قال الرئيس الكولومبي غوستافو بيترو، مساء اليوم الأربعاء، إن”كولومبيا ستقطع العلاقات الدبلوماسية مع إسرائيل بسبب تصرفاتها في غزة”، وكان بترو قد انتقد في السابق رئيس الوزراء الإسرائيلي بنيامين نتنياهو بشدة وطلب الانضمام إلى قضية جنوب أفريقيا التي تتهم إسرائيل بارتكاب “إبادة جماعية” في محكمة العدل الدولية.
فيما اعتبرت إسرائيل موقف كولومبيا (قطع كولومبيا للعلاقات الدبلوماسية) معها “مكافأة” لحماس
وقال بيترو أمام الحشد في بوغوتا، الذي شارك في مسيرة بمناسبة يوم العمال العالمي: “هنا، أمامكم، حكومة التغيير، يعلن رئيس الجمهورية أننا سنقطع العلاقات الدبلوماسية مع دولة إسرائيل غدًا” وأضاف: “لا يمكن للدول أن تقف مكتوفة الأيدي أمام ما يحدث في غزة”.
وقال غوستافو بيترو عبر منصة “إكس” حينها: “أثناء انتظار الغذاء، لقي أكثر من 100 فلسطيني حتفهم على يد رئيس الوزراء الإسرائيلي بنيامين نتنياهو”، لافتاً إلى أن هذا “يسمى إبادة جماعية ويذكرنا بالهولوكوست على الرغم من أن القوى العالمية لا تريد الاعتراف بذلك”. وأضاف : “لهذا السبب، علقت كولومبيا جميع مشترياتها من الأسلحة من إسرائيل”. ووصف الرئيس الكولومبي الهجمات بأنها “مذبحة للشعب الفلسطيني”.
وكانت بوليفيا، قد اعلنت في نوفمبر/تشرين الثاني المنصرم، “قطع العلاقات الدبلوماسية مع إسرائيل بسبب هجماتها على قطاع غزة،” في حين استدعت كولومبيا وتشيلي المجاورتان سفيريهما للتشاور، إذ “نددت الدول الثلاث الواقعة في أميركا الجنوبية بالهجمات الإسرائيلية على قطاع غزة وأدانت قتل الفلسطينيين”.
Colombian President Gustavo Petro has announced plans to cut diplomatic ties with Israel over its war in the Gaza Strip, which human rights advocates and other experts have warned could amount to genocide.
Speaking to a crowd marking International Workers’ Day in Bogota on Wednesday, Petro said countries cannot be passive in the face of the crisis unfolding in Gaza.
“Here in front of you, the government of change, of the president of the republic, announces that tomorrow we will break diplomatic relations with the state of Israel … for having a government, for having a president who is genocidal,” Petro said.
A left-wing leader who came to power in 2022, Petro is considered part of a progressive wave known as the “pink tide” in Latin America. He has been one of the region’s most vocal critics of Israel since the start of the Gaza war.
In October, just days after the conflict began, Israel said it was “halting security exports” to Colombia after Petro accused Israeli Defence Minister Yoav Gallant of using language similar to what the “Nazis said of the Jews”.
Gallant said the country was fighting “human animals” in Gaza, as he ordered a total siege of the territory following the deadly attacks on southern Israel on October 7.
A month later, Petro accused Israel of committing “genocide” in the besieged Palestinian enclave, drawing more ire from Israeli officials and pro-Israel advocacy groups.
And in February, Colombia suspended Israeli weapons purchases after Israeli forces opened fire on Palestinians scrambling for food aid in Gaza — an event Petro said “recalls the Holocaust”.
The Colombian president’s comments on Wednesday come amid growing concerns about a possible Israeli ground offensive into the southern city of Rafah, which United Nations chief Antonio Guterres said would mark an “unbearable escalation”.
More than 34,500 Palestinians have been killed in Israel’s military offensive in the Gaza Strip to date, and the enclave faces a continued humanitarian crisis, with experts warning of famine.
There was no immediate comment from the Israeli government about Colombia’s plans to cut diplomatic ties with the country.
Meanwhile, in early April, the Colombian government requested to join a case at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) accusing Israel of genocide.
“Colombia’s ultimate goal in this endeavour is to ensure the urgent and fullest possible protection for Palestinians in Gaza, in particular such vulnerable populations as women, children, persons with disabilities and the elderly,” the country said.
