Even before the end of the ceasefire in Gaza, Israeli attacks on the West Bank were escalating in 2025. By Feb. 5, 70 Palestinians were reported killed this year alone. Anna Lippman, a member of Independent Jewish Voices, has traveled on numerous occasions to the West Bank from her home in Toronto, Canada, to stand with Palestinians defending their land from attacks by Israeli soldiers and armed settlers.
Most recently, Lippman was in the Masafer Yatta community in the occupied West Bank as Hamdan Ballal, Oscar-winning Palestinian director of the film No Other Land, was detained by Israeli forces after being attacked by armed Israeli settlers in that same community. Lippman joins The Marc Steiner Show for an in-depth discussion on her experiences on the ground in the West Bank, where attempted land grabs and expulsions of Palestinians are growing by the day.
Producer: Rosette Sewali Studio Production: David Hebden Post-Production: Alina Nehlich
Transcript
The following is a rushed transcript and may contain errors. A proofread version will be made available as soon as possible.
Marc Steiner:
Welcome to The Marc Steiner Show here on The Real News. It’s good to have you all with us as we continue to cover Palestine and Israel and hear from people throughout that struggle, and continue our series Not in Our Name — Jewish voices that oppose the occupation of Palestine and the oppression and repression of Palestinians by Israelis.
On March 24, co-director of the film No Other Land, Hamdan Ballal, was attacked by Israeli settlers and was badly injured — And while in the ambulance, he was attacked again. The Israeli police took him to an unknown location and, following an international outcry, he was released the next day.
Toronto resident Anna Lippman was in the area known as Masafer Yatta on the West Bank. While she was providing protective presence to Palestinians, Lippman, whois Jewish, was also attacked — Though not as severely — By Israeli settlers, and also was not arrested. Lippman spoke afterwards to the online media where she said what brings you back here is the people, meeting the people here, the children, the elders, the activists, the mothers, all of them, seeing the way that they continue to resist — Not just writing articles, but sharing their story through their everyday acts of resistance, continuing to be on their land, continuing their careers, their family lives, and the joy they find on their land and with their families, with their communities. It’s so beautiful. The hospitality they gave me as a Jewish person whose taxes and identity are used to kill their cousins, they welcome me into their home and feed me even though they have almost nothing.
Today we are joined by Anna Lippman. She’s a Toronto member of Independent Jewish Voices, and has long been showing up in solidarity with Palestinian people in opposition to Israel’s campaign of violence and displacement. And she opposes deeply, which we’ll talk about today, the conflation of anti-Zionism and antisemitism. Now, she went to the West Bank to protect Palestinians and showed huge heart and courage in her time there. She’s the daughter of a Holocaust surviving family and takes that into her heart as well when it comes to fighting and supporting liberation of Palestinian people.
Anna, welcome. It’s good to have you with us.
Anna Lippman:
Thanks for having me.
Marc Steiner:
So many places to start, but let me just begin, if you could just talk a bit about your time on the West Bank: A, was that the first time you’ve been there? And B, how did that affect you? You went there already opposed to the occupation, but I’m very curious how that affected you when you were there.
Anna Lippman:
Yeah, so I’m actually currently in the West Bank.
Marc Steiner:
At this moment?
Anna Lippman:
At this moment, which is why my internet is still terrible. So I’ve been here for two months, and I’ll be here for another month. It’s actually my fourth time here doing protective presence work, using both my international and my Jewish privilege to try to mitigate the violence and the ethnic cleansing.
As a kid, I went to Israel a lot of times, but I had never been to the occupied Palestinian territories, the West Bank. And so going for my first time and seeing it, even though I had been doing this work for so long, it really made my resolve so much stronger because the things that you see here, it’s impossible to imagine. And the relationships that you make with the people here and then the violence that you witness upon them, it just breaks your heart.
Marc Steiner:
So let me jump into some things you just said because I think it’s important. For people listening to us today, where are you on the West Bank? Who are you staying with?
Anna Lippman:
I am in the region of Masafer Yatta, the South Hebron Hills, and I’m in the village of Susya, most famous for being the home of Academy Award-winning director Hamdan Bilal.
Marc Steiner:
So I assume then, if you’re there, you’re staying with Palestinian families?
Anna Lippman:
They’re hosting us in the village. They have basically a guest house in the middle of the village where we sleep and where basically, when we’re not sleeping, children either are playing with us [Steiner laughs] or people are coming to get us to respond to attacks.
Marc Steiner:
And who is the we?
Anna Lippman:
So I’m actually here with seven other Jewish activists. We’re part of the Center for Jewish Nonviolence. There’s also several other non-Jewish activists. But for myself and for the people in this group, it’s really important for us to show up as Jews because, not [inaudible] show the world what it means to oppose the state and Zionism, but also so many Palestinians here have never met a Jew that doesn’t want to harm them. And so this, in many ways, is the work of doing that cultural exchange and helping people understand that this is a terrible thing that is happening, but it doesn’t represent all Jews.
Marc Steiner:
One thing you said, just to explore briefly for a moment together about the pain and terror the Jews and Israelis are foisting on Palestinians in this occupation and more. And I was reading about your work and who you are, and the idea that Jews, who suffered so much over thousands of years, who survived — And my family survived the Holocaust, the Cossack repressions in Eastern Poland, the inquisitions that took place. Everything that has happened to us as a people over the millennia, that we could then turn and do what we’re doing in Israel.
Anna Lippman:
Yes, I agree with you. And on the inside, I wonder the same way. Especially, like you, I’m the granddaughter of a Holocaust survivor. She was in Auschwitz. To understand the way that that which happened before I was born impacts my life, I could never want to do this to someone else. But also, it’s the plain and sad truth that hurt people hurt people. And if Jews, we don’t deal with our trauma, if we’re able to let others exploit it for their imperial goals, then of course we’re seeing what’s happening in Israel.
Marc Steiner:
So I’m very curious what the response has been to you, first from the Israelis, but then the Palestinians. What has been your experience in what we might call Israel proper, for the moment, in terms of what you experience when people know who you are and why you’re there?
Anna Lippman:
To be honest, I don’t tell people within Israel proper who I am and why I’m there [Steiner laughs].
Marc Steiner:
I get it.
Anna Lippman:
[Crosstalk] I fear for my life.
Marc Steiner:
Right. Absolutely. Absolutely. Yes.
Anna Lippman:
And even in the West Bank, we have to be a little careful who we talk to about what we’re doing because there are many ways that these names get back to the Israeli government. It’s despicably easy for me to get away with this within Israel because I look very Ashkenazi. I look like everyone else. No one looks at me and blinks twice. And that’s why the Jews come to do this work is because we have these privileges and we might as well exploit them for something good.
Marc Steiner:
So let’s explore for a moment what that work is. When you say, we’ve said a number of times, you’re there doing this work, talk to people listening to us today about what this work is that you’re doing.
Anna Lippman:
So a lot of what we’re doing is documentation and accompaniment work. So, especially in Masafer Yatta, most of the people here are farmers and shepherds. They very much rely on the land. And so a key way for them to be able to remain here is to be able to take their flocks out, is to be able to harvest their crops. And so we literally just accompany them on their shepherding shifts, as they go to the grocery store, what have you, not only because Palestinians, Israelis, and internationals understand that you don’t want to act the same towards Palestinians in private that you do in front of an international. Because I’m getting this interview and Palestinians are not, so they don’t want us to tell the world what they’re doing to the Palestinians, what’s happening. And this is what we do when we bring our privilege here is we’re able to share it back out.
Marc Steiner:
In the process of your work over there, what has been your interaction with Israelis, with Jewish Israelis, about what you’re doing?
Anna Lippman:
Yeah, it’s been terrible. When the army comes, they give us quite a hard time despite us being Jewish. They call us anarchists. They say we are making chaos. A soldier told me the other day that I was here to make problems for the Jewish. And the settlers themselves, they’re even worse. The army will call us traitors, self-hating Jews, but the settlers will yell all kinds of profanities at us. They’ll chase us. I’ve been in multiple rock attacks.
Marc Steiner:
What does that mean?
Anna Lippman:
Groups of young settlers coming to throw rocks at the villages, the Palestinians, basically a stoning.
Marc Steiner:
In their minds a biblical stoning.
Anna Lippman:
Yes, of course.
Marc Steiner:
The vast majority of settlers in the West Bank are right-wing extremist, Orthodox Jews, is that right?
Anna Lippman:
Yeah. And the thing is that on the front lines of these more extremist settlements are mostly young men, like 15- to 20-year-olds that are sometimes called the Hilltop Youth, who are taken from bad homes, off the street, and brought to these settlements that are run by really right-wing fascist people that tell them, this is your land. You must protect it. You must shepherd. And if you see Palestinians, attack them before they attack you. And so who we mostly see is teenage boys, and that makes it a difficult dynamic to hate them.
Marc Steiner:
I understand. Let me take a step backwards here with you for just a minute because this is literally, I’ve been involved in this, in covering this, my entire life, almost. But what you’re describing now, what you just said about Israeli boys on these settlements attacking you and the Palestinians were brought there, were in trouble and brought to these… Talk a bit about that. Who are these kids? Where they come from? What do you mean they were in trouble? It sounds like what — And I hate saying this — It sounds like what fascists did in Germany and Italy, taking youths off the street and turning them into stormtroopers.
