University Occupations Over Gaza

United Kingdom, April 30 (Pal Telegraph) - A wave of 'protest occupations' swept across UK university campuses in response to the Israeli attacks on Gaza at the end of December 2008. The movement has since increased in popularity amongst students as a show of support for the human rights of Palestinians.

The ‘occupation movement' started on 13 January 2009, when students at the School of Oriental and African Studies in London occupied the Brunei Gallery and issued a list of demands in connection with the atrocities committed in Gaza and the University's links to the arms industry.

The national media largely failed to report on the SOAS occupation and others that followed. But the occupying students spread the word themselves, and managed their own publicity via Facebook, Wiki, blogs and YouTube.

Between 13 January and 6 March 2009 there were at least twenty-seven occupations at UK university campuses: School of Oriental and African Studies, London School of Economics, Essex, King's College London, Birmingham, Sussex, Warwick, Manchester Metropolitan, Oxford, Leeds, Cambridge, Bradford, Queen Mary, Sheffield Hallam, Nottingham, Strathclyde, Manchester, Glasgow, Goldsmiths, Edinburgh, University of East Anglia, University of the West of England, St Andrews, University of East London, University of Arts London, Plymouth and Cardiff.

The UK undergraduates demanded scholarships to be granted to Palestinian students and, in some cases, to Israeli students who refuse to serve in the army.They issued official statements by the university administration, stating their support for the right of Palestinian students to education.

The shortest occupation, at Oxford, lasted seven hours and ended with significant and immediate concessions from the University administration. This included an agreement to the provision of scholarships to Palestinian students. In addition a pledge to examine and reconsider university investment in companies that have links with the military. The longest protest, at Manchester University, lasted thirty-one days, beginning on 4 February and ending on 6 March.

Solidarity was expressed for the Islamic University of Gaza, which was specifically targeted in the latest attack. Various forms of aid were promised for the university plus other educational institutions in Gaza that have suffered destruction in the attacks.

Fundraising was included on campus to provide financial support for the people of Gaza, with many occupations specifically calling for a Disasters Emergency Committee day of fundraising to be visibly promoted by university administration.The BBC had incensed the British public at large by refusing to televize an appeal for Gaza by the Disasters Emergency Committee in early January.

Many of the student occupations in London and Scotland were accompanied by occupations of BBC offices to protest this decision. A commitment was pledged to examine university investment portfolios with a view to divesting from companies implicated in the arms trade. Their stance completely against the occupation of Palestinian land; and ensuring immunity from reprisals for students involved in the occupation.Some occupations also demanded one or other form of boycotting Israeli goods and services, especially on campus.

In Scotland, all occupations demanded that the (national) contract with Eden Springs to provide bottled water on campus be revoked. Eden Springs is a UK company with unethical links to Israeli firms that source their water from the occupied Golan Heights.

In Birmingham, the boycott agenda included a demand not only to withdraw all goods illegally produced on Israeli settlements from university retail and catering outlets, but also to close the university account with Lloyds TSB and withhold renewal of its lease on campus. The bank is claimed to have instructed the Islamic Bank of Britain, in its capacity as a clearing bank, to terminate the account of the Palestinian charity Interpal.

The achievements of the occupation movement extend well beyond concessions. One has been managing to expose the hypocrisy of university administrations.

When the director of the LSE refused to issue a condemnation of the attacks on Gaza, claiming that the university does not take positions on political issues, the occupying students were quick to remind him that he personally made an overtly political statement in May 2007 condemning a UCU resolution on Israel. The t previous LSE administrations had also condemned South African apartheid and the Tiananmen Square massacre in 1989.

Another achievement is the successful alliances students forged with academic staff that are likely to endure in future and strengthen the activist base on campus. Perhaps the most significant achievement has been the shock waves the action sent through the system - from one end of the country to the other, and beyond, even inspiring two occupations on US campuses (at Rochester and NYU).

Educational institutions in this country can no longer take their students for granted - especially on the issue of Palestine.

By Mona Baker, Radical Philosophy