The UN’s top court ruled in January that Palestinians faced a plausible risk of genocide in Gaza and ordered Israel to prevent any such acts.
UN Special Rapporteur Francesca Albanese also said in late March that there were “reasonable grounds to believe that the threshold indicating the commission of … acts of genocide against Palestinians in Gaza has been met”.
“The overwhelming nature and scale of Israel’s assault on Gaza and the destructive conditions of life it has inflicted reveal an intent to physically destroy Palestinians as a group,” Albanese said in a report.
Israel has denied accusations of genocide, calling Albanese’s report an “obscene inversion of reality”.
توصلت جامعة براون في رود آيلاند، إحدى أرقى المؤسسات الأكاديمية النخبوية في الولايات المتحدة الأمريكية، إلى اتفاق مع المتظاهرين المؤيدين للفلسطينيين، توافق الجامعة بموجبه على إعادة النظر بعلاقاتها مع شركات مرتبطة بإسرائيل.
وفي المقابل يقوم الطلاب بإزالة خيم الاحتجاج من الحرم الجامعي.
وقالت رئيسة الجامعة، كريستينا باكسون، إن الطلاب سيفككون خيامهم واتفقنا “أن يمتنعوا حتى نهاية العام الدراسي عن القيام بأيّ أفعال أخرى من شأنها أن تنتهك قواعد السلوك الخاصة بجامعة براون”.
ومن المقرر أن تصوت الجامعة على سحب الاستثمارات من الشركات التابعة لإسرائيل في اجتماعها الذي ستعقده في شهر أكتوبر/تشرين الأول.
في هذه الأثناء تحاول جامعات أخرى فض الاعتصامات التي نظمها الطلبة المؤيدين للفلسطينيين بطرق مختلفة.
وفي أحدث تطور، استعانت جامعة كولومبيا في نيويورك بالشرطة من أجل فض اعتصام طلاب تحصنوا في إحدى قاعاتها منذ يوم أمس، واقتحمت شرطة نيويورك الجامعة واعتقلت العشرات من الطلاب.
قالت شرطة نيويورك إنها اعتقلت عشرات الطلاب وأخلت قاعة هاميلتون وفضت الاعتصام المناهض للحرب على غزة في جامعة كولومبيا.
حدث ذلك حين تجمع رجال الشرطة، الثلاثاء، بعد الساعة التاسعة مساءً بقليل بالتوقيت المحلي، وهم يرتدون الخُوذ وحاملين دروع مكافحة الشغب، عند مدخل جامعة كولومبيا، واقتحموا قاعة هاميلتون، وهو مبنى إداري في الحرم الجامعي.
وكان المتظاهرون قد احتلوا القاعة قبل أكثر من 20 ساعة، وبسطوا نطاق انتشارهم من مخيم في مكان آخر اعتصموا فيه منذ نحو أسبوعين.
وقال بيان للجامعة إن الشرطة تدخلت بعد طلب من منها، وفي بيان أوضحت الجامعة إن قرار الاستعانة بالشرطة جاء “ردًا على تصرفات المتظاهرين وليس بسبب القضبة التي يناصرونها”. وأضافت، لم “يعد أمامنا أي خيار”.
وبدأت المظاهرات المناوئة للحرب في غزة في الجامعة منذ نحو أسبوعين حيث نصب الطلبة خيامهم في الحرم الجامعي، ويوم أمس هددت الجامعة بفصلهم في حال عدم فض الاعتصام مع قرب حفلة التخرج، لكن التصعيد استمر وتحصن الطلبة في قاعة هاميلتون التابعة للجامعة.
وكانت رئيسة الجامعة، نعمت شفيق، وهي مصرية الأصل، قد تعرضت لانتقادات كبيرة إثر قرارها استدعاء شرطة نيويورك إلى الحرم الجامعي، والتي قامت باعتقال أكثر من 100 طالب متضامن مع غزة، وكذلك بسبب شهادتها السابقة أمام الكونغرس، والتي اتهمها فيها اساتذة بالاستسلام لمطالب الجمهوريين في الكونغرس بشأن حرية التعبير وتأديب الطلاب والأساتذة.
Settlements and National Projects Minister Orit Strock sparked fierce criticism on Wednesday when she rejected the “terrible” hostage deal currently being negotiated in Egypt and said that its approval would be tantamount to a betrayal of IDF soldiers and Israel’s war aims.
