UK students at elite universities join pro-Palestine protests in full swing | Protest news

London, England – At 3am last Wednesday, as the rain fell, pro-Palestinian students at Bristol University set up camp opposite a study center on campus.

Eugenia and five other student activists who met at previous protests put up four tents together. But despite the cold, more appeared over the next few nights.

“Now it has grown to at least 20 tents, with lots of people rotating in and out, usually about 30 (people) in the camp during the day. But sometimes it’s more if we have a specific event,” Eugenia, an organizer with the Bristol Group for Palestine, told Al Jazeera.

“Staff and students stopping by to express their support and ask how they can get involved is also so encouraging,” Eugenia said. “The movement to divest and fight for a free Palestine is much bigger than university executives like to pretend.”

The camp has communal supplies such as food, face masks, COVID-19 tests and books on Palestinian history. There are also leaflets explaining the rights of protesters, as well as leaflets about how Bristol is ‘complicit in genocide’.

At the heart of their demands, the students demand that their university cut ties with companies that contribute to Israel’s war effort, including BAE Systems.

The British defense firm partly manufactures F-35 fighter jets that have been used by the Israeli military in Gaza.

“My university has millions of pounds in partnerships with companies that arm Israel. I don’t think it’s complicated to believe that an institution’s complicity in violent colonialism, apartheid, ethnic cleansing and genocide is bad,” said Eugenia, who added that they had been in contact with their colleagues at Warwick University in England. and those protesting in the United States and Canada.

University security workers asked them to leave, but were not threatened with any disciplinary action.

“Although, we wonder if that will change after (Prime Minister) Rishi Sunak’s meeting with UK vice-chancellors.”

British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak told his cabinet on Tuesday that there had been an “unacceptable rise in anti-Semitism” on UK campuses.

He is meeting with university heads on Thursday.

“Universities should be places of rigorous debate, but also bastions of tolerance and respect for every member of their community,” Sunak said.

Earlier this month, the Union of Jewish Students, which says it represents 9,000 people in Britain and Ireland, said the pro-Palestine camps were “creating a hostile and toxic atmosphere on campus for Jewish students”.

Thousands of UK students have joined global student-led protests against Israel’s latest and deadliest war on the Gaza Strip, which has killed an estimated 35,000 people in just seven months. The historic Israel-Palestine conflict escalated after Hamas, which rules the Strip, attacked southern Israel. During his attack, 1,139 people were killed and hundreds were taken prisoner.

Britain has not seen the kind of violent scenes on campuses that the US has, including heavy police crackdowns and clashes between protesters and counter-protesters.

British students say their rallies are peaceful and are joined by many Jewish students and scholars.

On Tuesday, the Jewish Society at the London School of Oriental and African Studies said it stood “shoulder to shoulder” with those uniting for Gaza.

Sunak’s announcement came after the universities of Oxford and Cambridge, which have long taught Britain’s elite, joined Monday’s protests. Most British prime ministers studied at Oxford, including Sunak and his four predecessors, while others graduated from Cambridge.

At the time of writing, neither the University of Bristol nor the University of Cambridge had responded to Al Jazeera’s request for comment.

The Cambridge Group for Palestine said Trinity College, Cambridge University’s second largest college, “has invested millions in companies that directly support Israel’s genocide”.

Middle East Eye recently reported that Trinity invested more than £60,000 ($75,000) in Elbit Systems, an international military technology company and defense contractor based in Israel, and millions in Caterpillar, a heavy equipment company in The US supplying the Israeli army with bulldozers. Other companies include General Electric, Toyota, Rolls-Royce, Barclays Bank and L3Harris Technologies.

“Our solidarity is especially important now that these decades of ethnic cleansing have culminated in Israel’s genocide of Palestinians, including the destruction of every university in Gaza.”

“It starts with students and spreads from there”

In some cases, universities have made deals with their dissident students.

In Ireland, for example, Trinity College Dublin agreed to divest from Israeli companies linked to illegal settlements after just days of student protests.

On Friday, Goldsmiths, University of London accepted five demands from activists who have staged protests throughout the Gaza war.

Action led by the Goldsmiths for Palestine group has resulted in scholarships for Palestinian students and a commitment to an ethical investment policy. A lecture hall will also be renamed after veteran Al Jazeera journalist Shireen Abu Akleh, who was killed by Israeli forces in the occupied West Bank in 2022.

Leonie Fleischmann, senior lecturer in International Politics and Human Rights at City, University of London, said that as some students achieve their goals and more protests break out, the “momentum” must be maintained.

“If we’re talking about the role of protests and pressure, it has to go beyond what’s happening in Gaza (right now) to what’s next. So it’s a space to watch, in terms of the role of protests throughout the Israeli-Palestinian conflict,” she said.

“If you look at the anti-apartheid movement (in South Africa) and the Vietnam War, students around the globe were significant in creating change and influencing their governments to hold other governments accountable.”

Danna, a student organizer at Goldsmiths, told Al Jazeera that negotiations with university management were “frustrating”.

“The first meeting they had with us, they kind of complimented us and said they thought it was great that we were expressing ourselves and that it was very ‘Goldsmiths-y’ of us,” she said. “Later, through staff members, we found out that at the same time they said in closed-door meetings that they were thinking of calling the police on us.”

She believes their demands were finally accepted because of the growing global student movement.

“It has been the case countless times throughout history that it starts with students and spreads from there.

“We certainly feel in solidarity with students in the US and everywhere. And I think for all of us to focus on the Palestinians right now is very important.”