[Students are walking out today to protest for university
divestment from arms manufacturers over Israels warfare on Gaza. ]
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STUDENTS AT 100 CAMPUSES WALKOUT FOR CEASEFIRE  
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Lexi McMenamin
October 25, 2023
Teen Vogue
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_ Students are walking out today to protest for university divestment
from arms manufacturers over Israel's warfare on Gaza. _

, Pacific Press/Teen Vogue

 

College students at more than 100 campuses across the country plan to
walk out today to protest for a ceasefire in Gaza and for
their universities to sever their close ties
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arms manufacturers providing Israel with its weapons, like Lockheed
Martin, Boeing, and Raytheon. The national walkout was organized by a
broad coalition of groups including the Palestinian Youth Movement
[[link removed]]; the anti-war youth
organization Dissenters [[link removed]]; Anakbayan
[[link removed]], the national organization for
Filipino students and young people; the National Students for Justice
in Palestine [[link removed]] organization; the Muslim
Students Association [[link removed]]; and others.

Since the Hamas attacks on October 7
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which killed an estimated 1,400 Israelis, mostly civilians
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still held hostage — at the time of writing, Israel’s retaliatory
siege on Gaza has a death toll of over 5,700 Palestinians
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an estimated 2,000 children
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according to the Hamas-run Gaza Health Ministry. On October 24,
the World Health Organization announced
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two-thirds of Gaza’s hospitals were non-functional; the same day,
the Gaza Health Ministry also announced that 700 Palestinians were
killed overnight
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strikes from Israel.

Polling last week from CBS and YouGov
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that Americans are largely mixed on the US providing arms to Israel;
another poll from Data for Progress found that 66% of voters who
responded support a ceasefire
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which goes up to 70% when restricted to respondents under age 45.

“The goal of our walkout and moment of silence is to disrupt the
day-to-day complicity on American college campuses across the US” to
bring them into the movement calling for a ceasefire, says Zoë
DeMercado, a student and Dissenters fellow at Xavier University of
Louisiana, one of multiple historically Black colleges and
universities (HBCUs) participating. DeMercado tells _Teen
Vogue_ that other students she’s spoken to at HBCUs have felt
compelled to participate by Palestinian solidarity with Black American
communities during movement uprisings
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both 2014
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“We can't stay silent about this.”

Advocates say that anti-Semitic and Islamophobic hate crimes are on
the rise, with one group finding that anti-Semitic attacks have
doubled in New York City since October 7, as reported by _The New
York Times_
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The weekend following the Hamas attack, six-year-old Palestinian
American Wadea Al-Fayoume
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killed at his home outside Chicago. According to the Council on
American-Islamic Relations (CAIR)
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a 20-year-old Palestinian American was hospitalized on Sunday after a
hit-and-run in Cleveland; on Monday, CAIR called for authorities
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investigate it as a hate crime, alleging the driver yelled “Kill all
Palestinians” at the victim.

The news out of Israel and Gaza has incited an active anti-war
movement [[link removed]] among
students and young people not just domestically but globally
(including even climate activist Greta Thunberg
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the US last week, thousands of high school
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college students walked out of schools to call for a ceasefire, with
large-scale actions across
[[link removed]] California
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in Philadelphia
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and Boston
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Over 1,800 scholars associated with the Rhodes, Fulbright, Truman, and
more fellowships are circulating a public letter with
signatories calling for a ceasefire
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Campuses including Harvard
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York University
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University of Pennsylvania
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and more have seen conflict and controversy among their student
bodies, professors, and school administrations. National Students for
Justice in Palestine, who were criticized for calling the October 7
Hamas attacks
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historic win for the Palestinian resistance,” are facing campus
bans
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the likes of Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and his chancellor.

Wednesday’s walkout marks the first nationally coordinated student
action of this scale since October 7. “The student movement is a
historic sector that has mobilized thousands during a variety of
anti-war moments in the United States,” Kaleem Hawa, an organizer
with Palestinian Youth Movement, tells _Teen Vogue_, explaining that
students have been inspired by past student movements against the
Vietnam War
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African apartheid
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“It's a painful moment for a lot of Palestinians, Arabs, and
Muslims,” says Hawa, citing harassment
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those speaking publicly on the conflict, in addition to
the dehumanizing rhetoric
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hate crimes. “It's scary stuff. So when I see campaigns like this, I
feel very proud, because the students are always more courageous than
their [institutions].”

For DeMercado, her perspective in looking to the Black liberation
movement made her choice to participate in the walkout feel obvious.
“Black and Palestinian solidarity has gone as far back as the Black
Power
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Rights Movement,
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The US has so far supported Israel’s military campaign against Gaza,
with a White House spokesman
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a ceasefire would only benefit Hamas. A number of congresspeople are
working on various legislative proposals on US engagement: Within the
Democratic party, one letter signed by “every Democratic Jewish
member and 128 other Democrats in Congress”
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a continuation of the Biden administration’s support for Israel, as
well as humanitarian support for Gaza; a resolution by Reps. Rashida
Tlaib, Ilhan Omar, Cori Bush,
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others calls for a ceasefire.

On October 24, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken defended
Israel’s military campaign
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the United Nations Security Council, but said "humanitarian pauses
must be considered" as Israel prepares for a ground invasion into
Gaza. Also on that day, the UN’s secretary general
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for a ceasefire, saying the “appalling” Hamas attacks “cannot
justify the collective punishment of the Palestinian people.”

_Lexi McMenamin is the news and politics editor at Teen Vogue. They
are also a freelance writer covering politics, identity, activist
movements and pop culture. They have been published by the BBC, them.,
i-D and elsewhere._

* Israel-Gaza War
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* student strike
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* Ceasefire
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* Arms manufacturers
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