Campuses rise up against « Genocide Joe”

Report from Columbia University (New York)
by our correspondent, Alan Benjamin, editor of Socialist Organizer.

A vast movement has ignited the campuses. Students and teachers are mobilising against « Genocide Joe » (Biden) and demanding an end to all US military and financial aid to Israel. Unheard of since the Vietnam War.

Mass demonstrations against the genocide in Gaza have spread to the campuses. Students have set up tent camps and organised forums and debates. Initially, much of the mobilisation was spontaneous. The idea was: « We’re going to organise ourselves from below. We’ll decide for ourselves ». Obviously, as in every student movement, and in the absence of a genuine student union, there have also been attempts by various groups to make decisions in the place of students.

At Columbia University (New York), where it all started, the students organised their camp. The university president called in the police, who entered the campus and arrested 106 students. This crackdown sent things snowballing, with « For Palestine » camps springing up in dozens of universities.

The university administration is under enormous pressure from Biden to expel students and teachers who dare take part in these democratic discussions. But attempts by the media and the police to portray these gatherings as « anti-Semitic » have largely failed, simply because so many students who claim Jewish origins are taking part. It is hard to explain that these people are anti-Semites!

In several universities, students and teachers have been suspended for taking part in these meetings or for taking a stand to stop the US administration diverting billions of dollars of public funds to send arms to Israel. « Suspension » means that they have to leave the university premises, but a disciplinary board will then decide whether they are to be expelled.

But at Columbia, for example, three-quarters of the teachers have taken a stand in support of the students and have made a public statement and held a press conference. And the teachers’ unions are supporting them… On 23 April, hundreds of teachers gathered on campus with placards reading: « Hands off our students »; « Stop suspending students now »; « Restore university autonomy », and so on. This is setting a real puzzle for the university administration: how can they expel students in such conditions?

Socialist Organizer is part and parcel of this mobilisation. We are putting forward the slogans « lift the embargo », « stop the genocide » and « stop all military and economic aid to the State of Israel », but also to Ukraine and, indeed, against China, because it is the same imperialist war that Biden is fuelling.

Interview on 24 April by Camille Adoue
* The organisation which, in the United States, claims to be part of the Fourth International.

300 students arrested

On 24 April, a large demonstration by thousands of students was called to protest against the Senate vote to allocate 95 billion dollars in military aid to Israel, Ukraine and Taiwan. Three hundred students were arrested. And yet we know that even within the Biden administration, some people are openly saying, in essence: « These people in Israel are leading us into wars that we don’t want to fight, because we have other more important enemies: Putin and China. »

The trade union movement

The national leaders of the trade union movement did not take part in this movement. Under pressure from many union members, some leaders had begged Biden to support a ceasefire (these same leaders are calling for people to vote for Biden). In this election year, the Democratic Party, which fraudulently presents itself as a « friend of the labour movement », has made a deal with the union leaders to keep quiet. However, fight within the unions continues.

The spectre of 1968

What next? Many journalists have compared this movement with the huge student protests against the Vietnam War in 1968. In 1968, tens of thousands of anti-war young people beleaguered the Democratic Party’s presidential convention in Chicago (Lyndon Johnson, a Democrat, was then president). The 2024 Democratic convention will also take place in Chicago… Will it be Chicago 1968-repeat?