Emory Students Speak Out In Support Of Palestine And Mahmoud Khalil

Over one hundred Emory students walked out on Thursday, March 20, to support Palestine and Mahmoud Khalil, and oppose genocide in Gaza and U.S. weapon shipments to Israel. If Khalil, a U.S. citizen, can be picked up and imprisoned for supporting Palestine, then this can happen to anyone.

My name is Saharla. I am the Vice President of Students for Socialism and a member of the Party for Socialism and Liberation.

“We’re here in support of the Palestinian people. Israel has resumed its genocidal campaign in Gaza, already slaughtering over 400 civilians. It was evident throughout the first phase of the ceasefire negotiation that Israel never had any intentions of ending their expansion on the occupation, continuing military advances and raids, and refusing to release incarcerated Palestinian people,” Saharla said. 

During the cease-fire, Israel cut off humanitarian aid to Gaza while the Palestinian people were already starving due to Israel’s past refusal to allow humanitarian aid into Gaza.  The United Nations and other humanitarian aid providers are criticizing the decision and calling it a violation of international law.

“Our current administration wants to wipe out the population of Gaza and fully expand the colonial project of Israel. They also want to have even more access to the Red Sea and expand all across the Middle East and North Africa (MENA region ), not just Palestine.”

“We’re also here to stand in solidarity with Mahmoud Khalil, who was wrongfully detained by ICE officials and kidnapped and sent to a facility in rural Louisiana, away from his pregnant wife, his family, and friends. All this act of violence toward Kahlil, a prominent Palestinian organizer at Columbia, shows an active wave of xenophobic, racist violence and repression being instilled by Trump’s administration, particularly toward Palestinian Arab and Muslim students,” Saharla said.

Columbia University has agreed to some of Trump’s demands to restore $400 million in federal funding. Some of Trump’s demands include disciplining students who participate in pro-Palestinian events (the Trump administration considers support for Palestinian human rights to be antisemitic and supports Hamas), prohibiting masks, appointing new officials to review Middle East programs, and recruiting special officers with the authority to make campus arrests. This represents censorship at the highest level, compelling major universities to comply with his demands or risk losing millions in federal funding. It instills fear in university administrations and students, compelling them to remain silent in the face of government repression.

Khalil said it best in a recent letter. His detention is a true testament to the strength of the student movement toward shifting public opinion toward Palestinian Liberation.

Everett, co-chair for Emory’s graduate Workers Union (Emory Unite)

“We have all gathered here today to stand in solidarity with Palestine, supporting those who are suffering in Gaza and the West Bank. I want to address the role of our union in defending the rights of our fellow student workers targeted by the Trump administration and their accomplices in higher education for doing precisely what we have come together for today. Our position is unique as the only group on campus that can collectively bargain with the university.

Student workers have so frequently been on the front lines in the fight against state repression, capitalist exploitation, and colonial abuses. For years, they’ve led the charge and have taken stands where it counts as students and workers, often at the cost of their health and safety and sometimes their lives. 

The brutalization of our students on campus connects to the colonial demolition occurring in the West Bank. It is all part of the same story of the Georgia International Law Enforcement Exchange (GILLE) with Israel and the Stop Cop City movement, and Emory’s investment in Israeli war bonds. It is a shameful example of just how close to home the genocide really is,” Everett with Emory Unite said. 

Georgia International Law Enforcement Exchange Program

Organizations have been trying to eliminate GILEE, a program that trains U.S. police with the Israeli military. 

Click to access 2019-GILEE-Letter.pdf

“We are a threat to the Trump administration and administrators in higher education with our displays of solidarity with the Palestinian people and each other. This is why our resistance is met with such wanton violence and arbitrary retaliation, with suspensions, expulsions, and now even kidnappings. 

Mahmoud Khalil has been imprisoned for his activism and support for the Palestinian people who are being slaughtered daily..  Also, last year, Emory University School of Medicine suspended Umaymah Hohammad for refusing to remain silent during the ongoing genocide of her people.

 Emory has shown itself to be a willing participant in the repression of dissent in the name of the continued accumulation of wealth in the hands of the few and at our expense. We will continue to hold Emory to account with our unions, which are our collective bargaining power and constitute our strongest means of resistance.

Unions are feared because they challenge the rule of the few over the many that the millionaire and billionaire classes maintain over the workers that the colonial regime holds over the colonized for those in power.” Everett said

Emory Student with Emory Revolutionary Students Collective

 “The United States supports Zionist Israel because it is its operating base for American imperialism in the Middle East. While Palestinians are being slaughtered, the ruling class and their lobbyists line the pockets of democratically elected politicians who are getting wealthy from the genocide in Gaza. Our Board of Trustees, hand in hand with the military-industrial complex, has their pockets lined by the genocide in Gaza,” an Emory student who wishes to remain anonymous due to retribution from the administration for telling the truth.” An Emory student with the Emory Revolutionary Students Collective said.

