Speakers who did not disclose their identities during the protest are referred to as speakers in this article.
Students for Justice in Palestine, Jewish Voice for Peace, Academics for Justice in Palestine and UC Santa Barbara Divest held a series of teach-ins and a rally for their “Palestine Week of Life” from Nov. 18-21.
Protestors passed through the library during the Nov. 21 walkout and rally. Maddy Fangio / Daily Nexus.
The week was dedicated to “knowledge-making” to “deepen the basis of protest” and provide a space for Palestinian voices through Palestinian-led organizations, according to Academics for Justice (AJP) representative and English and global studies professor Bishnu Ghosh. It included “The Power of Place” teach-in by Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) and Academics for Justice in Palestine (AJP), “The Three Israels” teach-in by Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP), an AJP poems and banner workshop and an International University Day of Action walkout and rally.
SJP and AJP collaborate to host “The Power of Place” teach-in
SJP and AJP members hosted a “Power of Place” teach-in on Nov. 18 at 5 p.m. in the Social Science and Media Studies building. About 50 attendees listened to presentations given by SJP and AJP members about the history of Palestine and the call for liberation. The speakers included professors representing AJP and members of SJP.
The teach-in on Nov. 18 discussed the effects of history and geopolitics on Palestine and the Palestinian population, global activism for Palestinian liberation and the history and continuation of action on campuses including UCSB. Ghosh moderated the teach-in. According to Ghosh, the teach-in focused on Palestinian places that were threatened and erased.
“We wanted to think about ‘place’ as embodied and relational, not just property, to learn about the Palestinian past and to take part in imagining the future,” Ghosh said.
The first hour of the teach-in featured SJP’s lecture with a presentation titled ‘Liberation Beyond the Nation State.’ Speakers stated how the concept of a nation-state is a construct given meaning by humans that operates on homogenization and has formed a relationship with the Palestinian population centered around ethnonationalism through displacement and gentrification.
“The nation-state impacts all aspects of our lives–from our daily practices, media, language, education, down to the construction of family dynamics, ” an SJP speaker said.
SJP speakers explained the history and impact of the 1993 Oslo Accords, a series of policies dedicated to granting Palestine future self-governance and peace with Israel. The Oslo Accords instead subordinated the struggle for liberation and legitimized the state of Israel.
To conclude SJP’s portion of the teach-in, SJP speakers advocated for Palestine’s liberation from the nation-state framework by taking care of each other, and continuing to learn that no one is free until everyone is free.
“Lessons from Haiti, Cuba, Kashmir, the Black radical tradition, all of this refute the nation and provide a separate framework in which collective freedom, collective liberation, allows all of us beyond the framework of a nation-state and to escape the nation-state,” an SJP speaker said.
Speakers emphasized the importance of holding academic administration accountable for properly addressing student concerns by acknowledging where student organizations for the Palestinian liberation movement began. Student organization for the Palestinian liberation movement originated at the American University of Beirut where students began advocating for Palestinians to be liberated from Zionism and imperialism. According to an article in the academic journal Civil Wars, the pro-Palestinian movement at the university began in the years following the 1967 Six-Day War and the Lebanese Civil War which started in 1975.
“It’s unique compared to other forms of community organizing in that in the long history of student organizing in the U.S. Students have power over the administration that can easily be leveraged,” an SJP speaker said about student organization on campus.
An SJP member provided examples of student collective activism on UCSB’s campus, such as the protests against the Vietnam War in 1965, protests against U.S. engagement in Southeast Asia during the 1970s and the 1968 North Hall takeover by members of the Black Student Union.
“Historically, universities have always been at the forefront of revolutionary movements and hubs of activism, and UCSB has been no exception,” the SJP speaker said.
The second half of the teach-in was presented by members of AJP. The first featured speaker representing AJP was communication professor Walid Afifi, who talked about the impermanence and fleeting nature of home and how home holds different definitions from his perspective as a member of the Palestinian diaspora.
“We Palestinians understand that home is built by the love and care of generations and that home in all of its beauty and pain, home in all its love and sorrow, waits for us always,” said Afifi.
According to Environmental studies professor David Pellow, the restriction of environmental resources like agriculture and water under colonial control in Palestine has led to environmental injustice.
“Israelis have placed severe restrictions on Palestinian water usage. This is a fact, thus limiting the ability of Palestinian people to grow food on their own land, and of course, to feed their families and communities,” Pellow said
“The movement for a free Palestine is, and always has been, also a movement for food justice and food sovereignty,” Pellow said.
Sociology professor Lisa Hajjar said prisons in Palestine serve as a place where prisoners can learn and organize politically.
“But when you take so many people out of society and lock them away, there’s so many people in the prison that it really becomes a society in itself. They are living in the prisons,” Hajjar said.