There are “soldiers who left everything behind and went out to fight for goals that the government defined, and we throw it in the trash to save 22 people or 33 or I don’t know how many,” the far-right minister told Army Radio. “Such a government has no right to exist.”
Condemning Strock, Opposition Leader Yair Lapid tweeted that “a government with 22 or 33 extremist coalition members has no right to exist,” while Minister Chili Tropper of National Unity, who sits with Strock in the cabinet, accused her of insensitivity toward the hostages.
Whether one supports the deal or not, “the fundamental Jewish precept that ‘whoever saves a single life, it is as if he saved an entire world’ should spare us obtuse and blunt statements regarding the terrible suffering of the hostages and their families, like the words of Minister Orit Strock,” he said.
“The Jewish path is more humane and sensitive to human life than those who sometimes seek to speak on its behalf.”
In a statement, the Movement for Quality Government in Israel called on Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to fire Strock, declaring that “Israel now needs unity and not division, responsibility and not political populism.”
Protesters block Begin Road in front of the Kirya Military Headquarters in Tel Aviv as they call for the release of the hostages, April 30, 2024. (Dafi Cohen/Pro-Democracy Protest Movement)
“There is no place for someone who adheres to an extremist ideology at the expense of human life, and we call on the prime minister to fire Minister Strock immediately,” the watchdog group demanded.
Shir Siegel, whose father Keith Siegel is being held hostage in Gaza, described Strock’s words as expressing “disdain for human life at the highest levels,” in a statement cited by the Haaretz daily.
Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich addresses the media following a meeting of his Religious Zionism faction in the Knesset, April 30, 2024. (Sam Sokol/Times of Israel)
His announcement on Tuesday came shortly after National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir said, following a private meeting with the prime minister, that Netanyahu had promised not to agree to a “reckless” hostage deal.
Responding to Ben Gvir and Smotrich, National Unity Minister Gadi Eisenkot, an observer in the war cabinet, slammed what he described as political blackmail.
Calling their actions “a serious phenomenon that harms Israel’s national security,” Eisenkot asserted that he “will only be a partner in a government that makes decisions based on the national interests of the State of Israel, and not on political considerations.”
Smotrich hit back at Eisenkot, calling for him to show “a little humility,” and adding that it was his “duty to act against a bad deal that will endanger the security of the citizens of Israel.”
While Eisenkot condemned Smotrich and Ben Gvir’s threats, National Unity leader Benny Gantz earlier this week used similar language, saying that if the government rejects a hostage deal backed by the security services, it will “have no right to continue to exist.”
عادت الوزيرة الإسرائيلية المتطرفة أوريت ستروك لإثارة الجدل عبر تصريح لإذاعة الجيش الإسرائيلي قالت فيه إن حكومة تضحي بكل شيء من أجل استعادة 22 أو 33 محتجزا لا تستحق البقاء.
وتتولى ستروك وزارة الاستيطان، وهي تنتمي لحزب الصهيونية الدينية المتطرف الذي يتزعمه وزير المالية بتسلئيل سموتريتش.
وسبق للوزيرة المتطرفة أن ادعت أنه لا يوجد شعب فلسطيني، وأنه لا حق للفلسطينيين في إقامة دولة لهم، مؤكدة رفضها لقيام الدولة الفلسطينية ليس “لكونها فقط غير مستحقة ودون حق تاريخي، وإنما أيضا لأنها تشكل تهديدا وجوديا لإسرائيل والسلام العالمي”.
في المقابل، رد زعيم المعارضة الإسرائيلية يائير لبيد على تصريحات وزيرة الاستيطان بطريقتها، وقال إن حكومة تضم 22 أو 33 عضوا متطرفا ليس لها الحق في البقاء.
ونجحت المقاومة الفلسطينية بقيادة كتائب القسام في أسر عدد كبير من الإسرائيليين خلال عملية طوفان الأقصى التي جرت في السابع من أكتوبر/تشرين الأول الماضي، وأعقبتها حرب إسرائيلية مدمرة على قطاع غزة راح ضحيتها عشرات الآلاف من الشهداء والجرحى والمفقودين فضلا عن تدمير معظم مباني القطاع واعتداءات شبه يومية على مدن وقرى الضفة الغربية.