He names a few individuals and companies involved in making money from war and the genocide in Gaza. 

Darren W. Cohen, Chief Information Officer of Goldman Sachs, manages investments for Boeing, the world’s fifth-largest weapons manufacturer.

Rich M. Reiter with Blackrock owns 7% of Caterpillar.  They supply Israel with armored bulldozers that demolish Palestinian homes and civilian infrastructure in the occupied West Bank.

Andrew W. Evans, the Southern Company’s Chief Financial Officer, is collaborating with Ford Motor Company to retrofit trucks for use in West Bank raids.

Here is a complete list of companies making money from war:

https://afsc.org/gaza-genocide-companies.

Ebit Systems is the largest supplier of weapons to Israel, with offices all over the world. The United States and Germany are the countries that supply the most weapons to Israel.

“It should be abundantly clear that institutions for higher education in this country are not neutral but are actively profiting from the genocide in Palestine. I challenge you to shatter every bubble of the fascist detention of our comrade Mahmoud Khalil and prove that there is no protection in hiding behind our status as students. They will come for every single one of us, too. Trump and his Nazi Cult have wholly demolished the rule of law. There is no court, no institution, no department of government that can protect us. The only way to guarantee our safety is to struggle against genocide and protect our brothers and sisters,” an Emory student said.

Jawahir with the Party for Socialism and Liberation

Jawahir is a Palestinian woman born and raised in Jerusalem. She has been fighting and resisting displacement, occupation, apartheid, ethnic cleansing, genocide, and land theft for years. She will continue to fight for Palestine until Palestine is free from the river to the sea.

Jawahir tells the gathering that Trump pretends he signed the ceasefire, but all he signed were executive orders against immigrants, people of color, trans people, and everyone. 

“People all over the world have been standing up for the Palestinian people. The whole world watched as Israel bombed Palestinians with U.S. bombs. In America, when students stand up for Palestinians, they are arrested and kicked out of school. But students have the right to keep protesting.  Don’t be afraid.”

“Shame on Emory University for calling the cops last year on students who protested the genocide in Gaza—shame on Emory University for arresting a Palestinian medical student.”

“Students didn’t do anything wrong; you didn’t bomb, shoot, or kill anyone. You only used your Constitutional right of freedom of speech, like Martin Luther King. He was not afraid to protest in the streets or to speak out against injustice. So, don’t be scared of Trump or of Israel,” Jawahir said.

Other college students are threatened with expulsion and deportation by the Trump administration.  https://www.ajc.com/news/nation-world/columbia-student-protester-who-came-to-the-us-as-a-kid-sues-to-stop-deportation-order/54OKPWOIQ5CD7FOUQ5BQLHR2SQ/ 

The Palestinian side of the story has been censored for 76 years. The truth finally broke through the censorship imposed on the media last year with the genocide in Gaza. Now the whole world sees the human rights violations that have been happening to Palestinians since the 1947 Nakba.   

The Nakba is the ethnic cleansing of Palestinian Arabs through their violent displacement and dispossession of land, property, and belongings, along with the destruction of their society and the suppression of their culture, identity, political rights, and national aspirations.

The Zionist agenda from the beginning in 1945 was for the removal of all Palestinians so that Israel could claim all the land.. Netanyahu has said that Palestinians have the option to leave or die.

With both Netanyahu and Trump in power, they plan to remove the Palestinians and turn the Gaza Strip into a resort playground for the rich and famous. This reporter does not have the words to describe how morally depraved this idea is for the wealthy to vacation on the graves of Palestinian children. Trump thinks Palestine is just another real estate deal.

For more information, read “The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine” by Ilan Pappe, a non-Zionist Israeli historian. 

Revered Fahed AbuAkleh

“When we come out here, we take a lot of risks, but we’re still standing.  Every one of you will continue to take risks. Real power comes from the people. Solidarity is a force that can overcome any enemy. When we have the power of the working class and the glory of the Almighty God both on our side, there is nothing that we can overcome.” Rev. Fahed AbuAkleh said.

Zionist Israelis believe the Bible gives them a holy claim to the land that Palestinians have lived in for centuries.

 “I see that one of these nations reflects violence on the other. Israel is not the kingdom of God. We, as people of faith, as people of conscience, and as people of action, must continue to oppose imperialism in all of its forms.”

“I want to tell everyone that you are deciding to uphold justice right now, even though you could lose everything for doing so. Take the struggle against imperialism to the consulate, to the factory, to the police department, take it everywhere.  And you will see liberation within our lifetimes,” Reverend Fahed AbuAkleh promised.

No one called the police, so no one was arrested. Emory students exercised their constitutional right to free speech without going to jail at this time. 

Written and photos by Gloria Tatum