London, England – Last Wednesday at 3am, as it was pouring rain, pro-Palestinian students from the University of Bristol set up camp opposite a study center on campus.
Eugenia and five other student activists who had met at previous protests set up four tents. But despite the cold, more sprouted up over the next few nights.
“Now there are at least 20 tents and lots of people taking turns, usually around 30 [people] at camp during the day. But sometimes it is more when we have a specific event,” Eugenia, organizer of the Bristol for Palestine group, told Al Jazeera.
“It is also very encouraging that staff and students stop by to express their support and ask how they can get involved,” Eugenia said. “The movement for expropriation and the fight for a free Palestine is so much larger than university leaders like to claim.”
The camp has shared supplies such as food, face masks, COVID-19 tests and books on Palestinian history. There are also leaflets explaining the rights of protesters, as well as leaflets about Bristol being “involved in genocide”.
At the heart of their demands, students are demanding that their university cut ties with companies that contribute to Israel’s war effort, including BAE Systems.
The British defense company partially produces F-35 fighter jets that were used by the Israeli military in Gaza.
“My university has millions of pounds in partnerships with companies that arm Israel. I don’t think it’s complicated to think that an institution’s complicity in violent settler colonialism, apartheid, ethnic cleansing and genocide is bad,” Eugenia said, adding that they had been in touch with their fellow students at the University of Warwick in England and those protesting in the United States and Canada.
University security forces asked them to leave, but they were not threatened with disciplinary action.
“Although we wonder if that will change later [Prime Minister] Rishi Sunak’s meeting with British vice-chancellors.”
British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak told his Cabinet on Tuesday that there had been an “unacceptable rise in anti-Semitism” in universities across the United Kingdom.
He is expected to meet with university leaders on Thursday.
Earlier this month, the Union of Jewish Students, which says it represents 9,000 people in Britain and Ireland, said pro-Palestinian camps “create a hostile and toxic atmosphere on campus for Jewish students.”
Thousands of students across the UK have joined global student protests against Israel’s latest and deadliest war in Gaza, which has killed around 35,000 people in just seven months. The historic Israeli-Palestinian conflict escalated after Hamas, which rules the Gaza Strip, attacked southern Israel. The attack killed 1,139 people and captured hundreds.
Britain has not seen the same level of violence on university campuses as the United States, including violent police crackdowns and clashes between protesters and counter-protesters.
The British students say their rallies were peaceful and that many Jewish students and academics would join them.
On Tuesday, the Jewish Society at the School of Oriental and African Studies in London said it stood “side by side” with those campaigning for Gaza.
Sunak’s announcement came after Oxford and Cambridge universities, which have long educated Britain’s elite, joined the protests on Monday. Most British prime ministers studied at Oxford, including Sunak and his four predecessors, while several others graduated from Cambridge.
At the time of writing, neither the University of Bristol nor the University of Cambridge had responded to Al Jazeera’s request for comment.
The group Cambridge for Palestine said Trinity College, the University of Cambridge’s second-largest college, “has invested millions in companies that directly support the genocide in Israel.”
Middle East Eye recently reported that Trinity invested more than 60,000 pounds ($75,000) in Elbit Systems, an Israel-based international military technology company and defense contractor, and millions in Caterpillar, a U.S.-based heavy equipment company that supplies the Israeli army with bulldozers supplied. Other companies reportedly include General Electric, Toyota, Rolls-Royce, Barclays Bank and L3Harris Technologies.
“Our solidarity is especially important now, as this decades-long ethnic cleansing culminated in Israel’s genocide against the Palestinians, including the destruction of all universities in Gaza.”
“It starts with the students and spreads from there.”
In some cases, universities have reached agreements with their dissenting students.
In Ireland, for example, after just a few days of student protests, Trinity College Dublin agreed to divest from Israeli companies linked to illegal settlements.
On Friday, Goldsmiths University of London gave in to five demands from activists who protested in Gaza during the war.
The effort, led by the group Goldsmiths for Palestine, has resulted in scholarships for Palestinian students and a commitment to ethical investment policies. A lecture hall will also be named after veteran Al Jazeera journalist Shireen Abu Akleh, who was killed by Israeli forces in the occupied West Bank in 2022.
Leonie Fleischmann, a lecturer in international politics and human rights at City University of London, said “momentum” needed to be maintained as some students achieve their goals and more protests erupt.
“When we talk about the role of protests and pressure, they need to go beyond what is happening in Gaza right now and look at the next steps. Therefore, in this area, it is important to keep in mind the role of protests in the course of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict,” she said.
“If we look at the anti-apartheid movement (in South Africa) and the Vietnam War, students around the world were instrumental in bringing about change and pushing their governments to hold other governments accountable.”
Danna, a student organizer at Goldsmiths, told Al Jazeera that negotiations with university management were “frustrating”.
“When we first met us, they complimented us and said that they thought it was wonderful that we were expressing ourselves and that it was very ‘Goldsmiths’ of us,” she said. “We later learned through staff that at the same time they had spoken in closed-door meetings about considering calling the police on us.”
She believes her demands were ultimately accepted because of the growing global student movement.
“Throughout history it has happened time and again that it starts with the students and spreads from there.
“We definitely feel solidarity with students in the United States and everywhere else. And I think it’s extremely important for all of us right now to put the Palestinians at the center.”