اتهام نتنياهو
وحسب وكالة الأناضول للأنباء، تقدر تل أبيب وجود نحو 134 أسيرا إسرائيليا في غزة، فيما أعلنت حماس مقتل 70 منهم في غارات عشوائية نفذتها إسرائيل التي تحتجز في سجونها ما لا يقل عن 9 آلاف و100 أسير فلسطيني، زادت أوضاعهم سوءا منذ أن بدأت حربها على غزة، وفق منظمات فلسطينية معنية بالأسرى.
وتتظاهر عائلات الأسرى بشكل شبه يومي، خصوصا أمام مقر الحكومة ووزارة الدفاع في تل أبيب، ويطالبون بإبرام صفقة تبادل تعيد لهم ذويهم، ويتهمون الحكومة ورئيسها بنيامين نتنياهو بأنه العائق الرئيسي أمام عودتهم.
ومنذ أشهر، تقود قطر ومصر والولايات المتحدة مفاوضات غير مباشرة بين إسرائيل وحركة حماس بهدف التوصل إلى اتفاق لوقف إطلاق النار في قطاع غزة وتبادل للأسرى والمحتجزين بين الطرفين.
ولم تسفر المفاوضات بشكل نهائي عن بلورة اتفاق، بسبب رفض إسرائيل مطلب حماس بإنهاء الحرب وسحب قواتها من قطاع غزة وعودة النازحين الفلسطينيين إلى شمال القطاع.
McDonald’s reported a modest increase in quarterly profits on Tuesday despite a boycott stemming from Israel’s deadly war in Gaza expected to drag on sales for the foreseeable future.
While the boycott is not “getting worse,” Chief Executive Chris Kempczinski does not have a timeframe for a return to normal conditions.
“We’re not expecting to see any meaningful improvement in the impact until the war is over,” he told analysts on a conference call.
Sales of McDonald’s were dented after its Israel franchise in October announced it had given thousands of free meals to the Israeli army.
That move was followed by relief pledges to Gaza from McDonald’s Kuwait and McDonald’s Qatar, both of which are managed separately from the Israeli business.
Most McDonald’s restaurants in the Middle East are operated under a franchise agreement in which the corporate parent does not invest capital, McDonald’s said in a securities filing.
Earlier this month, McDonald’s agreed to acquire Alonyal, which has over 30 years built the McDonald’s brand to 225 restaurants in Israel, employing more than 5,000 people.
McDonald’s has described the boycott’s greatest impact as in the Middle East, while also pointing to effects in markets like Malaysia and Indonesia and in parts of France where the Muslim population is higher.
The big fast-food chain experienced a dip in comparable sales in “International Developmental Licensed Markets,” which comprises emerging markets.
“The continued impact of the war in the Middle East more than offset positive comparable sales in Japan, Latin America and Europe,” McDonald’s said of the division.
Overall, profits in the first quarter rose seven percent to $1.9 billion on a five percent increase in revenues to $6.2 billion.
Israel’s war in Gaza has killed over 34,000 Palestinians, mostly women and children, while companies tied to the country have seen global boycotts against them, including Starbucks.
The chain scored higher comparable sales in the United States – where results were boosted by “strategic” price increases – and in the “International Operated Markets” division, where gains in Britain and Germany compensated for negative sales in France.
Chief Financial officer Ian Borden said sales in the United States and in many other large markets will probably be “below” the historical range in 2024 due to the cumulative effects of inflation on customers.
“Affordability is clearly an area where consumer expectations are heightened,” Borden said. “Obviously (consumers) are getting hit across their full basket of goods and services by all the inflationary impacts.”
Diana Ramirez-Simon, Jonathan Yerushalmy, Edward Helmore and Erum Salam
Dozens of students have been arrested after hundreds of New York City police officers entered Columbia University on Tuesday night to clear out an academic building that had been taken over as part of a pro-Palestinian protest.
Live video images showed police in riot gear marching on the campus in upper Manhattan, the focal point of nationwide student protests opposing Israel’s war in Gaza. Police used an armoured vehicle with a bridging mechanism to gain entry to the second floor of the building.
Officers said they used flash-bangs to disperse the crowd, but denied using teargas as part of the operation.
Before long, officers were seen leading protesters handcuffed with zip ties to a line of police buses waiting outside campus gates. NYPD spokesman Carlos Nieves said he had no immediate reports of any injuries following the arrests.
