The student encampment at Columbia University set off a wave of Gaza solidarity protests on college campuses across the country. The movement has called for an end to the US’s unconditional support for Israel and spotlighted the role of universities and corporations in upholding Israel’s system of oppression.
The uprising, which has since spread across the globe, builds on long-held traditions of student activism and harkens back to the legacy of previous student movements against the war in Vietnam and apartheid in South Africa. It also emerged as the latest sign of a wider shift in public opinion on the Palestinian struggle for liberation that policymakers continue to ignore. While many of the encampments have been dismantled and thousands of student protesters brutally arrested, this is likely only the beginning of a movement determined to hold academic and political institutions accountable.
In this policy lab, Nour Joudah and Kylie Broderick join host Tariq Kenney-Shawa to discuss some of the key lessons to be gleaned from the encampments and how we can best build on them to strengthen the Palestine solidarity movement moving forward.
Tariq Kenney-Shawa is Al-Shabaka’s Associate Fellow, based in New York, and co-host of Al-Shabaka’s Policy Lab series. He holds a Master’s degree in International Affairs from Columbia University. Tariq’s research and writing have covered a range of topics, from the role of open-source intelligence in exposing Israel’s war crimes to analysis of Palestinian liberation tactics. His writing has appeared in The Los Angeles Times, Foreign Policy, and The Nation, among others. Tariq also serves as Associate Director of Editorial for the Institute for Middle East Understanding.
Nour Joudah is Assistant Professor in the Department of Asian American Studies at UCLA. She holds a PhD in Geography from UCLA, where her dissertation examined Palestinian and native Hawaiian communities’ efforts to imagine liberated futures through indigenous countermapping practices. She is working on a book manuscript, Future Histories, exploring how indigenous experiences of time in Palestine and Hawaii inform liberation struggles. She also holds an MA in Arab Studies from Georgetown University.
