[🚨EMERGENCY ACTION NOW] WELCOME BACK TO SCHOOL, SHUT IT DOWN!
JOIN US NOW! COLUMBIA GATES, PICKET TO SHUT IT DOWN!
JOIN THE PICKET LINE — DON’T CROSS THE PICKET LINE. CALL OUT SICK. DO NOT ENTER CAMPUS. DO NOT GO TO CLASSES. DO NOT HOLD CLASS.
SICK OF GENOCIDE EMAIL TEMPLATE 4 STUDENTS
dress comfortably, bring water, make sure to eat, take breaks when necessary, bring noisemakers, cover your face + wear a mask
Contents:
I. WHY WE FIGHT! Our moral obligation to SHUT IT DOWN for Palestine
II. Protest Safety and Details
III. Support the Picketers!
I. WHY WE FIGHT! Our moral obligation to SHUT IT DOWN for Palestine
It's back to school season in both Gaza and in New York — but while we are privileged enough to move into our dorms ready for the new school year, 715,000 Gazan children receive their education in the form of airstrikes: dumb bombs, BLU-109s, MK-82s, MK-84s, GBU-39s, JDAMs, white phosphorous. The bombs falling on the heads of our people in Gaza are not just American-made. Their very production is facilitated by Columbia University's investments in the imperial war machine.
As we prepare to begin a new semester, Gazan students have no universities left to which they can return.
Al-Aqsa University, Gaza University, Al-Israa University, Al-Azhar University, the Islamic University of Gaza, Al-Quds Open University, Palestine Technical College, the University College of Applied Sciences, the University of Palestine, Hassan II University of Agriculture and Environmental Sciences, Dar al-Kalima University.Â
Each of these institutions, including hundreds of primary and secondary schools, have been reduced to rubble by the Zionist entity.
A genocide harbors within it a thousand other destructions. The decimation of Gaza's educational infrastructure, pushing Palestinian students behind their peers and eroding the ability of people to rebuild, has been widely termed a "scholasticide."
WHILE YOU'RE LEARNING, GAZA'S BURNING
Columbia University promises that it is a hub for higher education, innovation, and progress. In fact, Columbia University is nothing more than a front for a multi-billion dollar war machine. Though a vast majority of Columbia's investments are undisclosed to the public, the approximately 1% of publicly listed investments reveal ties to Lockheed Martin, Raytheon, Caterpillar Inc., General Electric, etc.
The Board of Trustees, which holds control over our endowment dollars, runs this university to line its own pockets as many of its members sit simultaneously on the boards of Lockheed Martin, BlackRock, and Heico. These are the very companies that either manufacture weapons or information technology used to slaughter over an estimated 186,000 human beings in Palestine.Â
COLUMBIA IS THE WAR MACHINE
Columbia University is the war machine. It teaches brilliant engineers and creative scientists how best to murder humans, pumps out silver-tongued writers and professors to make acceptable the shrapnelled lives of Palestinians, and readily beats down any cry of dissent through its disciplinary proceedings and the physical force of its Public Safety and NYPD.
Instead of heeding the cries of its student body to end our complicity in this genocide, Columbia spent the last year doubling down on its commitment to being a war-profiteering corporation that criminalizes dissent and sanctions the death of thousands of Palestinians. Ironically, this university capitalizes on its history of protest while it orders the eviction, suspension, and brutalization of hundreds of students at the hands of the NYPD.Â
We know such fervent crackdown means that we are winning. They can close the university gates and surveil us, they can collaborate with the IOF trained NYPD to arrest us, but there will be no business as usual during a genocide.Â
COLUMBIA HAVE SOME SHAME, ALL OUR MARTYRS HAVE A NAME
We ask that you put aside your excitement for a new school year and remember the Palestinians who died by our very dollars.
Remember Medo Halimy, the 19-year-old who vlogged his "tent life diaries" of planting amongst the rubble before being martyred by Israel.
Remember the UNRWA schools that have been transformed into make-shift refugee centers housing hundreds.Â
Remember Dr. Hammam Alloh, once a graduate of Gaza's universities who bravely said before his martyrdom, "You think I went to medical school and for my postgraduate degrees for a total of 14 years so I think only about my life and not my patients?"
