The Columbia Palestine Solidarity Coalition is a collective of Palestinian student organizers who wish to reclaim the pro-Palestinian student movement and recenter Palestine at Columbia University.
The Columbia Palestine Solidarity Coalition is a collective of Palestinian student organizers who wish to reclaim the pro-Palestinian student movement and recenter Palestine at Columbia University. Some of us have been involved dating back to the twostatements that sparked the historic October 12 protest and helped co-found Columbia University Apartheid Divest. Others are first-years who felt drawn to this campus precisely because of its widespread support for Palestinian liberation. We hail from various religious backgrounds and levels of proximity to our homeland—from the Western diaspora, to refugee camps, to Gaza, to the West Bank, to the 1948 lands. Now, over a year into Israel’s genocide against our people, we wish to disaffiliate from CUAD and create a Palestinian-led coalition for divestment from Zionist occupation and apartheid.
When CUAD reactivated in November 2023 following the illegitimate suspension of Columbia’s chapters of Students for Justice in Palestine and Jewish Voice for Peace, it was to continue campus mobilization for divestment despite the draconian efforts of the Columbia administration to stifle it. Since then, CUAD has made history by sparking the international student intifada of encampments and occupations, from New York City to Australia. Despite this feat, we believe that the needs of the student movement 378 days into the decimation of Palestine—and now Lebanon—are different from what they were at its genesis.
The most televised genocide of all time has been unfolding on our screens for over one full year. The occupation is estimated to have stolen upwards of 100,000 lives, according to a group of American medical professionals who served in Gaza. These aren’t just numbers—these were our friends and family members. Month after month, we watched with horror as members of the Israeli Occupation Forces—forces whose primary function is not defense, but rather the continued subjugation of Palestinians—posted themselves looting Palestinian homes and posing with lingerie, as the United Nations released images of mass graves at hospitals of Palestinian bodies with their hands tied, as photos of a kidnapped Palestinian man forced to walk on amputated leg stumps proliferated on Twitter, as CCTV footage of IOF soldiers committing sexual violence against Palestinian hostages in internment camps provoked Israeli protests in the soliders’ defense. We have all seen the videos of the fathers carrying the shredded remains of their children in plastic bags, of the wives sobbing over their husbands’ bloodied shoes, of the siblings cradling each other’s corpses, and felt as if they were our own. The overwhelming guilt and necessity to act has suffocated us for the past year, from before the October 2023 campus vigil for the first hospital bombing of Al-Ahli Hospital to the daily ongoing reading of the names of our martyrs—many of whom share our own names—on Low Steps in October 2024.
The Zionist occupation has blocked the entry of virtually all humanitarian aid into northern Gaza since October 1. For two weeks straight, over 100,000 Palestinians have been trapped under a military siege on the Jabalia district within the broader siege on Gaza. Palestine’s U.N. envoy described northern Gaza as a “genocide within the genocide.” Starved and unable to flee, the Palestinians of northern Gaza are “waiting for death” due to the occupation’s “General’s Plan” for ethnic cleansing, whereby anyone who remains will be killed. At least 450 people have already been murdered under this recent campaign. As recently as Friday and Saturday, the occupation struck hospitals and a refugee camp and cut off all communication and Internet networks in the north, blinding the rest of the world to their atrocities. As we worked on this op-ed, the IOF began rounding up and blindfolding dozens of Palestinians in northern Gaza to be taken into captivity.
Meanwhile in central Gaza, the IOF used a drone to target a Palestinian child and then dropped missiles onto the civilians who came to his aid. Over the past week, the IOF committed massacres against Palestinians sheltering in a school in Nuseirat and patients in refugee tents at Al-Aqsa Hospital in Deir al-Balah. We saw the video of 19-year-old Shaban Ahmed al-Dalou burning alive with his IV still attached, two days before his 20th birthday, and dragged ourselves to class with our hearts on fire. It pains us to realize that the student body no longer seems to know the updates on the ground. Our peers are unaware of the severity of the situation because CUAD has lost focus, opting to center individual organizers and revolutionary ideals over our core demands. Statements and actions by CUAD in recent months have alienated and abandoned Palestinian students in the name of pursuing ideology.
In writing this, we do not wish to sow discord or deal a blow to the student movement as it exists—on the contrary, we hope to reclaim our original focus and energy. We, too, envision a liberated Palestine and collective liberation for all marginalized peoples. But we are not a political party. Why would we amplify anything other than divestment from the bombs dropping on our people’s heads as we speak? We regret that CUAD has shifted from a horizontally structured coalition founded on Palestinian liberation to a nebulous organization that is not led by the affinity group of Palestinian student organizers. As a people already denied the right to narrate our struggle, let alone the right to exist, we refuse to have our liberation dictated for us. We refuse to allow anyone to speak over us any longer.
