Day 17 at the University of Sydney’s Gaza solidarity encampment saw participation in the Student Strike for Palestine and attendance at the National Tertiary Education Union’s (NTEU) Sydney Branch vote on a motion to “endorse the institutional academic boycott of Israeli universities, and to cut ties with the war industry.”
New signs appeared throughout the encampment on Thursday morning, the largest of which reads “Hands Off Rafah” alongside an illustration from a local artist. The poster draws attention to Israel’s invasion of Rafah, where 1.4 million Palestinian civilians are sheltering, earlier this week.
Protestors gathered at 1pm on the Quadrangle Lawns for the city-wide Student Strike for Palestine. The crowd heard from several Palestinian, anti-Zionist, and student activists, including Mehreen Faruqi and Jana Fayyad. The demonstration then marched from Eastern Avenue to the University of Technology Sydney (UTS), before joining forces for a mass rally at Town Hall. Following the protest, high school and tertiary education students also occupied the lower floors of Broadway Shopping Centre to demand “all eyes on Rafah.”
Simultaneously, another contingent attended the NTEU’s Sydney Branch meeting in the Carslaw Building. Chaired by President Nick Riemer, the meeting was called to “support the right of NTEU members to engage in boycott, divestment, and sanctions (BDS) actions that seek to end the occupation of Palestine.” Throughout the meeting, the Branch noted that “the ties the University of Sydney maintains with weapons manufacturers and militaries arm and support Israel are therefore implicated in the killing of Palestinians”, and that this relationship is incompatible with the University’s supposed commitment to “leading to improve the world around us” and “education for all, leadership for good.”
The motion was passed unanimously following endorsements from the University’s SRC and General Union of Palestinian Workers Australia. Consequently, the Branch called on University management to “cut ties with all organisations that enable the current Gaza violence”, which includes “all Israeli universities” and the “weapons industry and militaries in general.” To replace the University’s current practices, the Branch proposed a “Scholars at Risk” program to welcome Palestinian students and academics and more opportunities for current staff members to undertake “research for the public good.”
Having attended the meeting, President of the University’s Political Economy Society Alastair Panzarino told Honi Soit that “the motion is significant in two ways. One, because it was passed with overwhelming support, an upward of 98% of those in attendance supported it. The other significance is that this is the first BDS motion, which explicitly calls for sanctions, divestment, and boycotting of Israeli apartheid of any university in the entire country.”
Panzarino went on to say that it was also “wonderful to see that the NTEU passed a motion in solidarity with the Gaza encampment here of the students and voted to defend it if we come under attack.”
Day 17 concluded with a donation of hot food from the local community to campers staying overnight. The meal reportedly included zaatar bread, lentil soup, and pastries.