Disciplined for protesting genocide: why the universities are doing Israel’s bidding
The crackdown on pro-Palestine activists at Australian campuses by university administrations has begun.
Monash University has taken the lead. Nine students, including myself, have been given notice of pending discipline, which could potentially lead to suspension or expulsion, and have been banned from attending the pro-Palestine encampment. We are accused of “causing or threatening to cause harm” to an individual who had repeatedly invaded our camp to disrupt it, by yelling at him and making noise near him.
Despite a lot of rhetoric from the Monash administration about how embracing freedom of speech is one of the “hallmarks of democracy” and pledges to “defend all those who peacefully protest”, as was spelled out in a recent statement from the Vice Chancellor Sharon Pickering, nine of us are facing expulsion for participating in a peaceful protest nevertheless.
For the two or so weeks the Gaza solidarity encampment at Monash has been going, the activity myself and my eight co-accused have been participating in has consisted of camping, talking to fellow students about what is happening in Gaza, making banners and placards and holding speak-outs. Our aim has been to express our horror about and opposition to what is being done to Palestinians, and to add our voices to the growing international protest movement against the war. We also want to put pressure on Israel’s allies—including Australia—to cut military and other aid to Israel, and demand our universities end their complicity in weapons manufacturing and cut ties with Israel.
Attendees at our protest camp have behaved responsibly and respectfully in our pursuit of these legitimate goals. The same cannot be said of students and others on campus who support Israel, resent the stand we are making, and want to see us silenced.
Our camp has been under constant harassment by Israel supporters since its establishment. As well as a series of more organised attacks, one particular individual has repeatedly forced his way into the camp to disrupt our activities. Over four consecutive days, he pushed his way in, assaulting people in the process. Three women students have been assaulted by him, one had a megaphone shoved in her face and another two have been hit. One of the incidents is subject to a police investigation. This is the individual we are accused of causing “harm” to or “threatening to cause harm” to.
Despite the university’s professed commitment to defending the right to free speech and peaceful protest, it has done nothing to stop this person from threatening the camp. Instead, nine camp participants are being disciplined for trying to stop him attacking fellow campers. The motivation on the part of the university is not to stop violence, but to intimidate people out of protesting and to clear away a protest that is becoming politically inconvenient to the administration.
At Adelaide University, the Gaza solidarity encampment has now been attacked four times with improvised explosive devices, with video showing that the last two times, the explosives were dropped from a drone. Camping students have been lucky not to be injured. The response from the university administration and police has not been commensurate with the threat posed to protesting students, who the administration is more concerned might be harassing people than being injured by pro-Israel attackers.
Following Monash’s disciplinary lead, the Australian National University has called seven students into a meeting under threat of discipline and told them to leave the encampment. This is after they suspended another student for their involvement in the protest.
At Deakin University in Melbourne, protesters have been instructed by the deputy Vice-Chancellor to disassemble. The encampment has been fenced off, and security are directing people away from it. Power has also shut off to the surrounding area, and there has been an almost constant police presence.
Following the occupation of a building in the centre of Melbourne University’s Parkville campus, the administration have threatened protesting students with disciplinary proceedings and criminal charges, and have indicated they are willing to go down the “forceful route” if students don’t leave. And at the University of Sydney, a number of students have been threatened with misconduct proceedings for their camp, which has been going since 23 April.
These are just the opening salvos in the universities’ growing attempts to force Palestine activism off campuses. Until the last week or so, universities in Australia had taken a more hands-off approach, probably because they saw how repression elsewhere only escalated the protests. But Palestine activism is not just petering out, and more pressure is being put on universities by the political right and the government to do something to stop it.
Universities and the liberal ethos that traditionally underpins them means they see themselves as champions of free speech and freedom of expression. But this only really exists insofar as what is being said or protested is marginal or ineffectual. When this expression starts to draw wider attention to the crimes of those in power, and, importantly, leads greater numbers of people to question the legitimacy of that power, the limits of this freedom become clear.
The Monash Vice Chancellor’s statement encapsulates this dynamic. Opening with a quote from Palestinian-American academic Edward Said, she outlines the university’s commitment to free speech in the classic style of the liberal establishment. But then implies that speech in support of Palestine can go beyond “offense” and causing “hurt feelings” to causing “harm”, which is not tolerable. Exactly how or why is not spelled out.
The irony is that everywhere the encampments have sprung up around the world, the main purveyors of violence have been the police and Israel supporters. And that is not even to mention the horrific violence that is being inflicted on the Palestinians in Gaza, a fact that seems of minor importance to those up in arms about a few tents on a university lawn. As historian Howard Zinn said about protests against the Vietnam war: “they’ll say we're disturbing the peace, but there is no peace. What really bothers them is that we are disturbing the war.”
Universities take this approach because a major part of their mission is, as Pickering says, “developing future leaders”. For these future leaders, some things have to be sacred and beyond question. Right near the top of that list is unconditional support for Israel, an essential part of Australia’s positioning in the world hierarchy. What they, and the broader establishment is concerned about, is the prospect of a generation emerging who are not sold on this ideological pillar of Australian capitalism.
A unique feature of this latest movement in solidarity with Palestine is that it as much against the liberal establishment as it is the conservative right. Previous eruptions of Palestine solidarity and anti-war feeling over the last few decades have been largely directed against reactionary figures like George W Bush, John Howard and Donald Trump. But the genocide in Gaza is being championed in the West by Democrat Joe Biden, Labor left figure Anthony Albanese, and university managers, like Pickering at Monash and Minouche Shafik at Columbia.
Pickering recently told a meeting of the Monash Islamic Society that her “north star was a commitment to human rights”. If that leads her to crack down on students protesting a genocide, she needs to pick a new star.
Student protesters and their supporters will not be easily intimidated. At Monash, hundreds of people have attended rallies to defend the camp from attacks by pro-Israel mobs. At ANU, the administration expressed concerns about work health and safety, so the campers called in the construction union to make sure everything was up to scratch. Hundreds have also rallied there in support of the camp.
The student movement around the world is historic. On a scale we have not witnessed in a long time, it embodies what it really means to speak truth to power.
