Institutions, private and public, wield immense power over the lives of people in and out of the U.S. Thus, people’s organized actions to change institutions are by definition David and Goliath-like power struggles. For America, that holds true in the main because the political donor class uses its deep pockets to influence the three branches of  government. Voters lack such influence.

In terms of U.S. foreign policy, the political donor dollars from the military-industrial complex (e.g., BAE Systems, Boeing, General Dynamics, Northrop Grumman and Raytheon), which rose from the wreckage of World War 2, dominate American institutions. They range from private corporations to public education and corporate-funded nonprofit groups. In the current political economy of billionaires buying influence to amass more market share and profits, the U.S. government under Democratic and Republican presidents Biden, an Israel loyalist, and Trump, a political transactionalist, with congressional complicity, has been arming, funding and backing Israel’s 17-months long destruction and starvation of the Palestinian civilian population in Gaza since the surprise Hamas attacks of October 7, 2023. It is false to describe Israel’s military operations in Gaza as a war, given the absence of a Palestinian air force, army and navy. Instead, the world is witnessing Israel’s mass killing of civilian Palestinians. The victims in Gaza include kids, the elderly, health care workers, journalists and women.

Resistance to Israel’s genocide in Gaza is growing stateside. Take the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR). It joined the Taxpayers Against Genocide (TAG) and the National Lawyers Guild International Committee at a press conference at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C., on May 14, announcing the filing of their historic legal complaint with the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) against the U.S. government for complicity in genocide in Gaza.

Palestinian-American plaintiffs who have lost loved ones to the U.S.-funded genocide notarized affadavits in the complaint. Monadel Herzallah, who has lost 43 family members, is one of the plaintiffs. According to him, “We as Palestinians in the U.S. have sought accountability in federal court, but we also made a pledge to seek justice in any other possible venue available.” Susan Abulhawa is a Palestinian human rights activist, best-selling author and a petitioner in this complaint. According to her, “I want to do everything in my power to put a stop to the unfathomable horrors that I witnessed in Gaza.”

Meanwhile, Students for Justice in Palestine has been active in nonviolent civil disobedience against this U.S.-Israel onslaught in Gaza. SJP is active on campuses of colleges and universities that have been and continue to be sites of the struggle to end the Israeli genocide in Gaza. Consider the California State University system, with 480,000 students on 23 campuses across the Golden State.

Recently, five students at Sacramento State University launched a hunger strike in a bid to end the CSU’s investments in Israel’s assaults on the Gazan population. I asked the CSU Office of Public Affairs to comment on the demands of student hunger strikers at Sacramento State University and other schools in the 23-campus system to divest financially from companies involved with Israel’s military operations in Gaza. (The CSU does not invest in companies’ direct stocks or equities but does invest in bonds, mutual funds and other financial instruments.) CSU spokesperson Amy Bentley-Smith replied, releasing the following statement.

“We respect the diverse beliefs and personal convictions of our students, including those who have chosen to participate in a hunger strike. At the same time, we strongly urge our students to consider forms of expression that do not jeopardize their health and well being. The safety and well-being of our students are of the utmost importance and remain the priority even, and especially, in times of unrest.

“While the CSU and its 23 universities honor the right to protest and the diverse convictions expressed across our campuses, the CSU will not be altering its investment policies. We will continue to uphold the values of free inquiry, peaceful protest, and academic freedom—while keeping student health, safety, and our mission at the forefront of all we do.”

Amal Dawud is the president of an SJP affiliate at Sacramento State University, which coordinated a May 5-10 students’ hunger strike at the school in California’s capital city. She and I conducted the following interview via email and text.

Seth Sandronsky: Can you share who your political backers are in and out of the Democratic and Republican parties?

Amal Dawud: We do not have political backers, nor do we associate with any parties. Our network and support system is composed of students and various SJPs chapters across the state (the most populous in the U.S.).

SS: Can you share names of the grassroots roots groups supporting you in and out of Sacramento State University?

AD: Some groups supporting us have been Sacramento’s Healthcare Workers for Palestine, our FJP (Faculty for Justice in Palestine), and various members from SQE (Students for Quality Education, which works with the 29,000-member California Faculty Association, a self-described “anti-racism, social justice union”).

SS: Please describe the responses of Sacramento State University and Cal State University administrators to the hunger strikers’ stance for an end to Israel’s U.S.-backed maiming, murdering and starving the Palestinian people of Gaza.

AD: Our administration was very receptive and supportive of our strike at Sacramento State University. They met with us and negotiated demands, and we ended our strike. However, following the agreement, we were told that they would not be able to publicly support our demands per the CSU Chancellor’s request. The chancellor published this statement and has declared that the CSU will not alter its investment policies. What the CSU did not include in the statement is ongoing internal communications approving, but mostly denying the CSU presidents’ negotiations and statements that are coming out of their hunger-striking students.

SS: Please describe the process preceding the Sacramento State University hunger strike.

AD: We heard the news that Gaza had officially run out of food, and that their humanitarian aid was depleted. And the students organized a solidarity effort of a hunger strike in order to bring back media attention to Gaza. We also knew that the students had pushed this movement forward many times, and that it was our responsibility to stand in solidarity with Gaza and urge our university administrations to take a stand and divest from war profiteering companies. Hunger strikes have historic value to social justice movements, not only in the U.S. but in Palestine as well. And hunger strikes, considering the political context in the U.S. at the moment, and the targeting of pro-Palestine student activists, seemed to be one of the only forms of legal protest left for us to engage in.

SS: What are next steps after hunger striking to end Israel’s destruction and starvation of the indigenous population in Gaza?

AD: The next steps of the strike are to maintain pressure on our administrators, on the CSU, the governor (Democrat Gavin Newsom), as well as the U.S. To divest these institutions completely from companies contributing to the genocide in Gaza. We plan to support the remaining hunger strikers in any capacity. And remind people every day that while we can choose to eat, Gaza cannot. And that is just as much the United States’ fault as it is Israel’s.

We need to urge international action to intervene on behalf of Gaza. The damage done to them is already irreversible, and the next plans of the genocide are complete displacement and extermination.

The post California State University Students Resisting Genocide in Gaza appeared first on CounterPunch.org.

This post was originally published on CounterPunch.org.