Letter to the editor:

Recently, more than 500 student activists from around the country converged on Tufts University for the fourth annual National Students for Justice in Palestine Conference. Run entirely for students by students, this year’s conference centered on the importance of joint struggle in the movement for justice in Palestine — that is, the imperative of connecting the movement to achieve freedom for Palestinians to efforts to dismantle racism, colonialism and imperialism both in the United States and abroad. We were joined not only by seasoned Palestine solidarity activists and those who have personally experienced the structural violence of the Israeli occupation, but also by organizers from the black, Latino, Filipino and LGBTQ communities, who emphasized the unity of their struggles with that of the Palestinians.

Our experience attending this year’s conference was at once inspirational and humbling. In the past year, as the burgeoning Palestine solidarity movement has grown in momentum in the face of continued Israeli human rights abuses and the collapse of the so-called “peace process,” efforts to silence pro-Palestinian, voices on campus have only intensified.  

Witness the temporary suspension of Northeastern University’s SJP chapter earlier this year for distributing mock eviction notices — meant to simulate those routinely served upon Palestinian families before their homes are demolished days later — to student dorms. Or the arbitrary de-hiring of Steven Salaita at the University of Illinois for his outspoken criticism over Twitter of Israel’s brutal assault on Gaza this summer. These incidents are a sobering reminder of the taboo surrounding legitimate criticisms of Israeli policies.

Despite this well-funded and concerted campaign to suppress pro-Palestinian voices, the student activists we met — Jews, Muslims, Christians and atheists alike — remained steadfast in their commitment to ending their universities’ complicity in the Israeli occupation and to standing with other marginalized communities. The same activists leading conversations on planning divestment campaigns and responding to false charges of anti-Semitism, for instance, were those at the front lines of the movements to end mass incarceration and police militarization. Indeed, many had traveled from their hometowns to protest police brutality in Ferguson, chanting slogans like “From Ferguson to Palestine, end racism now!” Immediately, we were comforted by the sense of belonging we found yet reminded of the work still to be done in our own communities.

As campus and community organizers, we often feel disconnected from the reality on the ground in Palestine: it is one thing to protest Israel’s wanton killing of over 2,000 Palestinians — more than 70 percent of them civilians — on the streets of Columbus this summer, or to educate fellow students on Israel’s illegal separation wall. It is quite another to actually live in Gaza, which has been described as the world’s largest open-air prison, or to be shot at with tear gas and rubber (and sometimes live) bullets while engaging in weekly non-violent protests against the separation wall in the West Bank city of Bil’in.

However, if there was anything that was confirmed to us, it is that injustice and inequality remain alive and well in Israel/Palestine, and so too must the struggle for Palestinian freedom and self-determination. Yet this struggle will not be complete until the colonization and occupation of indigenous lands and peoples at home and abroad cease, nor until violence against women and black, indigenous and migrant people comes to an end. We call on all those who stand with the oppressed and marginalized to join us in ending our university’s complicity in the Israeli occupation and in demanding a world of freedom, equality and justice for all people. 

Brian Yeh
Member, Committee for Justice in Palestine
[email protected]


Cruz Bonlarron Martinez
Publicity Director, Committee for Justice in Palestine
[email protected]


Seema Sandhu
Co-secretary, Committee for Justice in Palestine
[email protected]


Majd Zuhour
Co-secretary, Committee for Justice in Palestine
[email protected]