On April 22, students set up a camp at the University of Michigan to demand the university’s complete withdrawal from genocidal Israel. In doing so, they joined dozens of other universities across the United States in showing solidarity with the Palestinian people facing genocide at the hands of the Israeli army. Israeli forces have killed more than 34,500 Palestinians, including 14,500 children, in Gaza and nearly 490, including 124 children, in the occupied West Bank.
What I have seen as a member of the Michigan camp is inspiring.
The protest was joined by students of various ethnic and religious backgrounds, including Palestinians and Jews, people of Arab and South Asian descent and others. Many community members spend time in and around the camp: protecting it, distributing food and learning.
The camp has become a place for mutual help and support, discussion and political education. Students learn to organize together and create rotating schedules for patrols, medical and food services.
Over the past week, students have held lectures on topics ranging from problematic university investments to environmental colonialism, solidarity with other indigenous groups such as Armenians, and poetry readings by Palestinians. Films such as “Israelism” and “The Present” are shown to raise awareness of current political agendas and the reality of oppression. Like other universities, we have also set up a Palestine Library where anyone can borrow books on Palestinian history or political thought and learn more about the liberation movement.
So far, the only riots by pro-Israel students have been sparse, with their counter-protests attracting three to 10 participants. They proudly hold their Israeli flags in front of pickets displaying the faces of killed Palestinians.
Camp organizers have set up their own police liaisons and legal observers, believing that “we protect each other.” This prevented confrontations that could lead to police intervention. Michigan University administration has allowed the camp as long as it doesn’t “disrupt” next week’s graduation ceremony. Apparently the murder of Palestinians is not seen as disturbing.
Despite the non-violent nature of our camp and similar camps across the country, we have faced allegations of anti-Semitism, as have all other protests on campuses across the country. But branding anti-genocide protests as anti-Semitic is not only absurd but also dangerous.
Such a designation links Judaism, a peaceful religion, with Zionism, a political ideology that emerged in the 19th century. The conflation is dangerous because it falsely claims that all Jews do what the Israeli government and settlers do, thereby denying diversity within the community and fueling conspiracy theories about “dual loyalty.” As our camps demonstrate, this false equivalence cannot be further from the truth. On many campuses, Jewish groups were at the center of pro-Palestinian mobilization.
We Palestinians did not choose the identity of our oppressors, and yet we are constantly asked to confront fears about the spread of anti-Semitism. Do children in Gaza care about the religion of the pilots of the Israeli warplanes that rain bombs on them and kill their mothers and fathers?
We should not forget that white supremacy has been and remains the greatest problem facing the Jewish community in the United States and beyond. It is a simple fact that American officials and institutions continue to ignore.
We see more reactions from them to students protesting genocide than to “terrorists” killing innocent people at the Tree of Life synagogue or to white supremacists strolling the streets of Charlottesville shouting anti-Semitic chants .
Why? Because if privileged students are willing to commit to a Palestinian future in schools designed to nurture the next generation of imperialists, then that means the colonial stranglehold on Palestine, on American youth, on Western society as a whole is failing – and that frightens those who will benefit from Palestinian colonization and colonization throughout the global south. If students are willing to fight so vehemently for Palestine, then they will not stop there.
This is why brutal force was used across the US to crack down on protests at various universities: from Columbia University and New York University to Emory University, the University of Texas at Austin and the University of Southern California.
But instead of putting down the uprising, the brutalization of students and teachers has galvanized young people not only in the United States but in other countries as well. With every arrest, every suspension and every attempt to silence us, official institutions and university administrations have only increased support for the Palestinian cause.
What is happening in Palestine is arguably the human rights issue of our time, and the US response to pro-Palestinian protests has made it the free speech issue of our time. Every student, every protester feels honored to stand up for the liberation of Palestinians, fight U.S. complicity in Israeli atrocities, and oppose colonialism.
Yet we are under no illusions that what we endure during the struggle on campus is in any way comparable to the Israeli occupation.
Our fellow students in Gaza have not only lost family, friends, professors and fellow students, but also all of their universities. Until their universities reopen, until they have the freedom to learn again, we will make our campuses platforms for their voices, to educate the world about their plight. Our tents, much like Palestine itself, are going nowhere and remain steadfast in the face of adversity until victory: the total break away from Israel and ultimately the liberation of Palestine.
The smear campaign accusing us of anti-Semitism and police brutality continues. But as these headlines make headlines, we must remind ourselves and our supporters: all eyes must remain on Gaza.
The constant reporting on the student movement must not distract from the systematic war crimes in Gaza. The focus must remain on the mass graves that continue to be discovered across the Gaza Strip, including at al-Shifa and Nasser hospitals; about the forced starvation of the Palestinian people while Israel continues to pretend to “increase aid” but in reality uses it as a weapon of war; about the ongoing Israeli bombings that kill children, women and men at shocking rates every day; about the threatened invasion of Rafah and Israel’s attempts to cover up the crimes it will commit by pretending to have plans to “evacuate” the civilian population.
In the midst of these dark times, what is happening on U.S. campuses fills me with inspiration and hope. This is what a Palestinian future might look like: Jews perform Passover rituals while Muslims pray Maghrib; Parishioners of all faiths break bread together; People of all backgrounds taking part in collective liberation – a Palestine that predated the British Mandate.
I dream of my home where I can sit in the shade of the trees my grandparents planted and see freedom and feel freedom. And this dream is getting closer to fulfillment every day.
The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect the editorial stance of Al Jazeera.