On anniversary of war in Gaza, students rally at UC Santa Cruz

Before the clock even struck noon on Monday, two police officers pulled into the Quarry Plaza parking lot at UC Santa Cruz in an unmarked Ford SUV. Sometime later, two more marked cars stopped just up the street from the lot.

On the one-year anniversary of Hamas’ attack on Israel and the deadly war in Gaza that followed, about 150 students and supporters bearing signs, keffiyehs and Palestinian flags rallied at UCSC’s Quarry Plaza on Monday afternoon.

By late afternoon, dozens of protesters had made their way to the county jail after hearing that one of them had been arrested. Campus police referred questions about arrests to the UC Santa Cruz spokesperson’s office, which did not immediately respond to questions.

The rally was just the first part of a daylong program organized by Students for Justice in Palestine, the UC Santa Cruz chapter of Jews Against White Supremacy and the Revolutionary Student Organization. 

A representative for Students for Justice in Palestine condemned the University of California system for its handling of protests against Israel in the spring, when 122 people, including students and some faculty, were arrested when a protest encampment was broken up on the Santa Cruz campus. Organizers said the university is “upholding U.S. imperialism,” attacking free speech and ordering police brutality to be used on its students.

“Although oppression throughout the UC system has been uneven, each campus faces individual threats from the administration. It is critical to recognize a mass crackdown throughout the system and more specifically on our campus,” said a representative for Students for Justice in Palestine. 

A representative of Faculty for Justice in Palestine also criticized the UC system, and said that it has failed to address the war as a genocide. The speaker added that faculty, staff and graduate students have been brutalized, arrested and punished by the university for showing their support to Palestine. 

“We will continue to exercise our right to dissent in the face of injustice and stand with our students and colleagues who face the repercussions of this genocide and backlash,” said the representative for Faculty for Justice in Palestine. “We will continue to break silence in the face of genocide and stand on the right side of history. We will continue to educate on Palestine, and mobilize for Palestine.” 

In between speakers, the crowd yelled chants of “Free Palestine” and “We will honor all our martyrs, all the children, sons and daughters.” Rally attendees waved Palestinian flags and held signs showing their support for Palestine. 

Rally organizers also passed out pamphlets with the phrase “Elections, no! Revolution, yes!” and argued that a vote for either U.S. presidential nominee this year is a vote for genocide. The pamphlet encouraged boycotting the upcoming election. 

A representative of the UC Santa Cruz chapter of Jews Against White Supremacy (JAWS) equated Israel’s treatment of Palestinians to that of the Nazis’ treatment of Jews in World War II, and said that Israel has shown that it “holds Palestinian life and livelihood in absolute contempt.”

“We all stand in solidarity with the Jews when they rose up against their Nazi killers in the ghettos and concentration camps,” he said. “So why are we all not standing in full solidarity with the Palestinian resistance fighters breaking out of their own Zionist-imposed ghettos such as Gaza?”

Another JAWS representative said the idea that the ongoing war could have been avoided if Hamas had not launched its Oct. 7 attack is flawed, because that would have required Hamas and the Palestinian people to “stay quiet and allow the conditions of the oppression to continue.” He added that it also does not take into account Israel’s status as a settler colony.

“It merely sanitizes it and makes it morally palatable to those who don’t know better,” he said.  “To claim sympathy for those suffering under Israel’s onslaught while condemning those who are actively fighting to defend them is hypocritical and paradoxical.”

The JAWS representatives said they will be particularly mindful of the conflict on Yom Kippur this year, which falls on Saturday.

“Jews around the world will reflect on and atone for our sins from the past year this Yom Kippur,” a representative told the crowd ahead of the day of atonement that is considered among Judaism’s holiest days. “We reflect on the atrocities that the state of Israel has committed against Palestinians in the name of Jewish nationalism, and atone for our complicity through denouncing Zionism whenever possible.”

Following the rally, organizers held discussions about Hamas’ and Palestinians’ accounts of the Oct. 7, 2023, attacks. The groups planned to hold more educational events and a fundraiser at the Santa Cruz Mission on Emmett Street later on Monday, followed by a vigil for Palestinians killed in the ongoing war at the clock tower Monday evening.

While students were rallying on the UC Santa Cruz campus Monday, another group of protesters gathered at Santa Cruz’s courthouse to put pressure on U.S. Rep. Jimmy Panetta over his support of Israel.

Rolla Alaydi, a Pacific Grove resident and author of a book about recipes and memories from Palestine, addressed the crowd and then spoke to Lookout about how she has been trying to get her family out of Gaza.

“Our home got bombed. The work is no no longer there,” Alaydi said. “They bombed the hospitals, the schools, so all my family, they now live in three different locations in South Gaza.”

Monday’s anniversary protest came as UC Santa Cruz officials and student and faculty protesters continue to be at odds over the fallout from last May’s encampment. Most of the 122 people arrested on campus in May still don’t know whether they’ll be formally charged, but several have sued the university over an automatic ban from campus that came with their arrest. UC Santa Cruz faculty have also joined a UC systemwide unfair labor practice claim related to those bans. 

University of California system President Michael Drake has asked the leadership of local campuses to pursue a zero-tolerance approach this fall to the kind of protests the UCSC campus saw last academic year. In a letter earlier this fall, he said that encampments are banned, and that protesters will not be allowed to block roads, paths, entrances or buildings on campus, or to use “masks to intimidate others or to conceal one’s identity after violating a law or policy.”

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