LONG LIVE HIND'S HALL
EVERY FASCIST STATE WILL FALL
As classes continue in Hind’s Hall, we hope every student remembers how Hind Rajab spent her last days on this Earth: besieged in a car surrounded by the massacred bodies of her martyred family, pleading into a phone to be rescued before the IOF rained 355 bullets into her car and on the PRCF sent to rescue her. As you stare at the newly renovated walls, we hope you think of the millions of dollars Columbia has spent to justify and obscure its continuous murder of Palestinians — millions of dollars stolen from our schools and meals and homes.Â
We refuse to trade in the blood of Palestinians, and until Columbia commits to full financial disclosure and complete divestment from Zionist apartheid, occupation, and genocide — we do not deserve a first day of school.
With Palestine as our guiding light revealing the interwoven systems of oppression, any return to "normalcy" would be nothing more than consent to the continued oppression of ourselves and people everywhere.Â
THERE IS ONLY ONE SOLUTION
INTIFADA, REVOLUTION
When Columbia University illegally shuts its gates and turns campus into a police state, when the NYPD harasses and brutalizes us, when our "community-minded" politicians demand to see more of us beat by the state — who will keep them accountable?Â
In the belly of the beast, we have the highest responsibility to crush the gears of this cold and unloving death machine and to build something new. For us and for Palestine, the only option is revolution.
IF WE DON'T GET NO JUSTICE, THEN THEY DON'T GET NO PEACE
IF GAZA DOESN'T GET IT? IF SONYA DOESN'T GET IT?
IF SUDAN DOESN'T GET IT? IF CONGO DOESN'T GET IT?
SHUT IT DOWN.
SHUT IT DOWN.
SHUT IT DOWN.
SHUT DOWN THE WAR MACHINE, OPEN UP THE UNIVERSITY.Â
II. Protest Safety and Details
Columbia University and state repression has only gotten more obvious over the past year, we remain vigilant in our fight against the university for a Free Palestine. We encourage everyone who pickets today to bring a mask, friends, keffiyehs, and noisemakers! The safety precautions below may help you and your community fight university and state repression:Â
Wear plain, nondescript clothing and shoes; cover up any tattoos and/or piercings. Add a keffiyeh to your wardrobe (keffiyeh head wrap tutorial)!
Mask up! COVID-19 is still a risk and we want to protect our community! Masking also allows your face to be covered and protected from surveillance. Covering your head is also a good idea. Leave CCTV/ camera range before unmasking.
Do not swipe your CUID, especially in the hour before or after the action. Swipe records are the primary method of positive identification. After leaving, exit CCTV range (all of campus) before swiping into a building, preferably at least an hour later.Â
the most common way Columbia identifies students is through a combination of ID tap and camera surveillance. limit their ability to do so by covering up and not swiping in.
Disperse in groups! Always leave quickly and with your group if you are departing from an action.
Avoid using your phone on Columbia WIFI while at this action or any others. Use encrypted messaging apps (ex. Signal). Avoid sharing important information through your Columbia email, the university may be able to monitor your activity on both university WIFI and accounts.
Find a security marshal — they are ready to step up and help you and those at the action.Â
If you are an undergraduate or graduate student worker who does any kind of research or teaching labor, sign an SWC union card here! SWC has been utilizing their grievance process in the event that SWC members are retaliated against for attending pro-Palestine actions. Being a union member offers workers many protections, so take advantage of that and support your local union!
If you (student, staff, faculty, community member, etc.) have any questions, or face any level of repression from CU, email us at cuaddefense@proton.me
CUAD's student-led collective defense team organizes around alternative ways to guarantee the rights of students are upheld during the discipline process, with the end goal of securing amnesty for all students facing repression for pro-Palestine political views. The group also provides a space for disciplined students, staff, faculty, and workers to meet, organize, and support each other through an otherwise isolating process.
III. SUPPORT THE PICKETERS!
The best way to support the picketers is to SHOW UP and JOIN THE PICKET! If you can not join the picket, DO NOT CROSS.
Send an email to your professors to tell them you’re SICK OF GENOCIDE! EMAIL TEMPLATE 4 STUDENTS
Stay up to date with the needs of the picket line on our instagram @cuapartheiddivest