One year of the escalation of genocide:
On October 7 2024, thousands of people marched around the world in solidarity with the Palestinian people,protesting the ongoing genocide. On that day, people revolted not only against the atrocities committed by Israel in the last year, but against decades of mass killing and dispossession, caused by Israel’s settler-colonialism and occupation.
Outraged by the current situation, on Wednesday October 23 for the National Day of Action for Palestine, over a hundred USyd staff and students rallied at the Quad, demanding USyd cut its ties to Israeli universities and the weapons companies that have been profiting from genocide.
Despite the best efforts from those who are complicit in genocide to demonise and divide the movement – whether Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, NSW Premier Chris Minns, or USyd Vice-Chancellor Mark Scott – the movement for Palestine on and off campus remains strong.
But the fight to free Palestine and cut the government’s and USyd’s ties to Israel is far from over. What the movement on campus needs to do now is prepare to hit the ground running next semester, organising more forums, rallies, and sit-ins to defy USyd management until our demands for USyd to cut ties are met. We also must fight to have the new body of anti-protest rules in the Campus Access Policy (CAP) completely revoked.
We need to face the disciplinary threats from management head-on and counter the fallacious arguments management tries to use to smear the Palestine movement as antisemitic and violent.
The attempts to silence the movement:
Mark Scott has showed his intent to try and quash the Palestine movement on campus, invoking the draconian CAP to remove a bake sale for a family in Gaza organised by the Autonomous Collective Against Racism (ACAR) last Tuesday.
Scott has also threatened activist students with suspensions if they went public with disciplinary processes initiated against them under the CAP.
But attempts by Scott and other university Chancellors to silence the movement and muzzle those facing disciplinary proceedings have been defeated before.
After ACAR’s bake sale was forced off campus, Students Against War and Solidarity Students set up a stall without Management’s permission, petitioning and leafleting students for the National Day of Action for Palestine. Despite security monitoring us closely, taking photos, and videos, no action against us was taken, despite blatantly contravening the CAP.
When Scott suspended two students for making class announcements about Palestine in May, we went public about the disciplinary proceedings and the suspensions, gathering over 700 signatures in an open letter demanding USyd reverse its decision. Both students are no longer suspended and are back on campus fighting for Palestine.
When Students Against War organised a snap protest against Israel’s invasion of Lebanon in September, Management threatened protesters and organisers with disciplinary proceedings should Management decide that the protest was an egregious contravention of the CAP. But despite SAW not notifying Management in advance of the protest and using amplification (megaphones) without permission, Management have not felt in a strong enough position to initiate any disciplinary proceedings.
Similarly, when Bea Tucker at the Australian National University was expelled for refusing to condemn Hamas and declaring their support for the Palestinian resistance in the face of Israel’s genocide and illegal occupation, a public defence campaign pressured ANU to revoke Bea’s expulsion.
And now, the three students at Western Sydney University (WSU) —who were arrested after WSU management called police onto campus — for organising a protest for Palestine, need the solidarity of the entire Palestine movement to beat back the charges and reverse their suspensions from WSU.
When Scott, USyd management, and the government all attempt to silence us we have to face the threats head-on and expose them as being complicit in genocide. We need to explain to more students and staff that Management will repress their students in order to preserve their ties to genocidal partner institutions, and in that process, Management is prepared to take away everyone’s right to freedom of speech and protest.
USYD ties to Israel: After over a year of genocide, USyd management still refuses to cut ties with the Israeli regime and the weapons manufacturers abetting their genocide. In doing so, USyd management continues to support violent Israeli settler-colonialism and the slaughter of Palestinian people while condemning students who consider it absurd to study in an institution that accepts and supports those atrocities.
For instance, USyd continues its medical exchange partnership with the Israeli university, Technion. Technion is responsible for developing the remote-controlled D9 bulldozers that demolish Palestinian homes.Technion also teaches courses on how to brand and market Israel’s defence industry to other countries. The president of Technion, Professor Uri Sivan, justifies Israel’s war crimes by falsely claiming that “Hamas uses its citizens as shields for its weapons – which it hides in hospitals, schools, and mosques.”
It is absurd that USyd maintains a medical exchange program with a university responsible for aiding and abetting the mass murder and maiming of Palestinian civilians.
The new USyd Chancellor David Thodey has made it clear he intends to maintain and deepen USyd’s relationships with Israeli universities and genocide profiteering weapons companies. Thodey has promised to “do more” to silence Palestine protests on campus, in the name of ensuring a “safe, welcoming, and vibrant campus for all” that is “free from any form of discrimination.”
Through maintaining partnerships with apartheid Israel and the weapons companies that profit from killing Palestinian and Lebanese people, Thodey and USyd management are sending a clear message to Arab students; that their lives and their families are worth nothing compared to the interests USyd has in helping maintain the system of Western imperialism which gives Israel the green light to terrorise the Middle East.
There is nothing antisemitic about opposing genocide and apartheid. Thodey, Scott, the government and anyone who bothers to look knows that there has always been Jewish anti-Zionism and opposition to the state of Israel.
What the bosses and politicians are trying to do time and time again, is use the smear of antisemitism to discredit and demobilise the Palestine movement.
Where to now:
Students and staff at USyd and the majority of working-class Australians do not support genocide and apartheid. A poll in February showed that 80% of Australians support a ceasefire in Gaza.
In August, 800 students at USyd voted in a historic Student General Meeting to sever USyd’s ties with Israel, as well as in support of the Palestinians’ right of armed resistance to the occupation and the call for one, democratic, secular state of Palestine, from the river to the sea. This was a powerful statement that USyd students defend Palestinian livelihoods, and was an expression of their indignation towards university management.
The task of the Palestine movement on campus is to take the arguments for Palestine into our classrooms and draw more people into campaigning spaces – like that of Students Against War – where they can get organised to fight management and learn more about the many ways students are able to provoke change in the world, as they have done in the past, even when things felt hopeless. It is essential to understand that people have always been responsible for change and university management, the politicians, and the bosses, will never cut ties with Israel unless we force them to.
The Palestine solidarity movement in Australia and the West has never been as large as it is today. The fight against the Vietnam war took years to build until workers and students marched on the streets in their tens of thousands under the banner “stop work to stop the war”. By doing so, the anti-Vietnam war protesters forced the government to withdraw Australian troops from Vietnam. We believe the same kind of action can occur for Palestine today. Massive popular movements pressuring and demanding that governments and universities boycott and divest from Israel are key to helping end the massacre.
Palestinians have been resisting Israeli occupation for 76 years, and that resistance continues today. We must heed the call of Palestinians to deepen that resistance in the West and support their freedom. From Gadigal to Palestine, we need to organise to ensure that all colonies will fall.
The intifada continues.