Police use a special vehicle to enter the second storey of Hamilton Hall which protesters occupied, at Columbia University. Photograph: David Dee Delgado/Reuters
“We’re clearing it out,” police yelled as they marched up to the barricaded entrance to the building.
“Shame! Shame!” jeered many onlooking students still outside on campus.One protester at Columbia, who only gave their name as Sophie, told the Guardian that police had barricaded protesters inside buildings before making arrests. “It will not be forgotten,” she said. “This is no longer an Israel-Palestine issue. It’s a human rights and free speech and a Columbia student issue.”
The police operation, which was largely over within a couple of hours, follow nearly two weeks of tensions, with pro-Palestinian protesters at the university ignoring an ultimatum on Monday to abandon their encampment or risk suspension. On Tuesday, Columbia University officials threatened academic expulsion of the students who had seized Hamilton Hall, an eight-story neo-classical building blocked by protesters who linked arms to form a barricade and chanted pro-Palestinian slogans.
The university said in a statement on Tuesday it had asked police to enter the campus to “restore safety and order to our community”.
A protester detained by NYPD officers on Tuesday night. Photograph: Anadolu/Getty Images
It said: “After the university learned overnight that Hamilton Hall had been occupied, vandalized, and blockaded, we were left with no choice. Columbia public safety personnel were forced out of the building, and a member of our facilities team was threatened. We will not risk the safety of our community or the potential for further escalation.”
The university reiterated the view that the group who “broke into and occupied the building” was being led by individuals who are “not affiliated with the university”.
It added: “The decision to reach out to the NYPD was in response to the actions of the protesters, not the cause they are championing.”
New York City police officers loads detained protesters on to a bus after entering a barricaded building at Columbia University. Photograph: Stephani Spindel/EPA
New York congressman Jamaal Bowman said he was “outraged” by the level of police presence at Columbia and other New York universities. He said on X: “The militarization of college campuses, extensive police presence, and arrest of hundreds of students are in direct opposition to the role of education as a cornerstone of our democracy.”
Bowman has called on the Columbia administration to stop the “dangerous escalation before it leads to further harm” and allow faculty back on to campus.
At a Tuesday evening news briefing, Mayor Eric Adams and city police officials said the Hamilton Hall takeover was instigated by “outside agitators” who lack any affiliation with Columbia and are known to law enforcement for provoking lawlessness.
Adams suggested some of the student protesters were not fully aware of “external actors” in their midst.
“We cannot and will not allow what should be a peaceful gathering to turn into a violent spectacle that serves no purpose. We cannot wait until this situation becomes even more serious. This must end now,” the mayor said.
Neither Adams nor the university provided specific evidence to back up that contention.
One of the student leaders of the protest, Mahmoud Khalil, a Palestinian scholar attending Columbia’s school of international and public affairs on a student visa, disputed assertions that outsiders had initiated the occupation. “They’re students,” he told Reuters.
Hamilton Hall was one of several buildings occupied during a 1968 civil rights and anti-Vietnam war protest on the campus. This week, student protesters, displayed a large banner that reads “Hind’s Hall”, renaming it in honor of Hind Rajab, a six-year-old Palestinian girl from Gaza City who was killed by Israeli forces earlier this year.
Columbia journalism professor Seyma Beyram, said on X that she and her journalism school colleagues were trapped on one block surrounded by police barricades. “All I can document right now are students getting put on one of the buses.”
On Tuesday night, Columbia’s student radio station reported that Jelani Cobb, the dean of the journalism school, was threatened with arrest if he and others in the building came out. “Free, free, free Palestine,” chanted protesters outside the building. Others yelled: “Let the students go.”
At CUNY as the police moved off, one student said: “We de-escalated , and now the police are leaving. We’re proud of standing up for something. All we’re saying is were not happy university tuition fees are being used to fund wars, and we want to see what we can do about it, but without violence.”
Editor’s note: This story includes photographs which some users may find distressing
It took Naifa Rizq al-Sawada’s family an agonising two weeks to discover what had happened to their beloved grandmother following a raid by the Israeli army on her home.
The 92-year-old Palestinian woman, who suffered from Alzheimer’s, was found as a pile of charred bones on her granddaughter’s burned bed, according to her daughter.
Sawada had been separated from her family by Israeli soldiers during their assault on al-Shifa Medical Complex and its vicinity in mid-March in western Gaza City.