Anna Lippman:
Yes, exactly. And it’s very similar here. Sometimes it’s rabbis, sometimes it’s just agricultural entrepreneurs. And they’ll go to places like Tel Aviv, like Jerusalem, like Be’er Sheva, places within 48, and they’ll tout their programs as helping at-risk youth and providing rehabilitation centers for at-risk youth. So these previously street youth are now productive members of society. They’re learning how to farm, they’re going to school.
And actually, because they’re touted this way, they get a lot of funding from places like the JNF that funds social service projects, from places like the Israeli government that funds rehabilitation for at-risk youth. But at the same time, there’s enough of a distance that the Israeli government can blame these youth for an attack. And then, through keeping an arm’s distance to them, they’re both supporting the youth to be there to do this ethnic cleansing, and they can blame the youth and say it’s not part of the state, it’s extrastate actors.
Marc Steiner:
So would it be fair to say, just to explore this for a moment — Then we can go on something else — But is it fair to say that these kids that are taken to these settlements, who are in trouble from the stuff they did in the streets, are kids who are what we call Mizrahim, that there are kids who are from Arab African descent in Israel. Would that be about right?
Anna Lippman:
Mostly not. Mostly they’re Ashkenazi. Sometimes they’re Mizrahi, but the vast majority of them are Ashkenazi. A lot of them are from places like Europe and Ukraine. A lot of them are just born and raised in Israel.
Marc Steiner:
That’s a pretty horrendous description. I think the world is not aware of what you’re describing at this moment. I think most people, I wasn’t, are not aware, and I stay on top of this. It’s something that is almost, it’s a frightening Orwellian step.
Anna Lippman:
It definitely is. And it’s been happening for quite a while. And not only is it terrible for the Palestinians, but it’s so exploitative [of] these young men.
Marc Steiner:
Yes, absolutely. I’m also curious, I’ve not been to the West Bank, but as a young person — I was a very young person — I was a Freedom Rider, and I was [on the] Eastern shore Maryland, Mississippi, Alabama. And it was terrifying. But you did it because it had to be done.
Anna Lippman:
Exactly.
Marc Steiner:
So I want to talk about you in that regard. What it’s like for you to live on the edge of that violence, protecting the human rights and liberation of Palestinians as a Jewish woman?
Anna Lippman:
It’s a lot. It’s very scary, and it’s not comfortable. I think a lot of times I feel like I’m on a three-month firefighting shift. You can never really put your guard completely down because things could go off at any minute and you’ll have to run out of the house and go stop this fire. And it really impacts the activists here because it’s a lot on your body, on your mind.
And then I see the Palestinians who live this every day, and I remember that I will go home to Netflix and Uber Eats, and they will not. This is where they live. And so I think, just like you said, this is what has to be done, even though it’s not my favorite thing to do, for sure.
Marc Steiner:
All right. So I guess you’ve been aware of all the crackdowns taking place in Canada, in Germany, across the globe, against Palestinians.
Anna Lippman:
Absolutely.
Marc Steiner:
So just to hear your thoughts and analysis of what all that means, this literally international crackdown, and it’s going to begin to happen in larger ways here in the United States as well with Donald Trump back in the White House.
Anna Lippman:
Absolutely, yeah. No, I totally agree. And Canada is not that far off from Trump. We don’t know who’s going to win this next election, and Canada is going quite right itself. And I think one thing I’ve always learned about Palestine is it’s sort of the moral center of the world. Everything that Israel does in Palestine, their militarization, their technology, their AI, they export it to the rest of the world. Police, [armies] from all over the world, go train with the IDF.
And so to me, [it’s] surprising to see the ways that this extreme crackdown is going global and is starting to impact people that perhaps thought they were a bit more safe. And I think that’s why everyone who feels strongly about this, who feels strongly about the right to speak up for what you believe in, needs to be saying no, needs to be standing up. Because if we don’t say this is too much, what student are they going to snatch off the streets next?
Marc Steiner:
And it sounds like, what I’ve seen written before and what you’re describing, people don’t realize this Western American and Israeli cooperation in testing out weaponry and more is a test run for oppression universally.
Anna Lippman:
Exactly, yes. And Israel does it very well. And other imperial settler colonial countries like Canada, they pay attention. They want to do it well too.
Marc Steiner:
So tell me a bit, for people listening to us in the time we have left, a bit about what your daily life and work is like there, what you’re experiencing firsthand as a young Jewish woman in the West Bank living with Palestinians and staring down right-wing settlers and the Israeli army.
Anna Lippman:
I think what, to me, is most noticeable about my day-to-day experience here is it’s so unpredictable that it’s impossible to plan a month ahead, and very difficult to plan two days ahead.
Marc Steiner:
Wow.
Anna Lippman:
We’ll wake up, we’ll go shepherding, we’ll be having a lovely time, and then suddenly a settler will come in their truck, try to run us over, and we’re taking footage of this, talking to lawyers, taking people to the police station to give testimony. And that’s your whole day. And sometimes we can be very lucky and we’ll just have a morning where things are great and we’ll get to hang out with the families and just chill. But even in those quiet times, there’s still tension because it’s so unpredictable that you never know what is coming or when. And every time that you continue to stay in your land, that you continue to call settlers out, they seek revenge. So just like the Palestinians here, I can’t really give you a day-to-day because the settlers don’t let us have that regularity and schedule.
Marc Steiner:
What do you mean by that?
Anna Lippman:
They keep us on our toes by intentionally being unpredictable, by telling us they’ll come back tonight, then not, but coming to attack three days later. So it’s very hard.
Marc Steiner:
As an activist in the midst of this, and more in the middle of it than most people are who might oppose what’s happening, becausre you’re there, physically there, putting your life on the line, how do you see it unfolding in the future? And where are the possibilities that we can actually find a road to peace where Israelis and Palestinians, Muslims, Christians, and Jews live in that place together? Because in the end, for me, I have this poster on my wall — I’ve said this before on other shows — I have this poster on my wall that I got in Cuba in 1968, and it’s a map of all of Palestine, and it has a Palestinian flag on one side and an Israeli flag on the other side, and it says “One state, two people, three faiths”. And that’s kind of been my mantra for a long time. So I’m asking you that question in that spirit because it almost feels impossible to attain.
Anna Lippman:
Yeah, I think that it has been really grim for the last two or so years, and it’s been really difficult to find hope. I think where I find hope is the fact that so many more people know about Palestine than they did in 2014, than they did in 2021. So for me, this gives me hope when I see a random person that’s not Jewish, that’s not Arab, who knows about Palestine and cares about the injustice there. I think the more we speak up, the more we ask our governments to hold the Israeli government accountable, the more that we will find actual peace.
But it’s also important to recognize that peace, true peace, means equality, humanity, and dignity for everyone from the river to the sea. And so we cannot have a state, two states, 12 states, I don’t care [Steiner laughs]. But if Palestinians don’t have the right to live in their land, to return to their ancestral land, to be as much of a society as an Israeli citizen is, there will never be peace because peace is not built on oppression.
Marc Steiner:
Anna Lippman, a couple of things here. First of all, I do want to say this to you, and I want everyone listening to us here at The Real News to know it, what you and others like you are doing at this moment takes, and the Yiddish word is chutzpah, takes a lot of heart and strength and bravery to stand up for what you’re doing. It’s not just carrying a placard around an embassy. You’re in the midst of it, saying, no, not in our name, this has to end.
And I do want to thank you for what you’re doing. I think your voice and the voices of others around you, along with Palestinians, is what we want to continue to hear more [of] on this program. And for one, I want to stay in touch, and I want to help work to bring more voices like yours on, but also to expand those voices and give people the opportunity and chance to do exactly what you are doing.
Anna Lippman:
Yes, I love that.
Marc Steiner:
That will change it.
Anna Lippman:
I think so. We gotta have hope, right?
Marc Steiner:
Yes, we do. Look, I’ll say this one last thing. I say this often. One of the scariest things for people in the South during Civil Rights, which you see all the white freedom workers, and among those, the majority of the white people who put their lives on the line in Civil Rights were Jews.
Anna Lippman:
Yes. This is our history, right?
Marc Steiner:
Yes. Right. So you’re carrying on a tradition, and you’re a brave human being, a brave woman. Let’s do stay in touch, and whatever stories we can tell together about your experience and others’ experiences and the experiences of the Palestinian lives that you touch and live with, we want to put on the air and do that.
Anna Lippman:
Yeah. That’s so great. Thank you so much for having me, and, really, for everything.
Marc Steiner:
Please stay safe and stay strong. Thank you.
Anna Lippman:
Thank you.
Marc Steiner:
Thank you once again to Anna Lippman for joining us today. And I want to reiterate what I said during our conversation. The bravery she and other young Jews are showing in Israel Palestine, living with Palestinians to say, we, as Jews, say not in our name, is literally putting their lives on the line, just as people did to end racial segregation in America. We will, I will, continue to highlight their work, and we’ll be hearing more from Anna Lippman, and other Anna Lippmans as well, as the voices of the Palestinians they work with put their lives on the line, and they’re there to stand with them.
Once again, thank you to Anna Lippman for joining us today. Thanks to David Hebden for running the program today, our audio editor, Alina Nehlich, and producer, Rosette Sewali, for making it all work behind the scenes, and everyone here at The Real News for making this show possible.
