Yossi Schwartz ISL (RCIT section in Israel/Occupied Palestine), 25.04.2024
In the picture of Columbia University, where pro-Palestinian use encampments of tents in protest against the support of the Biden administration to the genocide of the Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank, we see on the fence behind the tents pro-Israel propaganda and the protesters do not remove it. It proves that the pro-Palestinian students do not threaten Jews as the Zionists claim, and this lie serves as an attack on the right of speech—the right to protest against the genocide of the Palestinians.
The JVP, as a Jewish organization that is part of the protests, held a Pesach Seder (special celebration of freedom of slaves) calling for the liberation of the Palestinians from the repression and the mass killing by the Zionist apartheid state backed by Western imperialism.
The American ruling class, which profits from the war on Gaza by selling expensive weapons and ammunition bought by Israel from the US package aid of 26 billion dollars, while one million Americans are homeless, wants to destroy the protest and its servants from the university administration to the mass media, police and up to Biden are using their power against the protesters. However, these oppressive measures only increase the number of protesters.
The president of Colombia University called the police against the protesting students and arrested more than one hundred students at Columbia University to break the protest. The police also arrested 47 students at Yale University as the protest spread to universities country-wise. We have not seen such a large protest since the war in Vietnam.
The Zionists in Israel also call on Biden to smash the protest on the false ground that the protest is an expression of Anti-Semitism and terror. This call is not coming only from Netanyahu’s extreme right government but from the so-called Zionist opposition.
“Yair Lapid, the leader of the Zionist opposition, on Tuesday urged the Biden administration to act as pro-Palestinian demonstrations roiled American university campuses, and protesters held “seders” protesting US military assistance for Israel in its war against Hamas. Lapid’s call came amid a spate of significant demonstrations on college campuses from California to Massachusetts over the past week, some of which have included calls for violence and alleged harassment of Jewish students. On many campuses, protesters have set up unauthorized encampments of tents to press their demands, most notably at Columbia University in New York City”[i]
While students’ protests are significant and deserve support, they are not powerful enough to change society. Students, however, can come to the ports to help the workers who block weapons and ammunition to Israel. Students need to support the working class, which potentially has the power to paralyze the economy and change society through a socialist revolution. But for this, it is necessary to form in the USA a worker’s party with transitional demands like:
A sliding Scale of Wages and a Sliding Scale of Hours!
Worker’s control of the production!
Expropriation of Separate Groups of Capitalists, such as banks and the military industry.!
Picket Line leading to Defense Guards/Workers’ Militia and the Arming of the Proletariat and the revolutionary students!
Free education on all levels with living stipends!
Workers and poor farmer government!
Endnote
[i] https://www.timesofisrael.com/lapid-says-us-must-act-against-campus-antisemitism-anti-israel-protest-seders-held/