism…
Building on the legacy of the protests against the colonial slaughter in Vietnam in 1968, the ant-apartheid struggle of 1985 and the ethnic studies fight of 1996, Columbia’s offspring of past struggles demonstrated that the order of student revolt is anything but chaos.
Anti-Zionism is not Anti-Semitism
The New York Times, CNN and Fox, The New York Post and their ideological cousins prepared their “anti-semitic” headlines divorced from material reality.
In the sea of keffiyehs, hundreds of “journalists” came and went, hunting for anything that could be twisted into an anti-semitic trope. Undercover informants and provocateurs infiltrated the outside rally engaging in an anti-semitic skit in front of the drooling cameras. In a scene totally alien to the essence of the Palestinian movement, two pretend students demanded money from a “Jewish student” in return for not further destroying a tattered, burnt Israeli flag. It was a disgusting scene meant to further demonize the burgeoning mass movement. The Atlantic took cheap shots at the liberated zones. Proud of their liberal arrogance, they surely knew better than anyone else how to stop seven and a half decades of colonial dispossession, humiliation and massacres. Entitled Zionists insisted on making it all about them and their colonial narcissism. Anything to distract from Gaza. The historic Jewish soul is trapped between two holocausts.
Two journalists tried to keep up with the lightning-quick, unified crowd but tripped over their self-seeking motives, sliding headfirst into the second base of sensationalism. The restive scene knocked the microphone out of their hands. This wasn’t about them. It was about the ancient Palestinian people whose only desire was to live as all nations aspire to live, free of foreign fetters.
“Stay Focused on Gaza!”
The censorship, the fascism and the holocaust of human life steeled the collective resolve. All thoughts were with Gaza. “Stay focused” was the silent prayer shared by all. “Staying Focused! We do not engage with instigators! (with a Why? And an explanation below).” was[1] a poster that sat as the third eye of the people’s occupation.
Imagine trying to engage in dialogue with Nazis who had been so thoroughly indoctrinated in hatred of all things socialist, Jewish and Slavic. The Zionist is a sociological reality who despises all things true, native and self-determining. The Zionist fashions himself superior to his neighbors. The camp insisted on not relinquishing control of the narrative to the genocidaires. Not engaging with Zionist provocateurs was tactic number one for the encampment populated by hundreds of tents.
Everyone had a task that was completed. Composed of some 300 ants, the ant colony acted as one body. Half-stepping was not an option. Was the National Guard about to enter? The negotiating team texted encrypted updates. Had the administration compromised? The Baroness and her minions wanted to talk about repealing suspensions if the students gave up; we were focused on the genocide.
The sea of keffiyehs had parted. The symbol of the most despised has united us like no other. To wear the keffiyeh in New York City is to remind ourselves every second that we are human and Zionism will not vanquish us. The flag that flew so high that April 17th is not just the flag of the Palestinian people, it is the flag of humanity.
Before the site of the SWAT teams, a sophomore majoring in English thought of calling her parents on Long Island to tell them she loved them. That thought quickly moved to the outer recesses of her mind. This was an inside moment among comrades who no one in the outside world could ever quite understand. Camaraderie was the watchword. A generation removed from the protagonists, I looked around at the beautiful leaders. Their passion compelled them forward. Who would one day write memoirs and make documentaries about this moment?
The roar of the helicopter and the silence of the drone above mocked us and our principles. The riot police, phalanxes of armed men and women, awaited orders to crack “the geeks’” heads open. The NYPD had all of the identity politics boxes checked. Black, Bengali, Dominican, women, LGBTQ+, young Asian cops etc. It mattered little. They formed a blue wall of repression armed with ignorance, self-interest and guns. All of mayors Bill de Blasio and Eric Adams’ diversity trainings boiled down to plain fascism.
The Passive U.S. Masses vs. A Restive Humanity
Hundreds of other students gathered on all sides of us to watch the unraveling of history.
A would-be stirrer of the masses yelled to the crowd of hundreds of journalists and onlookers who stood behind our occupied East Lawn: “Are you all with us?” No one dared to respond. The crowd looked around dazed and confused, unaware of the import of this moment. Had they even paid their admission? They refused to make eye contact with anyone, least of all their own soul. The mass agitator egged them on: “Will you stand against a genocide?” He chanted the cry of our epoch: “Free Free Palestine!” There was no reply. Expectations in the blind, colonial Western world are a resentment in construction, but he insisted. “Free Free Palestine!” There was silence. In the ideological void, a student yelled back: “Dude, we’re just spectators.” The neutral mass was again a wet hen before the anti-genocidal momentum of history.
To be a part of this night and these two weeks of unity, resistance and love for Palestine at the Columbia encampment has been an honor. It felt like I was back in the mid 1990’s when we waged struggles for Ethnic Studies and labor rights.
To the anti-colonial fighters who are the age of our children across the world: Keep going! Keep fighting! It is right to rebel! Columbia Administrators can go to hell! Seize the time! Keep leading the way! Gaza sees you! “Palestine is our moral compass!”