Please let me know what you thought about what you heard today, what you’d like us to cover. Just write to me at mss@therealnews.com and I’ll get right back to you. Once again, thank you, Anna Lippman, for all the work you do and for joining us today. So for the crew here at The Real News, I’m Marc Steiner. Stay involved, keep listening, and take care.
Palestine Action has secured another impressive victory against arms manufacturer Elbit Systems and genocidal Israel. This time, its concerted direct action has forced Manchester-based metal components manufacturer Dean Group International to sever all ties with Elbit’s UK subsidiary Instro Precision.
The company has confirmed this to Palestine Action in an email. In this, it promised to never to work with Elbit Systems or its subsidiaries in the future.
The move comes less than three weeks after Palestine Action targeted Dean Group in a direct action campaign, exposing its complicity in the production of Israeli weapons.
Palestine Action defeat another company connected to genocide-complicit Elbit Systems
Specifically, Dean Group’s “commitment not to engage with the Elbit or Instro supply chains” follows Palestine Action’s rooftop occupation and property sabotage at Dean Group’s site in Irlam, Greater Manchester on 31 March 2025.
Activists had scaled the factory roof and drenched the building in blood-red paint – a visual representation of the Palestinian bloodshed enabled by companies like Dean Group that supply parts for Elbit’s weapons manufacturing.
Activists targeted the same Irlam site in July 2024, dismantling its occupation-enabling products.
Dean Group were confirmed to have been supplying Instro Precision when activists entered the Instro premises in Kent. There, the former’s materials were found alongside the sniper sights and weapons components which Instro exports en-masse to Israel.
Notably, during previous direct actions at Elbit’s Instro Precision facility in Broadstairs, Kent, Palestine Action uncovered evidence of Elbit using subcontracted metal parts that Dean Group had supplied. Instro Precision manufactures surveillance and targeting equipment that the Israeli military has used in its attacks on Gaza and the occupied West Bank.
Dean Group severe all ties with Elbit subsidiary Instro Precision
Following the March action, Dean Group formally confirmed to Palestine Action that it had terminated all business relations with Instro Precision and would categorically not engage with Elbit Systems or its subsidiaries going forward.
This latest victory mirrors a series of wins by Palestine Action in their campaign to dismantle the supply chain that enables Israeli warfare, including but not limited to:
In 2023, recruitment firm iO Associates dropped Elbit Systems following repeated actions.
In 2024, their suppliers Hydrafeed, lobbyists APCO Worldwide, and hauliers Kuehne+Nagel all cut ties with Elbit after Palestine Action targeted them.
Most recently, Fisher German confirmed it would no longer manage property for Elbit’s drone production site in Shenstone.
A Palestine Action spokesperson said:
Another link in Elbit’s war machine has been smashed. Dean Group’s decision to walk away from Instro Precision – and to reject Elbit Systems entirely — proves that sustained direct action works. This is not just a symbolic win- it’s an operational blow to Elbit’s ability to produce the weapons used to massacre Palestinians.
Palestine Action’s direct action campaign continues to target Elbit Systems and all those who facilitate its business. With every broken contract and severed supply line, the campaign moves closer to its goal: shutting Elbit down for good.
A federal judge has ordered Rümeysa Öztürk to be transferred to Vermont as she seeks to challenge what her lawyers call her “unconstitutional detention” in an ICE detention center in Louisiana. Öztürk is a Turkish national and a Tufts University Ph.D. student whose abduction off the streets by plainclothes U.S. agents was caught on camera, one of the most controversial examples of the Trump…
This video dives into a groundbreaking investigation by Al Jazeera’s Investigative Unit, exposing how fabricated stories about October 7 were used to justify mass violence — and how the Western media played along.
Last week, 36 of the over 300 members of the Board of Deputies of British Jews wrote an open letter criticising Israel’s crimes in Gaza. And the right-wing group has now turned its longstanding pro-Israel witch hunt against its own deputies as a result.
Board of Deputies punishes criticism of Israel
The letter’s signatories said they “cannot turn a blind eye or remain silent” over the “loss of life and livelihoods” in the occupied Palestinian territory. They added that “Israel’s soul is being ripped out and we… fear for the future of the Israel we love and have such close ties to”. The government of the apartheid state, they insisted, had opted to “break the ceasefire” rather than seeking a lasting peace deal. The BBC called the intervention “the first show of opposition to the Gaza war by some members of the board”.
A statement from the Board of Deputies’ Executive on 22 April revealed the consequences these signatories would now face. It said that, after an “extraordinary meeting of the Executive Committee”, it could confirm that:
all 36 signatories of the letter to the Financial Times are now subject to a complaints procedure in accordance with Appendix G to the Board of Deputies’ Constitution.
It added:
All members of the Executive eligible to vote, unanimously approved a motion temporarily suspending the Vice Chair of the International Division from that role and the Executive while they remain subject to the complaints procedure, having signed the Financial Times letter and given further media interviews on it.
And it said “the complaints procedure is likely to take at least four weeks”.
A statement from the Board of Deputies following an Executive Meeting this morning, relating to the publication of a letter signed by 36 out of our 300+ Deputies: pic.twitter.com/VOrSVa0KQI
— Board of Deputies of British Jews (@BoardofDeputies) April 22, 2025
Tearing itself apart… much like Israel?
The Board of Deputies played a keyrole in smearing former Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn. Then, in the 2020 Labour Party leadership race, the Board of Deputies pushed candidates to back a highly controversial list of demands. Many Jewish left-wingers firmly opposed this divisive list – which, as a Jewish Canary editor at the time wrote, essentially asked Labour to “ignore socialist Jews” and “Jews who don’t support the actions of the Israeli state”.
One might have hoped the Board of Deputies would change its gushingly pro-Israel tune slightly during a genocide. But it has stuck to its guns and continuedtoattack critics of Israel’s war crimes.
Is it now going to tear its own organisation apart to shill for Israeli war criminals?
Arms company General Dynamics has been education-washing its image by sneaking its way into a multitude of partnerships with UK schools. That is, it has flaunted itself as sponsors, with speakers at school career fairs and events, all as Israel uses bombs it supplied to commit educide and massacres children across Gaza.
Now, outraged parents and carers are demanding that it get out of public education after discovering the arms corporation had recently visited a host of local schools and colleges.
General Dynamics: arms company infiltrating UK schools
Notably, the arms company has made visits to several schools this academic year. This included Rye College, Bexhill College, Robertsbridge Community College, and Hastings Academy, among others.
Meanwhile, Claverham Community College proudly advertises General Dynamics as a link company to the school. It states how it has “good working relationships” and promotes work experience and careers with the company.
The Careers East Sussex volunteer enterprise advisor for Claverham Joy Sheen, is an employee of the weapons manufacturer.
One mum, who preferred not to be named, wrote to the head teacher after her child had been given a free, friendly-looking ‘squishy’ toy from the weapons company at a careers fair stand. She said:
I couldn’t believe they were there! I just had no idea that they would allow an arms manufacturer to attend a careers fair. They are manufacturing the bombs that have been supplied to Israel and used in Gaza, killing thousands of children. It’s appalling.
When questioned on the suitability of an arms company visiting schools and colleges, Careers East Sussex said in a statement:
The East Sussex Careers Hub works with schools in the county to help them link young people with local employers to learn about careers opportunities in the area and make individual informed choices about their next steps.
General Dynamics UK is a local employer which, like any company, has to meet the legal obligations set by national governments. The Careers Hub does not have any role in these matters.
Schools Out for General ‘Genocide’ Dynamics campaign
Right now ‘Genocide’ Dynamics is making billions in profit from selling technology, bombs and weapons used to kill thousands of Palestinian children in Gaza. Meanwhile, East Sussex schools and colleges are allowing it to ‘STEMwash’ its role in this genocide and pretend to local children that it is just a normal company.
HDPSC has held 16 protests at the two General Dynamics sites in Hastings over the past 18 months. It has done so to draw attention to the presence in the town of the world’s fifth largest weapons manufacturer and its role in the genocidal assault on Gaza:
Its new campaign reflects growing outrage across the UK at Britain’s role in continuing to arm Israel, which stands in the dock at the International Court of Justice for genocide, as well as the normalisation of war profiteers in schools:
At its recent annual conference, Britain’s largest teaching union the National Education Union (NEU) voted to ‘disarm education’. The union, which represents half a million teachers, support staff, and leaders up and down the country, called for all schools to cut ties with arms companies and to end careers collaborations and partnerships.
General Dynamics: ignoring the UN and the ICJ
General Dynamics supplies the Israeli military with huge 2,000lb bombs. Israel has dropped these on displaced families in tents, as well as schools, hospitals, and thousands of homes. These bombs are so powerful they level buildings and destroy all life within a 365-metre radius.
Israel’s assault has so far claimed over 60,000 Palestinian lives, including over 18,000 children. Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, UN experts, as well as genocide scholars have confirmed the continued forced starvation, deprivation of water, displacement, and killings as ‘genocidal acts’.
The International Criminal Court has issued arrest warrants for Israeli leaders for war crimes and crimes against humanity. Meanwhile, the UN has ordered countries and companies to stop all weapons and ammunition transfers to Israel: an order which General Dynamics and the UK have ignored.
The website for General Dynamics’ local factories states that they make systems for fighter jets and ground vehicles but does not mention its larger role in manufacturing bombs and ordnance.
Sanitising genocide and the arms trade in schools
And some of their school visits appear to be taking place under the radar.