After raiding the multi-floor residential building belonging to Sawada and her married children, troops separated men and women, who were forced to head south.
When Sawada’s daughter-in-law asked an Israeli soldier to release the elderly woman with them, he refused, the family previously told Middle East Eye.
“We will take care of her,” he said.
‘How could they leave her before burning the house?’
– Maha al-Nawati, Naifa Rizq al-Sawada’s daughter
For two weeks, the family did not know Sawada’s fate after they were forced to leave her behind.
They later received reports from neighbours that the army had set the building ablaze.
But they could not return to the building to see if Sawada was taken out before it was engulfed in flames.
On 1 April, the Israeli army withdrew from the area and the family finally reached the home and found Sawada’s charred remains.
Although it was unclear what happened in her final moments, the family were “devastated to imagine she was burned alive”, according to Maha al-Nawati, her daughter.
‘Only bones left’
Nawati told MEE that as soon as the Israelis withdrew, her brother, sister and their children rushed to the building to find any traces of Sawada.
At first, they didn’t find her in the house, including in the living room and bedroom, where her bed was burned.
“They went up to the roof and found my niece and her husband; they were martyred. The army had shot and burned them. Their bodies were charred,” said Nawati, speaking to MEE from Egypt where she recently fled.
The burnt room where Sawada’s bones were found by the family on 8 April 2024 in Gaza City (Supplied)
In light of reports that Israeli troops used Palestinians as human shields during their raids of al-Shifa hospital’s departments, the family thought she may have been taken there.
Unable to walk or speak, they feared she might have been left without proper care. However, an even worse scenario unfolded.
Four days later, a neighbour told them she could not confirm that Sawada was taken out by the army during the initial raid and that she might still be inside.
The family returned to look again, this time searching Nawati’s niece’s apartment where Israeli soldiers gathered the women after they separated them from the men.
“[My brother and sister] entered my niece’s bedroom; her bed was charred, and the remains of mum’s bones were there,” Nawati, 69, said.
“The army had taken her to sleep on the bed [before setting the house ablaze].
“There were only a few bones left. Other bones had turned into [ashes], and in her last days, my mum was very frail, so there weren’t many bones left. They collected them and took them [outside].”
Some of Sawada’s bones found in a house in Gaza City that was set ablaze by Israeli forces (Supplied)
The family wrapped their mother’s bones in a white cloth and buried them near her 22-year-old grandson who was killed by the Israeli army at the beginning of the Israeli assault.
“When he was killed, my nephew was buried under their home’s wall, because we couldn’t reach any cemetery [due to the Israeli siege]. We had to bury him there, and we buried mum next to him,” said Nawati.
‘How could they leave her?’
Since the beginning of Israel’s large-scale war on Gaza and the army’s siege of various areas of the Strip, many families have resorted to burying those killed in Israeli attacks inside their homes, in the streets or public parks and agricultural lands near their residences.
Many have endured staying in the same house with bodies of their family members that started to decompose, unable to open windows or doors to bury them outside, fearing nearby Israeli fire.
Upon the army’s withdrawal from certain areas, dozens of mass graves, dug either by residents or troops, have been discovered, including at al-Shifa and Nasser hospitals, Gaza’s two biggest medical facilities.
More than 700 bodies have been exhumed from the two hospitals by civil defence teams so far.
In nearly seven months of war, Israel has killed 34,500 Palestinians. At least 7,000 more are missing – some hidden beneath the rubble of bombed buildings, some vanished without a trace.
Many of the bodies recently recovered from mass graves or bombed buildings have been completely decomposed, leaving nothing but their skeletons.
The idea that only a few bones were left of her mother still haunts Nawati, who is hundreds of miles away from her grave.
“Until this moment, I cannot stop thinking of what they did. Why? How could they leave her before burning the house?” Nawati said.
“My mother always helped others, so I’m sure God has taken her to a better place.”
The rage against Israel’s military offensive in Gaza since 7 October has stirred students to protest at a number of US university campuses and, indeed, in other countries. Echoes of the anti-Vietnam War protests are being cited. All-too-often docile consumers of education are being prodded and found to be interested. University administrators and managers are, as they always tend to be, doing the bidding of their donors and funders in trying to restore order, punish the protesting students where necessary and restrict various forms of protest and free speech. Finally, those in the classrooms have something to talk about.
A key aspect of the protests centres on university divestment from US companies linked to and supplying the Israeli war machine.
