Even the pro-Palestine student movement is coming under increasing repression, with universities and the government tightening their grip on activism in solidarity with Palestine. This crackdown, driven primarily by the Trump administration’s bellicose tactics against foreign students involved in the movement, has ignited a broad response among students and activists who are organizing to fend off their right to protest and advocate for Palestinian rights.
Khalil, Mahmoud: The Case of Mahmoud Khalil and the National Outrage
The case of Mahmoud Khalil, a divisive pro-Palestine activist who is a leader of a Columbia student group, has brought the issue to national attention. There was an immediate and powerful outcry against Immigration and Custom Enforcement's (ICE) detaining Khalil, followed by widespread condemnation of Khalil ICE’s detention. Within more than a day, the petition urging his release had been signed more than 2.3 million times.
The Student Workers of Columbia, a union for a range of campus workers, also released a statement condemning actions by ICE and the Department of Homeland Security and calling for the university to restore its sanctuary policy to protect international students.
On March 10, more than 1,500 people marched through Manhattan, demanding Khalil be released, and a federal judge temporarily blocked his deportation. The outpouring of support for Khalil illustrated the bond among activists, who are resolute that they will not be cowed by repression. His case highlights the broader challenges facing the student movement for Palestine, which has faced a concerted assault for more than a year.
The Gaza Solidarity Encampments: A National Protest Movement
In Spring 2024, Activists across the US launched Gaza solidarity encampments at over 100 college campuses protesting Israel’s actions in Gaza and the overall apartheid system against Palestinians. These encampments were also intended to shed light on the complicity of U.S. universities in Israel’s anti-Palestinian policies, particularly through investments in Israeli firms and the U.S. weapons industry. The wave of encampments rapidly gained national attention, with comparisons to the historic student movements against the Vietnam War. But violent police raids and mass arrests on these protests only provoked more opposition from activists.
The Rising Number of Abuse and Activists Begging for a Response
The result has been a crystallizing of repressive state policies, as university administrators, politicians and the Trump administration ramped up efforts to suppress the pro-Palestine student movement. Decades of attacks resulted in activists increasingly pitting their focus on creating wider campaigns to mobilize people to resist these assaults. Emphasizing the need for solidarity in the face of repression, Sammie Lewis, a community activist based in Ann Arbor, Michigan who has been hit with felony charges for her participation in a Gaza solidarity encampment at the University of Michigan, concluded: “The more we are repressed, the more we will stand together,” Lewis said, emphasizing how the state repression has strengthened the movement.
Forming Community Support, Where to Drop the Charges
Lewis’s efforts have centered on mobilizing community support to have charges against activists dropped. They have sought to make the courtrooms packed with their supporters, at times compelling the courts to restrict the number of people who could come. The activists are saying they are not alone in the war they are waging, "We're going to the street in solidarity in different cities," so they're making a network. Lewis also spoke about how the lessons from the organizing experienced during the 2020 Black Lives Matter uprising have shaped their approach to the current struggle.
Through Solidarity at CUNY: The Case of the “CUNY 8”
Likewise in NYC, Lucien, an activist with the City University of New York (CUNY), has been organizing support for eight community activists who have criminal charges pending against them for their participation in the Gazan solidarity encampment at CUNY. Both CUNY and the University of Michigan stressed the necessity of mobilizing community backing because of the universities' public status, Lucien noted.
“Portraying people as outsiders who are caused to become a part of this outside agitator who is out to destroy a public university is almost negating the public in how a university should function, and also the very public nature of what CUNY is,” Lucien said, emphasizing the hypocrisy in calling activists “outsiders” when they’re merely fighting for the rights of Palestinian people on university public campuses.
The activists at CUNY have also received support from a variety of sources ranging such as political prisoners including Mumia Abu-Jamal. Lucien emphasized the stronger intergenerational solidarity coming from the older generation of the political prisoners, who are aware of the importance of the current struggle.
CUNY faculty members have also served as a prominent source of support for the student activists. During the encampment, rank-and-file union members blockaded the entrance of the protestors’ encampments and chanted “To get to our students, you’ll have to get through us,” and organized a wildcat sick-out against the attacks on the encampment.
A Lesson in Solidarity: Faculty Support and Resistance
CUNY faculty have been standing up since the beginning of the semester, the efforts contrasting sharply with union leadership, which Lucien slammed for not doing enough to support the movement. Similarly, faculty at the University of California went on strike to support students’ right to protest Israel, while at Rutgers University, faculty unions passed resolutions urging the university to divest from Israel. At CUNY, professors also voted to withdraw their own union from Israel, and in doing so echoed the clear message of solidarity with Palestinian students and their struggle for justice.
National Strategy: Battling Repression More Broadly
Lucien has also called for more national coordination and strategy among activists to counter the increasingly repressive environment. “The playbook is being replicated because these administrators are seeing what the other is doing. They’re in conversation with each other, coordinating national strategy around repressing the movement,” he said. Activists are calling for a coordinated national response to resist the suppression and deepen support for the movement.
From Closer to Free: The New Khalidi or What If We Had a Palestinian Pilgrimage?
Still, according to a Gallup Poll, we see unprecedented sympathy for the Palestinians among Americans and declining support for Israel, showing that despite the travails, there is an overall embrace of the Palestinian cause. Lewis thinks the repression is only making the movement harder to extinguish. “The charges are giving fuel to us to work more, to work harder for this cause,” they said, adding that the struggle for Palestinian rights is part of a wider fight against oppression.
Fighting for Palestinian Rights and Beyond
The pro-Palestine movement reaffirms its commitment to raising awareness about the repression it experiences and how it fits into larger struggles for justice. “We want people to know how it’s related to everything,” Lewis said, cautioning that if the rights of Palestinians are attacked today, similar attacks could be directed at other oppressed peoples in the future. “Now it’s for Palestine, but who’s next?”