HDPSC officer Olivia Cavanagh, a single parent, said:
We have consistently campaigned for General ‘Genocide’ Dynamics to stop arming Israel. It is appalling to think they are getting into our schools without parents and carers knowing about it. Effectively, this company is targeting pupils to work with them in the future to produce weaponry that will obliterate other children, without informing them that this is what they actually do. Our children should not be exposed to a deeply immoral company arming a rogue state in defiance of international law.
One grandmother only discovered the company had visited her grandson’s school after noticing he was drinking out of a branded General Dynamics water bottle. It was a freebie the company had given out to students during a careers fair. She said:
I was disgusted. We don’t think it’s right to be offering jobs in schools here while they are causing such destruction in Palestine. They get away with it because most parents don’t know who they are or what they do.
A post on Bexhill College’s Instagram account said they were ‘privileged’ that the weapons manufacturer ran an assembly for 60 STEM students in February. This boasted of the school’s “growing partnership” with the arms company.
However, one student there said:
They are selling themselves as an ordinary company, which is misleading because they make bombs. When I told other students what they did, they were quite shocked. The college is treating them like a normal company but there is nothing normal or respectable about profiting from genocide.
In April 2025, Greek administrative judges ruled to postpone the hearings for me and eight other European and British passport holders, who face deportation for our actions in solidarity with Palestine. The nine of us were arrested alongside 19 Greek students, in relation to the occupation of the Athens Law School, in May 2024. As the so-called ‘student intifada’ swept the globe, provoking disproportionate state responses, Greece became the first country to issue deportation orders against anti-genocide activists in Europe.
Back in 2024, the nine non-Greeks were separated, labeled “outside agitators,” smeared in the media, issued deportation orders, and detained in a pre-removal detention center.
The Vatican announced Monday that Pope Francis has died at the age of 88, hours after he appeared at an Easter mass and appealed for an end to Israel’s war on the Gaza Strip. The pope’s Easter address, read aloud by Archbishop Diego Ravelli, decried the “terrible conflict” in Gaza that “continues to cause death and destruction and to create a dramatic and deplorable humanitarian situation.”…
The Vatican announced Monday that Pope Francis has died at the age of 88, hours after he appeared at an Easter mass and appealed for an end to Israel’s war on the Gaza Strip. The pope’s Easter address, read aloud by Archbishop Diego Ravelli, decried the “terrible conflict” in Gaza that “continues to cause death and destruction and to create a dramatic and deplorable humanitarian situation.”…
Since Israel’s war in Gaza began in October 2023, a severe cash crisis has become one of the most pressing challenges for Palestinians in the Gaza Strip. According to the Palestinian Monetary Authority, Gaza had 56 bank branches and 91 ATMs before the conflict. However, ongoing Israeli bombardment has destroyed most of these facilities. In addition, widespread power outages and the collapse of…
This weekend, in a rare occurrence, Christians of all denominations will be celebrating Easter at the same time as Eastern and Western Christian calendars coincide. Yet, as has become an undeniable reality for many Christian Palestinians, the only thing we share in common between our Easter and the Easter of many Christians in the West is the sheer coincidence that these celebrations are falling on the same date.
In fact, the gap between Christianity as Palestinians know it, and have known it for two thousand years, and how it is understood by many Christians in the West, has been widening since October 2023. It continues to grow with every day that passes without Western Christians speaking out against Israel’s genocide.
A grassroots campaign to put Palestine on the ballot has garnered support from 181 candidates running for a seat in the House of Commons. According to a post from the “Vote Palestine” campaign’s Instagram, 124 candidates from the NDP, 44 Green Party candidates and 13 Liberal Party candidates have provided full platform endorsement as of April 11.
The platform’s organizers say their calls are guided by Canada’s obligations under international law. The platform has five key demands, including a two-way arms embargo, the end of Canadian involvement in illegal Israeli settlements, a plan to address anti-Palestinian racism, the recognition of the state of Palestine and proper funding of relief efforts in Gaza.
This weekend, in a rare occurrence, Christians of all denominations will be celebrating Easter at the same time as Eastern and Western Christian calendars coincide. Yet, as has become an undeniable reality for many Christian Palestinians, the only thing we share in common between our Easter and the Easter of many Christians in the West is the sheer coincidence that these celebrations are falling…
Members of Fossil Free London, Energy Embargo for Palestine and the Free West Papua Campaign gathered outside BP’s London HQ in St James’s Square last night ahead of BP’s AGM, taking place today. Campaigners held a banner reading ‘stop fuelling genocide and climate breakdown’, and chanting ‘Shut down BP’.
Since the wake of Israel’s genocide on Gaza, BP has come under fire for its supply of energy supplies to Israel. In September 2024, Energy Embargo for Palestine identified in a research report that 30% of Israel’s total energy supplies passes through the Baku-Tblisi-Ceyhan (BTC) pipeline, which has gone on to fuel military operations in Gaza.
Google recently announced it would acquire Israeli-American cloud security firm Wiz for $32 billion. The price tag — 65 times Wiz’s annual revenue — has raised eyebrows and further solidified the close relationship between Google and the Israeli military.
In its press release, the Silicon Valley giant claimed that the purchase will “vastly improve how security is designed, operated and automated—providing an end-to-end security platform for customers, of all types and sizes, in the AI era.”
Yet it has also raised fears about the security of user data, particularly of those who oppose Israeli actions against its neighbors, given Unit 8200’s long history of using tech to spy on opponents, gather intelligence, and use that knowledge for extortion and blackmail.
Palestinians pushed into new misery as supplies of food, fuel and medicine run out in seven-week siege
Gaza has been pushed to new depths of despair, civilians, medics and humanitarian workers say, by the unprecedented seven-week-long Israeli military blockade that has cut off all aid to the strip.
The siege has left the Palestinian territory facing conditions unmatched in severity since the beginning of the war as residents grapple with sweeping new evacuation orders, the renewed bombing of civilian infrastructure such as hospitals, and the exhaustion of food, fuel for generators and medical supplies.
Morocco’s Port Workers’ Union, affiliated with the Moroccan Labor Union, has called on workers, users, and operative companies at the port of Casablanca to boycott the Nexoe Maersk ship, which will arrive to the port on Friday, April 18, due to its planned shipment of military equipment to Israel between April 20 and 22. The union made the call in order to protest Israel’s ongoing genocide in Gaza.
The union urged dockworkers to abstain from unloading or servicing operations for the ship, warning that facilitating its passage would make all involved “direct accomplices in the genocidal war against the Palestinian people.”
Fatma Hassona, the 25-year-old Palestinian photojournalist and subject of the upcoming documentary film Put Your Soul on Your Hand and Walk, was killed with her family Wednesday by an Israeli missile that targeted her building in northern Gaza. The strike occurred just one day after she learned that the film centered around her life and work had been selected to premiere at the ACID Cannes 2025…
Amid Israel’s ongoing genocide, thousands of Palestinian political prisoners are experiencing the most severe forms of torture and maltreatment ever recorded since the beginning of the Israeli occupation, the Palestinian Prisoner’s Society, Commission of Detainees’ Affairs and Addameer Prisoner Support and Human Rights Association said today, on the eve of Palestinian Prisoners’ Day. In this report, Palestinian prisoner defense and advocacy groups lay out the key realities and figures surrounding the current situation for political detainees. The abuse of Palestinian prisoners has become yet another facet of the genocide which is taking place with full international complicity.
Israel’s assault on Gaza health facilities and workers has completely “decimated” the health care system and has left Palestinians with “zero” options for care, a UN expert has warned. Earlier this week, Israel struck Al-Ahli Hospital, rendering it inoperational and forcing all of its patients to evacuate. The horrific attack killed a child who died due to a lack of oxygen and worsened wounds…
We’re humbled to introduce our Canary writer, Alaa Shamali from Palestine – but currently a refugee in Oman. We will be publishing him in Arabic – but if you right click on the screen the menu that appears should give you the option to translate the article to English. If you are reading on mobile, this will be in the burger menu (the three dots) of your browser.
في الأزقة المدمّرة وبين ركام البيوت المحترقة، تتردد خطى صغيرة لأطفال غزة الذين وجدوا أنفسهم في قلب حرب لا ترحم، تلاحقهم أصوات القصف والجوع والعطش في كل زاوية. لم تعد طفولتهم كما يجب أن تكون، فقد سُرقت منهم تفاصيلها البسيطة: الضحكة، اللعبة، وحتى قطرة الماء.
طفولة مكسورة
منذ بدء العدوان الإسرائيلي على قطاع غزة في 7 أكتوبر 2023، باتت حياة الأطفال الفلسطينيين رهينة الرعب والخوف. أكثر من 14 ألف طفل استشهدوا، وآلاف آخرون أُصيبوا بجراح دائمة، بينما يعيش الناجون في صدمة نفسية لا يمكن وصفها، بحسب تقارير وزارة الصحة ومؤسسات حقوق الإنسان.
تقول أُم ناصر، والدة الطفل علي (9 سنوات): “كان يحلم أن يصبح طبيبًا… اليوم، كل ما يتمناه هو أن يشرب ماءً نظيفًا وينام ليلة واحدة دون صوت قصف”. هذا الحلم البسيط تحوّل إلى رفاهية نادرة في غزة.
