Students for Palestine UNSW have called a Student General Meeting (SGM) to take a mass student vote for Palestine in Week 3 of term 3 on Wednesday, September 25th, at 5pm on campus.
Since the start of Israel’s current genocide against Palestinians, we’ve been campaigning to cut UNSW’s ties with with weapons companies and Israeli institutions. Yet the university has refused to meet our demands. The SGM is our next step to keep up that fight.
How is UNSW complicit in the genocide?
A GIPA request obtained by SRC Education Officer Cherish Kuehlmann on behalf of Students for Palestine UNSW exposed UNSW’s deep ties to Israel.
As of March 2024, UNSW has $2.973 million invested in weapons manufacturers that are arming the IDF right now, including Lockheed Martin and Boeing. Lockheed Martin provides Israel with lethal weapons like the F-35 jet. And it was Boeing’s bombs that Israel dropped on the Rafah tent camp in Gaza in May, 2024. These weapons companies’ stocks have skyrocketed since the genocide started, meaning that UNSW is profiting from the genocide in Gaza.
UNSW also produces research for these weapons companies that enables its victims to be killed with more precision and brutality. Lockheed Martin funds a research program at UNSW in Hypersonics Control Systems, which keep in-tact and the stability of air vehicles (missiles, jets, etc.) at speeds of mach 5+, meaning they can move, hit and plummet through buildings in a matter of minutes.
UNSW’s branding this year is “Progress for All”. Universities are supposed to be public institutions for education, and to make the world a better place. UNSW cannot claim to be for progress whilst it is complicit in Israel’s genocide.
What is a student general meeting (SGM) ?
A student general meeting is a large meeting of students where they debate and vote on important issues. They allow the student body to engage in democratic decision making and demand the university to change its policies.
Students for Palestine have been holding SGMs across Australia to demonstrate students’ widespread support for Palestine and opposition to our universities’ complicity in genocide. The turnout has been historic! To name a few: 2000 at the University of Queensland, 800 at The University of Melbourne , 600 at The University of Sydney , and 200 at ANU, Adelaide University and The University of Wollongong!
The SGM will be debating and voting on the following motion moved by Students for Palestine, demanding:
- UNSW disclose and divest from any financial investment in weapons companies
- UNSW cut its research partnerships with weapons companies, including Lockhead Martin and Boeing
- Students stand for a free Palestine
Why should students come to the SGM?
This SGM aims to up the pressure on UNSW. That’s why we’re hosting an in-person mass meeting. We need hundreds of students to make time to be there in-person to have a big showing and vote for Palestine if we want to make Palestine an issue that the university can’t ignore and dismiss as something students don’t care about.
Students who support the state of Israel’s genocide will be attending to oppose our motion, so pro-Palestine students needs to show up in big numbers to demonstrate loud and clear how much support we really have.
Students have a duty to take an active stand on the right side of history, to do as much as we can to oppose this genocide. Israel’s genocide in Palestine is our generation’s Vietnam war and South African apartheid. We are living through a crime against humanity. Israel’s genocide has killed over 40,000 Palestinians in Gaza alone, according to the UN.
We can’t look away and pretend as if genocide is normal, which is what universities, the government and the media would prefer.
The genocide is getting worse, not better. It’s been over 10 months and not only are Gazans still being bombed, starved and displaced, but so is the West Bank. UNSW must ends its research programs, its financial investments, and all of its ties that boost the weapons companies like Lockheed Martin and Boeing in their ability to arm Israel’s genocide.
Here’s how you can help:
- Sign this petition to register to attend the SGM in-person to vote YES for Palestine on Wednesday, September 25th, at 5pm at UNSW New South Global Theatre
- Tell your friends, classmates, and everyone you know on campus about it!
- Share our content on social media
- Help us leaflet or poster between your class on Monday to Thursday between 10am-1pm, meeting outside the main library!