If CUAD will not center Palestine or listen to our concerns, then we must. Palestinians deserve a movement focused on Palestine, with clear goals and demands from a University with extensive ties to the occupying state. This unfortunately no longer seems possible with the current coalition as it stands. We would prefer to think of this as a refocusing and grounding move—one that is part of a natural progression within movement-building. Regrouping is often not only inevitable, but also necessary within social movements. By forming a new Palestinian-led coalition dedicated to divestment, we evolve and redirect: Palestine will be the compass of the pro-Palestinian movement on campus, with Palestinian students its bearers. To do so, we universally uphold two political tenets: the right to return and the right to resist.
The Columbia Palestine Solidarity Coalition supports the right of return for Palestinian refugees and their descendants as enshrined in article 13(2) of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and U.N. General Assembly’s resolution 32/90. The United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees was created in 1949 in response to the forced displacement of over 700,000 Palestinians during the 1948 Nakba that established the State of Israel—today, it serves roughly 6 million Palestinians who have been denied their right to return by the occupation. Palestinians were already the largest stateless population worldwide prior to the current genocide, which has forced nine out of 10 Gazans—1.9 million people—to flee from one unsafe place to another while under siege. Grandparents who survived the Nakba are now being ethnically cleansed again decades later, while their grandchildren who were born after 2007 have never set foot outside of Gaza due to the longstanding blockade. All of them have the right to return, both legally and morally.
Similarly, we unequivocally reaffirm the Palestinian people’s right to resist as enshrined in Additional Protocol 1 to the Geneva Conventions and the U.N. General Assembly’s resolution 37/43. This latest year of the over 77-year-long subjugation of our people has finally opened the eyes of the world to the selective enforcement of international law and the impotence of traditional avenues for justice. Nicaragua, Belgium, Colombia, Turkey, Libya, Egypt, Maldives, Mexico, Ireland, Chile, Spain, and Bolivia have all intervened or announced their intention to intervene in South Africa’s case in the International Court of Justice charging the Zionist occupation with genocide. Separately, in July 2024, the ICJ ruled that the occupation of the West Bank and Gaza prior to the genocide is illegal and must end immediately. In May, the chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court applied for an arrest warrant for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Since then, American senators and Zionist leaders have openly threatened the ICC, the United Nations has hosted Netanyahu to speak right here in New York City, and the occupation barred the U.N. secretary-general from entering the country. When a state wields such unchecked power, defying global institutions and evading accountability at every turn, what avenues for justice remain for those under siege and now facing genocide? In the face of such impunity, resistance becomes not just a right, but a necessity. Equally and firmly, we wholeheartedly disavow any violence outside of this context.
Bearing this in mind, as Palestinian student organizers, we ask you to join us in shifting the discourse back to divestment. By recentering Palestine, we reignite pressure against the University to halt its complicity in the eradication of the Palestinian people. If we matter to Columbia, then the University must:
1. Divest from companies and weapons manufacturers profiting from Israeli apartheid and genocide, noting that 76.55 percent of participating Columbia College students, 74.52 percent of participating School of Engineering and Applied Science students, and 90.99 percent of participating Barnard students voted in favor during 2024 referenda.
2. Cancel the opening of the Tel Aviv Global Center, given that Palestinian affiliates of Columbia would be restricted from access to this program due to Israel’s apartheid policies; and further noting that 68.36 percent of participating Columbia College students, 68 percent of participating SEAS students, and 85.26 percent of participating Barnard students voted in favor during 2024 referenda.
3. Cease the dual degree partnership with Tel Aviv University for the same reason, noting that 65.62 percent of participating Columbia College students, 62.37 percent of participating SEAS students, and 82.45 percent of participating Barnard students voted in favor during 2024 referenda.
4. Stop the School of General Studies’ pipeline of Israeli soldiers who are complicit in war crimes against the Palestinian people and neighboring sovereign countries since October 2023.
To quote “Solidarity Forever,” a tune familiar to anyone who passed by the encampment: “We can bring to birth a new world from the ashes of the old.” Stand with us in holding Columbia accountable as we birth a new world, together.
Columbia Palestine Solidarity Coalition is a Palestinian-led coalition reclaiming the fight for divestment on Columbia’s campus and for Palestinian liberation abroad. Your student group can join them by emailing cupalsolidaritycoalition@gmail.com, and you can follow them on Instagram at @columbia.psc.