الماء… حلم يومي
بحسب تقارير أممية، يعيش أكثر من 95% من سكان غزة دون مياه صالحة للشرب، بعد أن دمرت إسرائيل شبكات المياه ومحطات التحلية. ويضطر الأطفال إلى السير لساعات بين الأنقاض بحثًا عن دلو ماء، قد لا يكون حتى صالحًا للاستخدام.
يقول الطفل محمد (11 عامًا): “نمشي أنا وأختي كل يوم أكثر من ساعتين لنملأ جالونين من الماء… أحيانًا نرجع بلا شيء، أو نُقصف ونحن في الطريق”.
مدارس تحوّلت إلى ملاجئ
تحولت مدارس “الأونروا” التي كانت تحتضن أحلام الأطفال إلى مآوٍ للنازحين، مكتظة بالأسر الفارّة من الموت. فقد تعطّل التعليم كليًا، وتوقفت الحياة الدراسية، بينما أغلقت أبواب الأمل في وجه جيل بأكمله.
تقول المعلمة سحر يوسف، وهي نازحة في إحدى المدارس: “الطلاب كانوا يكتبون مواضيع عن السلام والأمل… اليوم يكتبون عن الشهداء والجوع والموت”.
أصوات العالم… صمتٌ مطبق
رغم حجم الكارثة، لم تلق مأساة أطفال غزة الاهتمام الكافي من المجتمع الدولي. تستمر إسرائيل، بدعم غربي، في حربها، بينما يُحرم القطاع من المساعدات الأساسية، بسبب إغلاق المعابر. ووفقًا لليونيسيف، فإن الوضع الإنساني في غزة بلغ “مرحلة الانهيار التام”، مع تحذيرات من مجاعة تطال الأطفال أولًا.
الحق في الحياة… مفقود
في غزة، لم يعد للأطفال الحق في اللعب أو التعلم، أو حتى الحياة الآمنة. تُروى الحكايات بصوت أمهات يبحثن عن أطفالهن تحت الأنقاض، وبدموع آباء يحملون جثامين صغارهم.
بين صواريخ الاحتلال وعطش الحياة، يقف أطفال غزة على مفترق مصير قاسٍ. هم ليسوا أرقامًا في تقارير الأخبار، بل وجوه بريئة سرق منها العالم حقها في الحياة. ولا يزال السؤال قائمًا: متى يستيقظ الضمير الإنساني؟ ومتى تتوقف آلة الحرب عن سحق الطفولة
Autopsies of the paramedics who were killed by Israeli forces and buried in a mass grave in Gaza last month found that many had been shot in the head and chest, according to new reports on the massacre that has sparked international backlash. Autopsies for 14 out of 15 of the medics found that four of them had been shot in the head, while six were shot in the chest or back, The New York Times…
We’re humbled to introduce a new Canary writer, Alaa Shamali from Palestine – but currently a refugee in Oman. We will be publishing him in Arabic – but if you right click on the screen the menu that appears should give you the option to translate the article to English. If you are reading on mobile, this will be in the burger menu (the three dots) of your browser.
اتهمت حركة حماس رئيس الوزراء الإسرائيلي بنيامين نتنياهو بتعمد عرقلة التوصل إلى اتفاق شامل لتبادل الأسرى، مشيرة إلى أنه يرفض إطلاق سراح الأسرى الإسرائيليين دفعة واحدة لتحقيق “مصالحه السياسية الشخصية”.
وتقدر إسرائيل وجود 59 أسيرًا لديها في قطاع غزة، بينهم 24 على قيد الحياة، في المقابل، يقبع أكثر من 9500 فلسطيني في السجون الإسرائيلية وسط أوضاع إنسانية صعبة، تشمل التعذيب وسوء المعاملة والإهمال الطبي، ما أدى إلى وفاة عدد منهم، حسب تقارير حقوقية فلسطينية وإسرائيلية.
وفي كلمة متلفزة، قال زاهر جبارين، القيادي في حماس والمسؤول عن ملف الضفة الغربية، إن إسرائيل “لن تنجح في اقتلاع الشعب الفلسطيني من أرضه”، مؤكدًا: “إما أن نعيش فوق أرضنا أعزاء أو نموت شهداء”.
وأضاف أن “جرائم الإبادة التي يرتكبها الاحتلال لن تمر دون عقاب”، مشيرًا إلى أن إسرائيل تدفع اليوم ثمنًا سياسيًا وأخلاقيًا باهظًا على الساحة الدولية.
ومنذ 7 أكتوبر 2023، تشن إسرائيل هجومًا واسعًا على قطاع غزة بدعم أمريكي، أسفر عن أكثر من 167 ألف شهيد وجريح، معظمهم من الأطفال والنساء، بالإضافة إلى أكثر من 11 ألف مفقود، وفق إحصائيات رسمية فلسطينية.
ويخضع القطاع لحصار مشدد منذ 18 عامًا، تفاقم مع الدمار الشامل للبنية التحتية، ما جعل نحو 1.5 مليون فلسطيني بلا مأوى، وسط تحذيرات من دخول القطاع في مرحلة المجاعة نتيجة إغلاق المعابر ومنع دخول المساعدات.
وأشار جبارين إلى أن حماس تبذل جهودًا لوقف العدوان وإنهاء الحرب، لكنها تصطدم برفض نتنياهو للاتفاق، الذي يتطلب انسحاب الجيش الإسرائيلي الكامل من القطاع وتبادلًا شاملًا للأسرى.
وأوضح أن أكثر من 100 ألف إسرائيلي، بينهم جنود سابقون وأفراد احتياط، وقعوا عرائض تطالب بإتمام صفقة التبادل حتى لو استدعى الأمر وقف الحرب، إلا أن نتنياهو، بحسب تعبيره، “يترك أسراه للموت جوعًا أو بردًا أو تحت القصف”، بسبب إصراره على استئناف الحرب لأهداف تتعلق ببقائه السياسي.
يذكر أن المرحلة الأولى من اتفاق التهدئة وتبادل الأسرى، بوساطة مصرية وقطرية وبدعم أمريكي، انطلقت في 19 يناير 2025، والتزمت بها حماس، بينما رفض نتنياهو تنفيذ المرحلة الثانية، التي تشمل وقف القتال وانسحاب القوات الإسرائيلية من غزة.
وفي 18 مارس الماضي، أعادت إسرائيل تصعيد عملياتها العسكرية نتيجة ضغوط من الجناح المتطرف داخل الحكومة، ما أدى إلى استشهاد 1691 فلسطينيًا وإصابة 4464 آخرين، معظمهم من النساء والأطفال، بحسب وزارة الصحة في غزة.
وختم جبارين بأن نتنياهو “يُضحي بالأسرى الإسرائيليين في غزة من أجل مصالحه السياسية الشخصية”، محملًا إياه مسؤولية فشل التوصل إلى اتفاق شامل حتى الآن
Israel has bombed children and other civilians who were inside tents in Al-Mawasi, Khan Younis. A spokesperson from the civil defence agency, Mahmud Bassal, said:
At least 16 martyrs [were killed], most of them women and children, and 23 others were wounded following a direct strike by two Israeli missiles on several tents housing displaced families in the al-Mawasi area of Khan Younis.
The area that is bombed is designated a so-called humanitarian or safe zone. However, Israel has repeatedlydesignated areas as safe zones for people to shelter in, before brutally bombing them.
Israel’s impunity
Shocking footage on social media of the attacks showed people engulfed in flames and crying out for help. Journalist Motasem Dalloul posted the carnage Israel unleashed:
Unbelievable Tents and bodies of displaced persons are burning after Israeli bombing of Al Mawasi neighbourhood in Khan Younis! pic.twitter.com/Ll6BSZR7Qo
In the clip, people are running to retrieve survivors from the all-encompassing flames, as sirens sound. Dalloul also shared information on who had been hurt in the attacks:
In the past 4 hours, Israeli occupation forces have KILLED:
4 displaced persons in their tents in Al Mawasi
15 displaced persons, most of them are CHILDREN, in their tent in Al Astabl street of Khan Younis
4 displaced persons in their tent in Beit Lahiya
6 displaced persons in their tent in Jabalia
7 displaced persons in their tent in Jabalia!
Israeli aggression is still continuous..
Drop Site News shared horrific footage of the charred remains of children Israel burned to death. You can view it here.
A resident of the camp, Yusuf Abu Roos toldMiddle East Eye:
The corpses were charred… to the point that nothing was left, even the metal in the tents were burnt.
Yusuf said the corpses were:
as if they were skeletons, melted skeletons.
Majedeh Abu Roos, whose daughter and three grandchildren died during the attack, explained that her family were asleep when they were slaughtered:
The [strike] burnt the tent, they were all burnt, they were all charred.
Look at all those who died, they were all just children and women… Have mercy on us, we are exhausted.
She sobbed as she told Middle East Eye:
Every day we await our deaths, every minute and every moment, we are awaiting our end.
Diplomat Mohamed Safa showed a hellish scene:
There is no moral difference between putting people in gas chambers and burning people in safe zones inside tents.
Journalist Assal Rad documented how Western media has by and large been ignoring this horrifying attack:
I just saw charred bodies of children burned alive by Israel.
I can’t find any headlines in Western media about it. The reason there is no wall-to-wall coverage for such horror is because the victims are Palestinian and the perpetrator is Israel. That’s how dehumanization works.
