ATHENS — Students for Justice in Palestine organized a march to call attention to current events in the Middle East and to send a message to Ohio University to divest from Israel.
Nearly 200 protestors participated in a peaceful protest that began Wednesday at Bicentennial Park and ended at Cutler Hall, the longtime home of OU’s administration. There were OU professors who joined the march but there didn’t appear to be any top administrators in the crowd.
More than 34,000 Palestinians have been killed in the conflict in the Gaza Strip, according to the Health Ministry there. Israel launched its offensive in Gaza after Oct. 7, when Hamas militants killed about 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and took roughly 250 hostages in an attack on southern Israel.
Before the march began, lead organizers advised people to turn off their cell phones so if they were confiscated by law enforcement, police would not be able to “tap” into the phones to retrieve messages.
There was no police presence during the march nor were any arrests made.
Marchers carried banners in support of Palestine and chanted slogans such as “Free, Free Palestine” and “OU divest, OU divest!”
As people left the Baker University Center, there was a small group of people holding the flag of Israel. Though the different groups were cordial with each other, each side stayed true to their message and point of view.
People gave speeches at the beginning and end of the march.
Dave McNally of the Jewish Voice for Peace explained that it is not anti-Semitic to out Israel.
“Being a Jewish person who grew up in southeastern Ohio, it’s sometimes rough,” he said. “You kind of feel like you’re on your own here. But I do want to say it’s definitely not anti-Semitic to call out Israel and to call out in apartheid state when it exists. These are our Jewish beliefs that you stand up for.”
McNally continued, “We just had Passover. Part of Passover is freeing people from bondage. And right now we have a whole class of people in Palestine who are treated as second class citizens. This is not OK. This is not OK for Jewishness and the institutions that we currently have pulled up that system and defend Israel at all costs. And we say, enough is enough.”
Ohio University senior Tal Mars spoke about how she deconstructed Zionism while maintaining her Jewish faith.
“The most basic lessons of Judaism taught me, and I quote, ‘you shall not murder.’ Yet Israel perpetuates genocide. You shall not steal. Yet Israel continues to fight for land claim that is not solely theirs. You shall not stand idly by the blood of your brother. Yet, you do not even see them as brothers, do you? Not even as even humans.”
Reflecting on Passover, Mars said, “At the end of the Passover story, the Israelites are given their promised land. Today, Jews and non-Jews alike must ask themselves what a promised land means in the modern context of today. I stand firmly in the permanent ceasefire movement and urge Zionists to consider these questions. What Israel are you fighting for? One with decades of bloodshed. One with plans for more bloodshed in the future, one that contradicts the values it supposedly teaches.”
Noting that commencement ceremonies are this weekend, OU senior Henry Turner asked students to remain committed to the cause.
“We are about to leave Ohio University, but we are not about to forget,” he said. “Our demands will not change. We will not forget that our tuition funds apartheid and our tuition funds genocide. You do not have to stop taking action even if you are not here on campus. There are protests and there are movements, and there are sit-ins all over…I’m sure that there are some in almost all of your cities. Continue to take action. Do not forget!”
According to the Associated Press, New York Police ordered pro-Palestinian protesters to abandon a tent encampment at New York University early Friday, following weeks of demonstrations and police crackdowns at college campuses nationwide that have resulted in more than 2,300 arrests.
Israel has branded the protests antisemitic, while Israel’s critics say it uses those allegations to silence opposition. Although some protesters have been caught on camera making antisemitic remarks or violent threats, protest organizers — some of whom are Jewish — call it a peaceful movement to defend Palestinian rights and protest the war.
President Joe Biden has defended the students’ right to protest peacefully but decried the violence and disruption of campus life.
At University of California, Los Angeles, more than 200 people were taken into custody early Thursday, after hundreds of protesters defied orders to leave, some forming human chains as police fired flash-bangs to break up the crowds. Police tore apart a fortified encampment’s barricade of plywood, pallets, metal fences and dumpsters, then pulled down canopies and tents.
Arrests have been made during at least 58 crackdowns on protesters at 44 colleges or universities since April 18, according to figures based on Associated Press reporting and statements from universities and law enforcement agencies.
University of Minnesota officials reached an agreement with protesters not to disrupt commencements, and similar compromises have been made at Northwestern University in suburban Chicago, Rutgers University in New Jersey and Brown University in Rhode Island.
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