On April 10, over 200 people gathered outside the University of Massachusetts Amherst Student Union to protest during day four of Students for Justice in Palestine’s (SJP) Israeli Apartheid Week.
“If you’re standing in front of us here today, it’s because you’re willing to listen, listen to one another, listen and build community, listen and build a better future,” Tatiana Rodriguez, chairperson of the Palestine solidarity caucus, said.
According to a pamphlet being distributed through the crowd and posted on their Instagram, SJP, Faculty for Justice in Palestine (FJP) and UMass Graduate Employee Organization-Palestine Solidarity Caucus (GEO-PSC) demand that UMass divest from Israel, protect students from federal repression and defend free speech and academic freedom.
In the pamphlet, SJP, FJP and GEO-PSC demand that all UMass students must be protected from “federal repression by safeguarding our data, refusing to surveil us and expunging student conduct records,” and the UMass administration must “defend free speech and academic freedom by ending cuts to humanities departments and STEM research targeted by the federal government and defending pro-Palestinian speech.”
They mentioned current events, including the revocations of visas, current Israeli raids on the Gaza Strip destroying medical camps and the negative impacts of funding cuts for graduate students, research staff and research faculty.
Afterwards, Koby Leff, a UMass faculty member and member of the Professional Staff Union (PSU) shared a personal story regarding the ongoing conflict in Gaza.
In 1948, after Leff’s grandfather fought in World War II, “he dreamed of a place where he could find Jewish community without the bigotry of the U.S.” Leff’s grandfather knew that many Americans had fervently supported the Nazi regime before the country had entered the war.
While Leff spoke, three counter-protesters gathered in the center of the rally and stood there quietly speaking to one another. Counter-protester Olive Yale yelled, “This could be a good cause, but you distort it and make it antisemitic.”
After being told that Palestine had no indigenous population and that he could live out his dreams, Leff’s grandfather went and joined the Israeli Navy and fought their War of Independence. Within a year, Leff said his grandfather realized he had been tricked into participating in “the very white nationalist project he abhorred” and “witnessed his fellow soldiers enacting the same racist injustices upon the Palestinians” that he had escaped during World War II.
With his grandfather’s stories, Leff was taught to recognize Zionism and emphasize the importance that “anti-Zionism is not anti-Semitism.”
“It is not too late to wake up from the lies,” Leff said. “Complacency and complicity will not protect you. Giving in to the fascists will not make them go away.”
“UMass must be revolutionary,” Leff said. “We must keep labor, students’ rights and social justice intertwined.”
Mark Irvich, a member of Jewish Voice for Peace, emphasized the idea of complacency and complicity within international law services, such as the Responsibility to Protect (R2P) principle.
The U.S. and other countries have the power to offer services when other countries are in need, according to Irvich. But they are not willing to use that power, so smaller countries that are with fewer resources step in.
“The response of people around the world against the injustices are limited,” Irvich said. “[People] do what they can. They [often do] more with less resources than what the great question, so-called democracies, are doing.”
“Please remind [others] that if they don’t do something now, stop what’s going on here in this country, that they’ll be in the next one [to be taken],” Irvich said.
After concluding with the first speakers, the growing crowd marched from the Student Union around the UMass Hotel towards Metawampe Lawn, where two more speakers spoke.
One demanded that UMass forbid companies like Raytheon, General Motors and Border Control from coming to career fairs and offer better avenues for students.
The group then marched past the library towards the Whitmore Administration Building, chanting, “Disclose, divest / We will not stop we will not rest.”
At the Whitmore building, two more people delivered speeches, including a member of the Western Massachusetts Coalition for Palestine. He discussed the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement, the original demands of the encampments, employment and education resources, union movements and the importance of demonstrations and rallies.
“It’s truly a privilege and an honor to see you all out here today,” Eric Ross, a doctoral candidate and member of GEO-PSC, said. “To stand with you right on the right side of history, right on the side of dignity and justice and humanity, and to work with you all, to continue to work with you on the struggle and the fight for a better world.”
Ross then announced the creation of the UMass People’s Tribunal, who say they will serve a subpoena to Chancellor Reyes on Sat., April 26, “for complicity in the genocide of Palestine.”
Charges include the financial investment in imperialism and genocide, academic complicity in genocide, political repression and institutionalized racism.
The UMass People’s Tribunal is comprised of SJP chapters at UMass Amherst and Boston, along with Hampshire College, UMass Amherst Young Democratic Socialists of America, the Western Massachusetts chapter of Jewish Voices for Peace, UMass Amherst Young Communist League, UMass FJP, Mount Holyoke’s ichange4palestine College, the UMass Amherst Hub of the Sunrise Movement, GEO-PSC, UMass Prison Abolition Collective, the PSU Solidarity Caucus and UMass Dissenters.
The group said they are charging UMass Boston Chancellor Marcelo Suárez-Orozco, UMass Amherst Chancellor Javier Reyes, UMass System President Marty Meehan, the UMass Board of Trustees, the University of Massachusetts Police Department and the University of Massachusetts Foundation.
The People’s Tribunal does not represent a legal case, but rather a demonstration type where protesters hold a mock trial. There have been similar efforts at other schools.
“The Tribunal is one step in that direction, toward building the infrastructure for real change, building our own institutions, rather than begging those in power right to concede that power to the people,” Ross said.
After the speech, several members of the Tribunal group walked into Whitmore and delivered their subpoena to the Office of the Chancellor.
“This is a long movement,” Ross said. “It’s just beginning, and we’ve witnessed so much horror, and we’ve also accomplished so much. They repress us not because we are weak but because we are strong. They repress us because we’re powerful, because we are a direct threat.”
The protest concluded at the end of the Whitmore ramp at 4:30 p.m.
Alexandra Hill can be reached at [email protected]. Kalina Kornacki can be reached at [email protected] or followed on X (formerly Twitter) @KalinaKornacki.