As usual, Israel’s bombing is being reported by Middle East outlets like Al-Jazeera, Middle East Eye, and the Quds News Network. As ever, Palestinians aren’t considered human enough for mainstream Western media to report on their deaths. Quds News Network (QNN) had the details on an extremely bloody past 24 hours:
The Gaza Strip witnessed a bloody night as Israel perpetrated appalling massacres against displaced civilians in tents across the enclave, wiping out at least three Palestinian families from the civil registry.
QNN, as they always do, included details of the specific people who’d been killed:
Palestinian child Ahmed Zuhair Abu Al-Rous, who had special needs, was burned to death in the Israeli bombing of the tents of displaced people in Al-Mawasi area of Khan Younis, southern Gaza.
It has become commonplace for social media feeds to be the place where we see Palestinians dying, screaming in pain, covered in blood, buried in rubble. Whilst the likes of the BBC are quick to cover the details of Israeli victims, no such humanisation and collective grief is forthcoming for Palestinians.
The least Westerners can do is keep up to date with Israel’s atrocities. That involves breaking news and emerging footage of attacks, but it also involves understanding that the Palestinians massacred are not numbers in statistics, but people. Children like Ahmed Abu Al-Rous have a whole universe inside them, are the whole universe to somebody else.
Mainstream media’s refusal to commemorate Palestinian deaths is a mirror to their refusal to treat Palestinians as people with human rights.
Israel war crimes
Mondoweiss‘ Qassam Muaddi spoke to people in Al-Mawasi who were trying to shelter from bombing. Muaddi reported:
Israel not only resumed airstrikes across the strip at the same rate as the days before the ceasefire entered into force, but has also sealed it off through a complete blockade of humanitarian aid, closing all crossing points into Gaza and provoking the return of famine conditions, a critical shortage of medicine, fuel, and skyrocketing prices.
Israel is committing a genocide. They’re herding Palestinians around the Gaza Strip, bombing safe zones that they themselves designate. Their forces are throttling any entry of aid into the area, so Palestinians starve to death and live in abject misery with little water or electricity. They’re bombing medical facilities so any treatment Palestinians might receive is further scarce. They’re committing war crime after war crime and a silent world is not just watching along, but enabling this genocide with their complicity.
Tony Klug reflects on Labour’s position in 1975 and the Foreign Office’s policy today on recognising Palestine
Your report that the Foreign Office’s position is that it will recognise Palestine at an “appropriate moment of maximum impact” brings to mind conversations I had in 1975 with two Labour foreign ministers, Roy Hattersley and David Ennals (Labour MPs push for Foreign Office to recognise Palestinian statehood, 13 April).
While both ministers agreed in principle with my proposal in a Fabian pamphlet for a Palestinian state alongside Israel, they were adamant that then was not the right time. It is extraordinary that this conviction is still parroted by some of their ministerial counterparts today, 50 years later.
Members of Fossil Free London, Energy Embargo for Palestine and the Free West Papua Campaign gathered outside BP’s London HQ in St James’s Square last night ahead of BP’s AGM, taking place today.
BP: stop fuelling genocide
Campaigners held a banner reading ‘stop fuelling genocide and climate breakdown’, and chanting ‘Shut down BP’:
Since the wake of Israel’s genocide on Gaza, BP has come under fire for its supply of energy supplies to Israel. In September 2024, Energy Embargo for Palestine identified in a research report that 30% of Israel’s total energy supplies passes through the Baku-Tblisi-Ceyhan (BTC) pipeline, which has gone on to fuel military operations in Gaza:
Last month it was additionally revealed that the gas licences awarded to a consortium of oil companies, including BP, off the coast of the Gaza strip have now been renewed. Following ICJ’s ruling on Israel; human rights experts have warned that countries and corporations supplying oil to Israeli armed forces may be complicit in war crimes and genocide.
The last financial year has also seen BP roll back on its climate pledge and investments, the intended resignation of their energy transition-conscious Chair, Helge Lunde, and an increase in their oil investments:
In February, BP announced they are increasing its investment in oil and gas to $10bn a year while cutting more than $5bn from its low-carbon investment plans. BP’s CEO Murray Auchincloss said the company has gone “too far, too fast” towards the energy transition, despite the Grantham Research Institute finding BP’s former transition plans didn’t constitute a “credible plan”.
This announcement comes in just as the UK is predicted to see the hottest April since records began.
Destroying the planet, killing people
Lila from Energy Embargo for Palestine said:
As BP abandons its renewable energy commitments and doubles down on oil and gas production, we know that this is not a departure from its usual operations. From the gas flares in Iraq to the ecocide in Palestine, BP’s operations is premised on the destruction of both people and planet.
Robin Wells, director of Fossil Free London, said of the company:
Its corporate greed kills millions through the fuelling of a genocide and through the climate breakdown that continues at pace.
The writing is on the wall. BP doubling down on oil and gas is just part of the standard functioning of Big Oil. This will never change. It’s clearer than ever that is no place for oily, greed-driven corporations in the world we need to build. Shut BP down.
Featured image and additional images via Andrea Domeniconi/Fossil Free London
One year ago, Columbia University became ground zero for the student-led Gaza solidarity encampment movement that spread to campuses across the country and around the world. Now, Columbia has become ground zero for the Trump administration’s authoritarian assault on higher education, academic freedom, and the right to free speech and free assembly—all under the McCarthyist guise of rooting out “anti-semitism.” From Trump’s threats to cancel $400 million in federal grants and contracts with Columbia to the abduction of international students like Mahmoud Khalil by ICE agents, to the university’s firing and expulsion of Student Workers of Columbia-United Auto Workers union president Grant Miner, “a tremendous chilling effect” has gripped Columbia’s campus community. In this urgent episode of Working People, we speak with: Caitlin Liss, a PhD candidate in history at Columbia University and a member of Student Workers of Columbia-UAW (SWC); and Allie Wong, a PhD student at the Columbia Journalism School and a SWC member who was arrested and beaten by police during the second raid on the Gaza solidarity protests at Columbia on April 30, 2024.
Additional links/info:
Student Workers of Columbia-UAW Local 2710 website
April 17: Day of Action to Defend Higher Ed website
Studio Production: Maximillian Alvarez Post-Production: Jules Taylor
Transcript
The following is a rushed transcript and may contain errors. A proofread version will be made available as soon as possible.
Maximillian Alvarez:
Alright. Welcome everyone to Working People, a podcast about the lives, jobs, dreams, and struggles of the working class today. Working People is a proud member of the Labor Radio Podcast Network and is brought to you in partnership within these Times Magazine and the Real News Network. This show is produced by Jules Taylor and made possible by the support of listeners like you. My name is Maximillian Alvarez and today we are continuing our urgent coverage of the Trump Administration’s all out assault on our institutions of higher education and the people who live, learn and work there. Today we are going deeper into the heart of authoritarian darkness that has gripped colleges and universities across the country and we’re talking with two graduate student workers at Columbia University. Columbia has become ground zero for the administration’s gangster government style moves to hold billions of dollars of federal funding hostage in order to bend universities to Donald Trump’s will to reshape the curricula culture and research infrastructure of American higher ed as such and to squash our constitutionally protected rights to free speech and free assembly, all under the McCarthy’s guise of rooting out supposed antisemitism, which the administration has recategorized to mean virtually any criticism of an opposition to the state of Israel.
The political ideology of Zionism and Israel’s US backed genocide in Gaza and ethnic cleansing of Palestinians just one year ago. Columbia University was also ground zero for the student-led Palestine solidarity protests and encampments that spread to campuses across the country and even around the world. It was exactly one year ago that the first Gaza solidarity encampment began at Columbia on April 17th, 2024 and that same month on more than one occasion, Columbia’s own president at the time minutia authorized the NYPD to descend on campus like an occupying force, beat an arrest protestors and dismantle the camps. Now fast forward to March of this year. On Friday, March 7th, the Trump administration announced that it was canceling $400 million in federal grants and contracts with Columbia claiming that the move was due to the school’s continued inaction in the face of persistent harassment of Jewish students. The very next day, March 8th Mahmud, Khalil was abducted by ICE agents at his New York City apartment building in front of his pregnant wife and disappeared to a Louisiana immigration jail.
Khalil, a Palestinian born legal resident with a green card had just completed his master’s program and was set to graduate in May. He had served as a key negotiator with the university administration and spokesperson for the student encampment last year. He’s not accused of breaking any laws during that time, but the Trump administration has weaponized a rarely used section of the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952, invoking the Secretary of States power to deport non-citizens if they supposedly believed their presence in the country could negatively affect US foreign policy. Just days after Khalil’s abduction, the university also expelled grant minor president of the Student Workers of Columbia Union, a local of the United Auto Workers, and that was just one day before contract negotiations were set to open between the union and the university. On March 13th, I was expelled from Columbia University for participating in the protest movement against the ongoing genocide in Gaza, minor rights in an op-ed for the nation.
