Statement of Solidarity with Student Protests for Gaza
Monday, April 29, 2024
Peace Action New York State (PANYS) stands in solidarity with student activists on campuses across the United States who are peacefully protesting to demand that their universities divest from Israel due to its violation of international humanitarian law, perpetration of genocide in Gaza, and its ongoing occupation of the West Bank. We also commend those faculty members who have bravely and rightfully spoken out on behalf of students’ right to protest, joined protests, and put themselves between students and authorities. We are deeply concerned about the recent actions of certain university administrations to suppress on-campus demonstrations, and we call upon those administrations to stop weaponizing law enforcement to silence student protestors and to speak out against a pervasive media narrative that is inaccurately smearing peaceful student protestors as violent and antisemitic. We call upon university administrations to rescind suspensions and disciplinary actions taken against students who were peacefully protesting on their own campuses. In particular, as New Yorkers, we call upon Columbia University and New York University to ensure that all criminal charges brought against students arrested by the NYPD for their peaceful participation in Gaza Solidarity encampments be dropped immediately. We also call upon universities to rescind their suspensions of student groups who are peacefully organizing for divestment from Israel and against its brutal war on Gaza.
Most importantly, we amplify the message of students participating in Gaza Solidarity encampments across the U.S. We call upon university administrations to divest from Israel as it continues to violate international law in Gaza and the West Bank. We also continue to call upon our elected representatives and the Biden administration to do anything within their power to help end Israel’s war in Gaza and deliver urgently-needed humanitarian aid, including halting U.S. military aid and weapons shipments to Israel, restoring funding to the UNRWA, and calling for a immediate and permanent ceasefire
Peace Action New York State (PANYS) and its affiliated organization, Peace Action Fund of New York State (PAFNYS) remain committed to supporting student peace activists as they take action on campuses across New York State and in their local communities. The PAFNYS Campus Organizing Program has since 2011 provided mentorship and skills-building opportunities to student organizers working on college campuses across New York State to demand more peaceful U.S. policy that centers human rights and justice instead of endless military expansion, imperialism, and war. This past year, student organizers have organized teach-ins, held bake sales to fundraise for the Palestinian Children's Relief Fund, organized writing letters to Senators Schumer and Gillibrand, spoken at campus protests, and have called for university administrations to divest alongside the SUNY BDS coalition.
This week will mark the anniversary of the tragic Kent State University shooting on May 4, 1970 wherein the Ohio National Guard fired on student protestors demonstrating against the expansion of U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War into Cambodia, killing four and wounding 9. For many of the longtime activists in the Peace Action New York State network, the memory of this shocking event will be top of mind as we continue to watch Gaza Solidarity encampments grow on campuses across New York and the nation. Yet again, young people are at the frontline of a movement to oppose U.S. imperialism and war, and yet again, they are doing so at great personal risk to their safety and futures. Chillingly, in a visit to Columbia University last week, House Speaker Mike Johnson suggested that the National Guard should be called in to dismantle the encampments. This marks a critical point in the student peace movement, and it is now more important than ever to stand in solidarity with campus organizers across the state and the country. Young people have always been a driving force in movements for peace and justice, and we know from experience that they can and will change the world.
In Solidarity,
Peace Action New York State
