Last Thursday, as many of you know, an encampment was set up on the lawn in front of the Academic Commons facing the Office of the Chancellor. The organizers, DU for Palestine, have set forth an array of demands that must be met in order for the encampment to disperse, and administrators have set a dismal tone. According to an email from the Chancellor’s Office late May 12, there has been a “troubling increase in reports of unacceptable behavior, including antisemitism and disruption.”
To be clear, I have spent two nights at the encampment and I will continue to do so. I understand that at some point in the future, I might be arrested or even suspended from the school that I have poured my heart and soul into.
I deeply value this community and cherish all of the professors and fellow students who have shown their unwavering support. I also care for and wish nothing bad against those who disagree with what I am doing, even though those sentiments will likely not be reciprocated.
This article is an attempt to allow you to understand why I am doing this. It is also an attempt to show you that we are not anti-semitic and that we have received hate from fellow students that is deeply troubling and should be publicly available to all of those who belong to our community.
To be clear, we are advocating for this university to disclose its investments and divest from any company or organization that is supporting the state of Israel’s current inhumane and indiscriminate killing of innocent people. We are also demanding that the school publicly condemn the ongoing genocide and grant amnesty to all of the students and faculty who are exercising their freedom of expression.
A core tenant of what we are advocating for is the disbandment of a Zionist ideology that has resulted in the historical displacement and death of millions of Palestinians since the formation of the state of Israel. As the Israeli Historian Ilan Pappé states, “Zionism has many interpretations.”
Just like him, I am more concerned with defining Zionism in relation to the impact it has on people. Therefore, when I use the word Zionism, I am referring to an ideology that has been adopted by the Israeli state which views “Judaism as a national movement” that has the right and aspirations “to have as much of Palestine as possible with as few Palestinians as possible.”
Zionism, as I view it, is an ideology that has been used to excuse the colonization of indigenous people. What is happening today in Gaza is a response to the Hamas-led massacre that occurred on Oct. 7, but more importantly, it is a continuation of the ethnic cleansing that is symptomatic of every settler colonial regime throughout history. The U.S. genocide against Native Americans is not exempt from this trend either.
To be clear, I value the life of every human being and will speak up whenever I believe someone’s rights are being violated. This goes for my fellow Jewish students as well. I will always voice my concern whenever an act of anti-semitism occurs on campus. That being said, this closely held value is the reason why I am sleeping on a campus lawn. The most basic right, the right to life, is being violated in Gaza by the Israeli government.
It is imperative that I note that being against the Israeli government is not synonymous with being against the religion and identity that many Israeli citizens uphold and practice. Israel does not have a monopoly on the Jewish identity, and they do not define what it means to be Jewish. If this were the case, there would not be as many Jewish voices condemning the violence as there currently are within the encampment.
That being said, many of my fellow protestors have received hate that should be unequivocally condemned by the administration and anyone else who values this community.
One Jewish friend of mine who is involved in the protest, who has asked to remain anonymous, was told by Jewish counter-protestors that they are “Dumb as f*ck” and that they are a “self-hating Jew.” They were also told by one counter-protestor that “I’ll buy you a one-way ticket to Gaza and you will never come back.”
According to them, they were “deeply hurt to have such hateful and antisemitic remarks” said by “individuals that share the same identity.”
“I felt my Jewish identity and everything I have been through as a Jewish person was dismissed by the very same people that should understand that struggle” she continued. For my friend, this “is not a conflict about religion, this is a conflict about humanity.”
There has also been an unbelievable amount of homophobic remarks made to people at the camp. I have personally been called a “f*ggot” on multiple occasions. I am a heterosexual man, but a lot of my fellow protestors are not, and knowing that they are having to deal with blatant homophobia while standing up for people’s rights makes me sick to my stomach.
A lot of the protestors are people of color as well, and they have on at least one occasion had to deal with racist comments. Late last Friday night, one student walked by and screamed “Donald Trump should deport all of you.” Whether or not the remark was intentionally racist, telling people of color and international students that they do not belong here is deeply troubling.
I personally have dealt with other hateful remarks, including one guy calling me a “fat f*ck” and a group of students calling me and some other campers “r*tards” and “terrorists.” All in all, the comments are hurtful but they only deepen our reserve. They add fuel to our cause and remind us that although the media and the administration might portray us as the ones filled with hate, we are not.
Our policy to deal with these remarks is to ignore those who yell them at us. We do not respond or engage with people who verbally attack us, and this policy will continue. Therefore, this is not a back-and-forth situation. We are being attacked. We are not doing any attacking.
The administration has also threatened us on numerous occasions. A demand from the administration from the start is that we show our student IDs whenever we are asked to. With the exception of one occasion, we have refused this demand out of fear of repercussions down the road when our identity is made known. Last Saturday, they made numerous threats to coerce us into meeting this demand.
First, the administration threatened to call in the Denver Police during communication with protest leadership. Threatening the use of force against students who are peacefully protesting and then lying about it in last Sunday’s email is shameful, and the administration should seriously question using such a threat again. Having videos online of college students being handcuffed and potentially abused would be bad optics for those who consider attending this university. It also would traumatize us for years to come.
The second threat was made later that same day. The administration stated they would hand out interim suspensions to students who did not comply. All of the students in the encampment deeply care about their education and love the process of learning. Suspending these students would be a loss to classrooms and departments across campus. Throwing these critical thinkers in the trash would weaken the quality of this school’s academics.
Many of these students are also minorities with an array of backgrounds. Suspending them would greatly decrease diversity and put kids dependent on scholarships at risk of not being able to get an education. Suspending these students would therefore be discriminatory in nature, and the administration should consider this point as well before exercising this threat again.
Unfortunately, some of the leadership has already been threatened with a final warning in this respect. As of today, several members of the encampment were informed by the school that they will be suspended and not allowed on campus if we continue to not show IDs. For at least one member, this will mean losing their housing. Another member has been told by the university that they are only allowed to enter a particular set of buildings, and not doing so will result in arrest.
I write all of this to remind our community of two things. Firstly, we are not partaking in threatening behavior and are doing this because we are deeply sensitive to human rights violations. We care about people, and because of this we cannot stand by while tens of thousands are killed in a genocide our school is supporting, such as the program here catered to Lockheed Martin employees.
Secondly, we are risking a great deal for this cause. Not only are we risking arrest and suspension from this school, but we are risking our physical safety. I hope that police or fellow students do not harm us, but from what I have seen, it is more likely than one would think that one of us gets injured.
All I can ask of the community is to take in and reflect on what I have said in this article. I ask those who are uncomfortable with what we are doing to refrain from jumping to conclusions.
We are all good people, and deep down inside, I know that you are probably a good person as well. If you want to learn or participate, you know where to come.