I was not the only one. He continues, 22 students, all of whom like me had been cleared of any criminal wrongdoing, were either expelled, suspended for years or had their hard earned degrees revoked on the same day all for allegedly occupying a building that has been occupied at least four times throughout Columbia’s history. And then there’s Y Sao Chung, a 21-year-old undergraduate and legal permanent resident who is suing the government after ICE moved to deport her, following her arrest on March 5th while protesting Columbia’s disciplinary actions against student protestors. I mean, this is just a small, terrifying snapshot of the broader Orwellian nightmare that has become all too real, all too quickly at Columbia University and it is increasingly becoming reality around the country and things got even darker last week with the latest development in Mahmood Khalil’s case as the American Civil Liberties Union stated on Friday in a decision that appeared to be pre-written, an immigration judge ruled immediately after a hearing today that Mahmud Khalil is removable under US immigration law. This comes less than 48 hours after the US government handed over the evidence they have on Mr. Khalil, which included nothing more than a letter from Secretary of State Marco Rubio that made clear Mr. Khalil had not committed a crime and was being targeted solely based on his speech. He’s not yet scheduled for deportation.
Listen, this isn’t just a redux of McCarthyism and the red scare. It has elements of that absolutely, but it is also monstrously terrifyingly new. I don’t know how far down this road we’re going to go. All I know is that whatever comes next will depend on what people of conscience do now or what they don’t do. Will other universities cave and capitulate to Trump as quickly as Columbia has? Will we see instead faculty, staff, students, grad students, parents, community members and others coming together on campuses across the country to fight this or will fear submission silence and self-censorship went out? What is it even like to be living, working and studying at Columbia University right now? Well, today you’ll hear all about that firsthand from our two guests. With all of this going on, I got to speak with Caitlin Liss, a PhD candidate in history at Columbia University and a member of Student workers of Columbia, and I also spoke with Alie Wong, a PhD student at the Columbia Journalism School, and a student workers of Columbia member who was arrested and beaten by police during the second raid on the Gaza solidarity protests at Columbia on April 30th, 2024.
Here’s my conversation with Caitlin and Allie recorded on Saturday April 12th. Well, Caitlin, Allie, thank you both so much for joining us today on the show. I really appreciate it, especially in the midst of everything going on right now. And I basically wanted to start there and ask if you could tell us from your own firsthand experience as student workers at Columbia, like what is the mood on campus and in your life right now, especially in light of the latest ruling on Mahmud Khalil’s case?
Caitlin Liss:
Okay. Yeah, so thank you for having us. I’m happy to be here. The mood on campus has been, you probably won’t be surprised to hear pretty bleak, pretty bad. We found out yesterday that Mahmood Kalila is not going to be released from jail in Louisiana. I think a lot of us were hoping that this ruling that was coming up was going to be in his favor and he would be released and be back home in time to be there for the birth of his baby. And it didn’t happen. And I think it’s just another horrible thing that has happened in a month, two months of just unrelenting bad news on campus. So stuff is feeling pretty bad. People are afraid, especially international students are afraid to leave their house. They’re afraid to speak up in class. I hear from people who are afraid to go to a union meeting and even those of us who are citizens feel afraid as well.
I mean, I wake up every day and I look at my phone to see if I’ve gotten a text message telling me that one of my friends has been abducted. It’s really scary. And on top of the sort of personal relationships with our friends and comrades who are at risk, there’s the sense that also our careers are industry are at risk. So, and many other members of student workers of Columbia have spent many years dedicated to getting a PhD and being in academia and it’s increasingly starting to feel like academia might not exist for that much longer. So it’s feeling pretty bleak.
Allie Wong:
Yeah, I would definitely agree. And again, thank you so much Max for having us here. It’s a real pleasure to be able to share our stories and have a platform to do that. Yeah, I would agree. I think that there is a tremendous chilling effect that’s sunk in across the campus. And on one hand it’s not terribly surprising considering that’s the strategy of the Trump administration on the other. It is really a defeating feeling to see the momentum that we had last year, the ways that we were not only telling the story but telling it across the world that all eyes were on Columbia and we had this really incredible momentum. And so to see not just that lack of momentum, but the actual fear that has saturated the entire campus that has indiscriminately permeated people’s attitudes, whether you’re an American citizen or not, whether you’re light-skinned or not, has been something that’s been incredibly harrowing.
I know that after Mahmood, I at least had the anticipation of quite a bit of activity, but between that ranjani the other students and Columbia’s capitulation, it actually has gone the opposite way in that while I expected there to be tons of masks on campus after Columbia agreed to have a total mask ban, there was no one when I expected to see different vigils or protests or the breakdown of silos that have emerged across the campus of different groups, whether they’re student groups or faculty groups, I’m just hoping to see some kind of solidarity there. It hasn’t, and I think it’s largely because of the chilling effect because that this is the strategy of the Trump administration and unfortunately it’s such a dire situation that I think it’s really squashed a lot of the fervor and a lot of the fearlessness that many of us had prior to this moment.
Maximillian Alvarez:
It feels like a ice pick to the heart to hear that, especially knowing not just what we saw on campuses across the country just a year ago, but also the long tradition of campus protests and universities and higher education being a place of free speech, free thought free debate and the right to protest and lead with a moral consciousness like movements that help direct the whole of society to see that this is what is happening here now in front of all of us. And since I have so much more, I want to ask about the past month for you both on campus, but while we’re on that subject that Allie just brought up about the expectation right now, which I have heard echoed a lot of places online and offline of why aren’t there mass protests across higher ed in every state in the country right now, you would think that the generation of the sixties would do just that if Nixon had tried such a thing. And a lot of folks have been asking us why aren’t we seeing that right now? And so I wanted to ask if y’all had any thoughts on that and also if that would in your mind change things like if you saw other campuses that weren’t being targeted as intently as Columbia is, if you saw students and faculty and others protesting on behalf of what’s happening to you, would that change the mood on campus you think?
Caitlin Liss:
I mean that there’s a few things going on. Part of it is, like Allie said, the chilling effect of what’s been happening is making a really large percentage of our members and people in our community afraid to publicly take action. International student workers make up a really big percentage of our membership, and a lot of those people are afraid to even sign their name to a petition. In my departments. We sent a joint letter to the departments about what was going on, and a bunch of students didn’t want their names appearing on this letter that was just being sent the chair of the departments. So the chilling effect is real and very strong, and I think that that’s preventing a lot of people from showing up in ways that they might have done otherwise. I think that another part of it is just the kind of unrelenting nature of what’s been happening.
It has been one horrible thing after another and trying to react to everything as it comes in is difficult, but I don’t think it’s the case that we’re not doing anything. We are doing quite a bit and really trying through many different avenues to use our power as a union to fight back against what’s happening. We are talking with other unions on campus, we talk to other higher ed unions across the country, and so I think that there is quite a lot going on, but it does sometimes feel like we can’t keep up with the pace of the things that are happening just because they are happening so quickly and accumulating so fast.
Allie Wong:
Yeah, I mean I would definitely agree. I think that it’s the fire hose strategy, which has proven to be effective not just on Columbia but across the nation with the dismantling of the federal government attack on institutions, the arts, the legal processes and legal entities. And so I think that again, that that’s part of the strategy is to just overwhelm people with the number of issues that would require attention. And I think that’s happening on Columbia’s campus as well. If we take even divestment as an example where it was a pretty straightforward ask last year, but now we’re seeing an issue on campus where it’s no longer about Palestine, Israel divestment, it’s about immigration reform and law enforcement. It’s about the American dream class consciousness. So many of these different things that are happening not just to the student body, but to faculty and the administration.
And so I think that in terms of trying to galvanize people, it’s a really difficult ask when you have so many different things that are coming apart at the seams. And that’s not to say it’s an insurmountable task. As Caitlin mentioned, we are moving forward, we are putting infrastructure in place and asks in place, but I think it’s difficult to mobilize people around so many different issues when everyone already feels not only powerless but cynical about the ability to change things when again, that momentum that we had last year has waned and the issues have broadened.
Caitlin Liss:
Just in terms of your question about support or solidarity from other campuses, I think that one of the things that has been most dispiriting about being at Columbia right now is that it’s clear that Columbia is essentially a test case for the Trump administration. We were the first school to be and are still in many ways kind of the center of attention, but it’s not just us, but it feels like the way that Columbia is reacting is kind of setting the tone for what other universities and colleges can do across the country. And what Columbia is doing is folding, so they are setting an example that is just rolling over and giving up in terms of what other colleges can do. I think we’re seeing other universities are reacting to these kinds of attacks in ways that are much better than Columbia has done. We just saw that Tufts, I think filed some legal documents in support of Ru Mesa Ozturk because she is a student there.
Columbia has done no such thing for Ranjani, for Uno, for Mahmood. They haven’t even mentioned them. And so we can see other universities are reacting in ways that are better. And I think that that gives us hope and not only gives us hope, but it gives us also something to point to when people at Columbia say, well, Columbia can’t do things any differently. It’s like, well, clearly it can because these other universities are doing something. Columbia doesn’t have to be doing this. It is making a choice to completely give in to everything that Trump is demanding.
Allie Wong:
And I would also add to that point, and going back to your question about Mahmood and sort of how either us individually or collectively are feeling about that, to Caitlin’s point, I think there’s so much that’s symbolic about Columbia, whether it has to do with Trump’s personal pettiness or the fact that it was kind of the epicenter of the encampments list last year. I think what happened with Mahmood is incredibly symbolic. If you look at particularly him and Ranjani, the first two that were targeted by the university, so much of their situations are almost comical in how they planned the ambiguity of policy and antisemitism where you look at Mahmud and he, it’s almost funny that he was the person who was targeted because he’s an incredibly calm, gentle person. He provided a sense of peace during the chaos of last year. He’s unequivocally condemned, Hamas, very publicly condemned terrorism, condemned antisemitism.
