Melbourne University mass meeting declares support for Palestine

More than 600 Melbourne University students attended a mass meeting and rally on 15 August to demand that the university end its complicity in the genocide in Gaza. The meeting was the largest pro-Palestine action ever held on the campus.

Oskar Martin, Students for Palestine member and Indigenous socialist, moved the meeting’s only motion. It called on the administration to “fully divest from weapons companies and cut all ties with the state of Israel, Israeli corporations and Israeli academic institutions in line with the global boycott, divestment, sanctions movement”.

In his speech, Martin condemned the university, arguing that “what matters most to them is investments that boost their portfolios and power”. He then turned his fire on the officials in the University of Melbourne Student Union. “The student union didn’t want this meeting to happen. They previously backtracked on supporting BDS ... but we kept fighting and we won!”

The student politicians who control the student union are mostly from factions associated with the Australian Labor Party. Despite their pretending to champion students’ rights and democracy, their approach to the special general meeting was one of sabotage.

Students for Palestine activists gathered the signatures of 1,200 students to demand the union call a special general meeting on Palestine, as the constitution requires. In response, the union hired lawyers from Labor-aligned law firm Slater and Gordon to find a legal basis to prevent the meeting happening.

The union has form in this regard. In 2022 the union adopted a motion in support of Palestine and the boycott, divestment and sanctions campaign against Israel. But after legal action brought by Liberal Party-aligned student Justin Riazaty, the union abandoned its position.

The lawsuit was settled in February this year after the union agreed, in the middle of a genocide, to rescind its support for Palestine and pay Riazaty tens of thousands of dollars. The student union has since sought to censor pro-Palestine activity in the union, prohibiting office-bearers from using their budgets and social media to oppose Israel’s genocide.

But their winning streak ended on Thursday afternoon. The student union officials watched, aghast, as hundreds of students descended on the amphitheatre wearing keffiyehs, waving Palestinian flags and holding placards inscribed on one side with “Unimelb must divest” and on the other “Students for Palestine”.

“Disclose, divest, we will not stop, we will not rest!”, the students roared. Cheers and impromptu speeches echoed around the amphitheatre as student union staff sought shelter behind a barricade they had set up to prevent Students for Palestine activists from reaching the stage.

From the stage, I opened the meeting (to the president’s horror), and the floor was ours. “Put your hand up if you’re here today to stand against Israel, to stand against our government, to stand against our university and to fight for a free Palestine!”, I asked the crowd. A sea of hands shot up in response. Chants of “Free, free Palestine” and “From the river to the sea” made the meeting feel more like an open-air rally.

At one point the student union president tried to address the crowd to explain why the union hadn’t done more to publicly support Palestine. She was heckled, “You voted to rescind the motion!”, and quickly vacated the stage.

Students hadn’t come to this action for mealy-mouthed words or empty platitudes. We get that from the federal Labor government every day. The crowd was electric with righteous indignation at our university’s complicity in genocide. Yasmeen Atieh, a Palestinian socialist and member of Students for Palestine, told the crowd:

“All over the world, students and workers have stood up to their universities and governments, declaring that we will not sit silent whilst people are being killed. Estimates are now that 186,000 have likely been murdered. From opposing the war in Vietnam to fighting against South African apartheid, students have been at the forefront of movements to spark change for decades. And today we’re making history again. Every one of us is making our voices heard, telling the university that it needs to divest. We are telling our government, the Labor Party, that we will not stop and we will not rest until Palestine is free.”

Students overwhelmingly voted up the motion, followed by a victory march to the vice-chancellor's office, where we stuck our petitions to his office surrounds, warning: “We’ll be back!”

It was a victorious day for Palestine solidarity activism, and a credit to all the activists who refused to accept the union’s cowardice on Palestine, who refused to give up and who campaigned tirelessly to make the meeting a success.