Hajjar described the mass incarceration of Palestinian prisoners and how a Palestinian prisoner’s movement developed in the 1970s representative of resistance in the larger movement for Palestinian liberation.
“What Palestinian prisoners have done by organizing themselves was to utilize strategies of resistance, hunger strikes, and other things to basically get some kinds of better treatment or certain kinds of arrangements,” Hajjar said.
An AJP member also spoke about how refugee camps, such as the Jabalia camp, offer a place for Palestinians to engage in social and political life and act as a place for those in the West Bank to organize.
The final speaker representing AJP explained the history of higher education in Palestine. Universities such as the Al Azhar University of Gaza have continued educating through electronic learning by working with other universities.
The teach-in concluded with a reading from an AJP member of the poem “Could You Carry Them” by content creator, storyteller and poet Jenan Matari, and ended around 7 p.m.
Jewish Voice for Peace hosts “Three Israels” teach-in event during “Palestine Teaches Life” week of programming
Jewish Voice for Peace hosted a teach-in on Nov. 19 to educate about the “Three Israels” ideological framework as part of the “Palestine Teaches Life” week of programming.
The teach-in was hosted in a Humanities and Social Sciences Building (HSSB) classroom and began at 6:00 p.m. There were around 30 attendees. Two student Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP) presenters led the event.
The speakers gave a presentation that lasted about 45 minutes, explaining the “Three Israels” or the ideological distinction between the Jewish people, the holy land and the modern Israeli state. The concept is an ideological framework for understanding the concept of Israel by separating it into three ideological categories and not solely as the state of Israel.
“This presentation is to show that we can talk about us as Jewish people and we can talk about our spiritual connection to the land, but we can also make that distinction where the modern nation-state is a very new concept. It was invented by Europeans in the 19th century, and it has nothing to do with our peoplehood, nor our spirituality,” one of the speakers said.
One of the speakers said that they wanted to teach on “Three Israels” because of their upbringing as a Zionist and the way the “Three Israels” concept changed their understanding of the Israeli state.
“The concept of the three Israels, it was pretty comforting because I could still say the prayers on Shabbat. It was still very personal to me, like I still say the Shema…but I also could still make that distinction within myself and not feel guilty about it, because no one should feel guilty about their spirituality,” they said.
The two presenters said JVP plans to host more teach-in events and Shabbat dinners throughout the year.
SJP Walkout and March
Students for Justice in Palestine organized a walkout and rally on Nov. 21, the international university day of action. The organization led a march through several points on campus, reciting speeches on their continued demand for UCSB’s divestment from weapons manufacturing and Palestine’s liberation.
The National Students for Justice in Palestine announced the international university day of action last month. At around 11:20 a.m. roughly 6o community members, including members of Academics for Justice in Palestine, gathered at the Humanities and Social Sciences Building courtyard.
“Throughout this massacre, our universities have affirmed their role as the firmest backers of US imperialism and its conquest of Palestine shame,” an SJP speaker said. “Despite millions of students, faculty and staff uniting in their demand for divestment and an end to the genocide in Gaza, university administrators have unleashed massive repression, disciplinary action and physical violence against all those who dare to hold them accountable.”
After the introductory speech, the group marched toward Storke Tower where they paused to acknowledge the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) 3299’s strike rally, which was occurring at the same time.
The group made its way to the Girvetz Hall courtyard where they paused for another speech about UCSB’s investments in weapon manufacturers.
“UCSB invests in weapon manufacturers while being an active perpetrator of colonialism,” another SJP speaker said.
According to the University of California’s Award Explorer, UCSB received $224 million from several arms of the Department of Defense and private weapons manufacturers between 2017 and 2022. In addition, the university received 174 military-funded research grants during the same period.
The march proceeded through the library’s main entrance and continued until it reached the Engineering II concourse for additional speeches. Following the speeches, the group marched to its final stop, the library steps.
“The truth is they can only continue their genocide and their war because there are those who build their bombs, who ship them, who make their materials, who make their food for their army,” an SJP member said. “Universities only work because we go to class, we teach, we write papers and grade exams.”
Remind me please who kidnapped, raped and murdered everyone from babies to the elderly on Oct 7,while a cease fire was in effect? Remind me who still holds hostages. Remind me which group has fired 10s of thousands of rockets into Israel over the past decade.Remind me which group’s charter, article 4, calls to kill all Jews. When the Norwegian trade unions, hardly a MAGA group, did a survey in Gaza to determine sentiment about Bin Laden’s murderous attacks on the US, they found that 83% favored the attacks. Remind which group has turned down every brokered cease fire. You… Read more »
Lots of rampant antisemitism on campus. Lots of terrorist sympathizers and supporters.