Content Warning: Genocide, racism, Islamophobia, transphobia, violence etc.
At 4:00am on April, 17th 2024, students at Columbia University in New York City began pitching tents on the University’s East Butler Lawn, launching what they labelled the “Gaza Solidarity Encampment”. By the following afternoon, the Columbia administration had already called in the police to break up the encampment, and 108 students had been arrested and dozens suspended.
Despite its speedy and brutal repression, or perhaps because of it, the Columbia Encampment sparked a movement which spread like wildfire. By May 3, almost 3000 protesters had been arrested at university campuses in the USA alone, and more than 130 American universities had seen encampments or sit-ins. The movement soon went global. On April 23, Students for Palestine established one of the first encampments outside of North America. From Egypt to Germany, Britain to Brazil, students took radical action, and often faced down state violence in doing so.
It was in this context that Students for Palestine Monash set up an encampment at Clayton Campus on May 1. In line with the demands of the global movement, we called for Monash to disclose its ties with weapons companies and with the State of Israel. We demanded an immediate end to these ties, and we called on the Australian Government to end its ongoing support for the genocide and cut its ties with Israel.
Monash maintains a litany of sordid ties with the arms industry, and is directly complicit in the genocide in Gaza. Their website boasts of their intention to “leverage the power of our research capabilities… to transform the future of the defence industry,” and that Monash is at the “forefront of Australian nuclear materials research.” In 2023, Monash’s “Aerospace Industry Advisory Board”, which advised on the course material for the Uni’s Aerospace Engineering degree, featured a litany of weapons industry leaders, most notably a leading manager at BAE systems – a weapons company which, among other things, takes part in the “development, manufacture, and sustainment” of the F-35 fighter jet, which is currently used by the IDF to bomb civilians in Gaza. The aerospace advisory board has since been removed from Monash’s website. Monash also maintains direct ties, including an exchange programme, with Tel Aviv University, which is not only a key pillar of Israel’s military-industrial complex, but also in the business of producing ideological and legal defences for Israeli practices of apartheid and occupation through its institutes and think tanks.
In light of this, it should come as no shock that the university’s attitude to the Encampment was hostile from the outset. Despite promising to do so, Monash management never addressed or responded to the demands of the Encampment. However, management wasted no time sending out an email to all students and staff barely four hours after the camp launched, warning student activists against engaging in anti-semitic, Islamophobic, or otherwise discriminatory behaviour, physical violence, property damage, or (god forbid!) disruption of university classes. When, the following night, a group of far-right Israel supporters (including serving IDF soldiers) attacked campers at one in the morning – destroying tents and marquees, stealing food, shouting transphobic and Islamophobic abuse, and loudly playing racist music – Monash was conspicuously silent. University security subjected us to hourly ID checks, while facilitating repeated incursions into the camp and harassment of campers by the far-right and supporters of Israel, and removed the barricades we set up to defend ourselves from these attacks. Monash attempted to ban students from saying popular pro-Palestine phrases, and finally ordered 9 leading activists to leave the Encampment lawn on threat of expulsion, in effect forcing the closure of the Encampment.
However, our camp was met with an incredible response from the Monash community. Hundreds of students and staff came by to show their support. We held rallies, teach-ins, and film screenings. Students joined us to paint pro-Palestine placards and banners. Palestinian students shared their families’ stories of dispossession and oppression at the hands of the Israeli state. Activists from the anti-Vietnam War era dropped in to teach us about the last round of radical protest at Monash. The Camp became a centre for political debate and education, with discussions on the role of the ALP, the history of free speech at university campuses, and the movement against apartheid in South Africa.
In general, the student encampments have been a crucial aspect of the Palestine movement internationally. Now almost 9 months into the genocide, the depth, breadth, and longevity of the movement is astounding. Yet western support for Israel has not faltered. It is vital that the movement remains dynamic; searching for creative ways to spread our message, reach new people, and put pressure on our genocidal ruling class and its institutions. While the encampments have generally not won their demands in the short-term, they have made an important contribution to this end. They put the issue of Palestine back in the centre of world politics, and brought an energy and radicalism which has revitalised the movement.
Every social movement needs its radical edge, and students have historically played that role, from Monash students raising money for the North-Vietnamese army in the 1960s to courageous high-schoolers in Soweto launching the decades-long struggle which brought down South African apartheid. The student encampment protests and Students for Palestine have tried to play that role for the Palestine movement in Australia. The encampments have involved hundreds of students in Palestine activism for the first time, and given the movement a real boost, but we have a long way to go, and there is much more to do. Every pro-Palestine Monash student has a crucial role to play in getting this university to divest from genocide, and fighting for Palestinian liberation. Get involved in Students for Palestine at Monash!