The pattern is also repeating itself in other countries, including Canada and Australia. The response from university officialdom has been to formulate a more vigorous anti-Semitism policy – whatever that means – buttressed, as was the case in Columbia University, by the muscular use of police to remove protesting students for trespassing and disruption. On 18 April, in what she described as a necessary if “extraordinary step”, Columbia President Minouche Shafik summoned officers from the New York Police Department, in riot gear, to remove 108 demonstrators occupying Columbia’s South Lawn. Charges have been made; suspensions have been levelled.
Students from other institutions are also falling in, with similar results. An encampment was made at New York University, with the now predictable police response. At Yale, 45 protestors were arrested and charged with misdemeanour trespassing. Much was made of the fact that tents had been set up on Beinecke Plaza. A tent encampment was also set up at MIT’s Cambridge campus.
The US House Committee on Education and the Workforce has also been pressuring university heads to put the boot in, illustrating well the fact that freedom of speech is a mighty fine thing until it aggrieves, offends and upsets various factions who wish to reserve it for themselves. Paradoxically, one can burn one’s own US flag as a form of protest, exercise free speech rights as a Nazi, yet not occupy the president’s office of a US university if not unequivocal in condemning protest slogans that might be seen as “anti-Semitic” by those who have weaponised the term in the service of a foreign state.
It would have been a far more honest proposition to simply make the legislators show their credentials as card carrying members of the military-industrial complex.
The focus by students on the Israeli-US military corporate nexus and its role in the destruction of Gaza has been sharp and vocal. Given the instinctive support of the US political and military establishment for Israel, this is far from surprising. However, it should not be singular or peculiar to one state’s war machine, or one relationship. The military-industrial complex is protean, spectacular in spread, with those in its service promiscuous to patrons. Fidelity is subordinate to the profit motive.
The salient warning that universities were at risk of being snared by government interests and, it followed, government objectives, was well noted by President Dwight D. Eisenhower in his heralded 1961 farewell address, one which publicly outed the “military-industrial complex” as a sinister threat. Just as such a complex exercised “unwarranted influence” more broadly, said Eisenhower, “the free university, historically the fountainhead of free ideas and scientific discovery, has experienced a revolution in the conduct of research. Partly because of the huge costs involved, a government contract becomes virtually a substitute for intellectual curiosity.” The nation’s academics risked “domination… by Federal employment, project allocations, and the power of money.”
This has yielded what can only be seen as a ghastly result: the military-industrial-academic complex, heavy with what has been described as “social autism” and protected by almost impenetrable walls of secrecy.
The nature of this complex stretches into the extremities of the education process, including the grooming and encouragement of STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) students. Focusing on Lockheed Martin’s recruitment process on US college campuses in his 2022 study for In These Times, Indigo Olivier found a vast, aggressive effort involving “TED-style talks, flight simulations, technology demos and on-the-spot interviews.” Much is on offer: scholarships, well-paid internships and a generous student repayment loan programme. A dozen or so universities, at the very least, “participate in Lockheed Martin Day, part of a sweeping national effort to establish defence industry recruitment pipelines in college STEM.”
Before the Israel-Gaza War, some movements were already showing signs of alertness to the need to disentangle US learning institutions from the warring establishment they so readily fund. Dissenters, for instance, is a national movement of student organisers focused on “reclaiming our resources from the war industry, reinvesting in life-giving services, and repairing collaborative relationships with the earth and people around the world.”
Such aspirations seem Pollyanna-ish in scope and vague in operation, but they can hardly be faulted for their intent.
The Dissenters took to the activist road, being part of a week-long effort in October 2021 comprising students at 16 campuses promoting three central objects: that universities divest all holdings and sever ties with “the top five US war profiteers: Boeing, Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, Raytheon and General Dynamics”; banish the police from campuses; and remove all recruiters from all campuses.
Demanding divestment from specific industries is a task complicated by the opacity of the university sector’s funding and investment arrangements. Money, far from talking, operates soundlessly, making its way into nominated accounts through the designated channels of research funding.
Every university should, as part of its humane intellectual mission, divest from the military-industrial complex in totality. It will help to see the books and investment returns, the unveiling, as it were, of the endowments of some of the richest universities on the planet. Follow the money; the picture is bound to be ugly.
The views expressed in this article belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Middle East Monitor.