So if you were looking for someone who would be a great example, he’s not really one considering they don’t have any evidence on him. And the same thing for Ranjani who literally wasn’t even in the country when October 7th happened in that entire year, had never participated in the protests at most, had kind of engaged with social media by liking things, but two really good examples of people who don’t actually quite fit the bill in terms of trying to root out antisemitism. But in my mind it’s really strategic because it really communicates that nobody is safe. Whether you’ve participated in protests or not, you’re not safe, whether you’ve condemned antisemitism or not, you’re not safe. And I think that plays into the symbolic nature of Columbia as well, where Trump is trying to make an example out of Columbia and out of Columbia students. And we see that very clearly in the ruling yesterday with Mahmud.
Again, that’s not to say that it’s not an insurmountable thing, but it’s disappointing and it’s frankly embarrassing to be a part of an institution that brags about its long history of protests, its long history of social change through student movements. When you look at 1968 and Columbia called the NYPD on students arrested 700 students, and yet it kind of enshrines that moment in history as a place of pride, and I see that happening right now as well where 20, 30, 50 years from now, we’ll be looking at this moment and Columbia will be proud of it when really they’re the perpetrators of violence and hatred and bigotry and kind of turning the gun on their own students. So yeah, it’s a really precarious time to be a Columbia student and to be advocating for ourselves and our friends, our brothers and sisters who are experiencing this kind of oppression and persecution from our own country.
Maximillian Alvarez:
Allie, Caitlin, I want to ask if we could again take that step back to the beginning of March where things were this terrifying new reality was really ramping up with the Trump administration’s freezing and threatening of completely withholding $400 million in federal funds and grants to Columbia just one day before Mahmood Khalil was abducted by ice agents and disappeared to a jail in Louisiana thousands of miles away. So from that point to now, I wanted to ask, as self-identified student workers at Columbia University, how have you and others been feeling throughout all of this as it’s been unfolding and trying to get through your day-to-day work? What does that even look like? Teaching and researching under these terrifying circumstances?
Allie Wong:
For me, it has been incredibly scary. As you mentioned, I was someone who was arrested and beaten last year after the second Gaza solidarity encampment raid and have spoken quite publicly about it. I authored a number of pieces around that time and since then and have been pretty open about my involvement being okay serving as a lightning rod for a lot of that PR stuff. And so for me, coming into this iteration of students battles with the university, it’s been really scary to kind see how many of the students that I was arrested with, many of my friends and colleagues are now either being targeted because of their involvement or living in the fear of being targeted because there is an opacity around what those policies are and how they’re being enforced and implemented. So it really does feel quite McCarthys in the sense that you don’t really know what the dangers are, but you know that they’re there, you’re looking over your shoulder all the time.
I don’t leave my house without wearing a mask just because through this whole process, many students have been doxed. Both Caitlin and myself have been doxed quite heavily through Canary mission and other groups online, and many folks have experienced offline behavior that has been threatening or scary to their own physical emotional security. And so that’s been a big piece for me is just being aware of my surroundings, being mindful of when I leave the house. In many respects, it does feel like I am growing in paranoia, but at the same time I consider it a moral obligation to be on the front lines as a light-skinned US citizen to be serving as a literal and figurative shield for my international brothers and sisters. And so it’s an interesting place as particularly a US citizen to say, what is my responsibility to the people around me?
What’s my responsibility to myself and keeping myself and my home safe? What’s my responsibility for sticking up for those who are targeted as someone who has the privilege of being able to be a citizen? And so I think it’s kind of a confusing time for those of us on the ground wanting to do more, wanting to help, wanting to offer our assistance with the privileges that we have and everyone’s level of comfort is different, and so my expectation is not that other people would take the kinds of risks I’m taking, but everyone has a part to play and whether that’s a visual part or a non-visual part, being in the public, it doesn’t really matter. We all have a part to play. And so given what we talked about just about the strategy of the Trump administration and the objectives to make us fearful and make us not speak out, I think it’s more important now than ever for those of us who are able to have the covering of US citizenship, to be doing everything in our power with the resources we’ve been given to take those risks because it’s much more important now in this administration than it’s ever been.
Caitlin Liss:
And I think on top of the stuff allie’s talking about, we do still have to continue doing our jobs. So for me, that is teaching. I’m teaching a class this semester and that has been very challenging to do, having to continue going in and talking about the subject matter, which is stuff that is very interesting to me personally and that I’m very excited to be teaching about in the classroom, but at the same time, there’s so much going on campus, it just feels impossible to be turning our attention to Ana and I hear from my students are scared, so part of my job has become having to help my students through that. I have heard lots of people who are trying to move their classes off campus because students don’t want to be on campus right now.
ICE is crawling all over campus. The NYPD is all over the place. I don’t know if you saw this, but Columbia has agreed to hire these 36 quote peace officers who are going to be on campus and have arresting power. So now essentially we have cops on campus full time and then on top of all of that, you have to wait in these horrible security lines to even get onto campus so the environment on campus doesn’t feel safe, so my students don’t feel safe. I don’t think anyone’s students feel safe right now. My colleagues who are international students don’t feel safe. I had a friend ask me what to do because she was TAing for a class and she wasn’t allowed to move it off campus or onto Zoom, and she said, I don’t feel safe on campus because I’m an international student and what am I going to do if ice comes to the door?
I don’t know what I’m supposed to do in that situation. And so the students are scared, my colleagues are scared. I’ve even heard from a lot of professors who are feeling like they have to watch their words in the classroom because they don’t want to end up on Canary mission for having said something. So that’s quite difficult. Teaching in this environment is very difficult and I think that the students are having a really hard time. And then on top of that, I am in the sixth year of my PhD, so I’m supposed to be writing a dissertation right now, and that is also quite difficult to be keeping up with my research, which is supposed to be a big part of the PhD is producing research and it’s really hard to do right now because it feels like we have, my friends and my colleagues are at risk right now, so that’s quite difficult to maintain your attention in all those different places.
Allie Wong:
Just one more piece to add because I know that we’ve been pretty negative and it is a pretty negative situation, so I don’t want to silver line things. That being said, I do feel as though it’s been really beautiful to see people step up and really beautiful to see this kind of symbiotic relationship happening between US students and international students. I’m at the journalism school, which is overwhelmingly international, and I was really discouraged when there was a report that came out from the New York Times a couple of weeks ago about a closed town hall that we had where our dean, Jelani Cobb more or less said to students, we can’t protect you as much as I would love to be able to say here are the processes and protocols and the ways to keep yourself safe and the ways that we’re here to support you, but he just said we can’t.
And he got a lot of flack for that because that’s a pretty horrible thing for a dean to say. But I actually really appreciated it because it was the most honest and direct thing he could have said to students when the university itself was just sending us barrages of emails with these empty platitudes about values and a 270 year history of freethinking and all this nonsense. That being said, I think that it was a really difficult story to read, but at the same time it’s been really beautiful to see community gather around and clinging together when there are unknowns, people taking notes for each other when students don’t feel comfortable going to campus, students starting to host off campus happy hour groups and sit-ins together and things of that nature that have been really, again, amazing to see happen under such terrible circumstances and people just wanting to help each other out in the ways that they can.
Maximillian Alvarez:
Caitlyn, Allie, you were just giving us a pretty harrowing view of your day-to-day reality there as student workers of Columbia PhD working on your PhDs and dealing with all of this Orwellian madness that we’ve been talking about today. When I was listening to you both, I was hearing so many kind of resonances from my own experience, just one sort of decade back, right? I mean, because I remember being a PhD candidate at the University of Michigan during the first Trump administration and co-founding for full disclosure, I was a member of the grad union there. I was a co-founder of the campus anti-fascist network. I was doing a lot of public writing. I started this podcast in that sort of era, and there were so many things that y’all were talking about that sounded similar from the fear of websites like Canary Mission, putting people’s names out there and encouraging them to be doxed and disciplined and even deported.
That resonated with me because it just ate nine years ago. That was groups like Turning Point USA, they were the ones trying to film professors in class and then send it to Breitbart and hopefully get it into the Fox News outrage cycle. And I experienced some of that. But what I’m hearing also is just that the things we were dealing with during the first Trump administration are not what y’all are dealing with now. There is first and foremost a fully, the state is now part of it. The state is now sort of leading that. It’s not just the sort of far right groups and people online and that kind of thing, but also it feels like the mechanisms of surveillance and punishment are entirely different as well. I wanted to ask if y’all could speak a little more to that side of things. It’s not just the university administration that you’re contending with, you’re contending with a lot of different forces here that are converging on you and your rights at this very moment.
Caitlin Liss:
Yeah, I mean I think the one thing that has been coming up a lot for us, we’re used to fighting Columbia, the institution for our rights in the workplace for fair pay. And Columbia has always been a very stubborn adversary, very difficult to get anything out of them. Our first contract fight lasted for years, and now we’re looking at not just Columbia as someone to be fighting with, but at the federal government as a whole. And it’s quite scary. I think we talked about this a little bit, about international students being afraid to participate in protests, being afraid to go to union meetings. We’re hearing a lot of fear from people who aren’t citizens about to what extent participating in the union is safe for them right now. And on the one hand you want to say participating in a union is a protected activity.
There’s nothing illegal about it. You can’t get in trouble. In fact, it’s illegal to retaliate against you for being in a union. But on the other hand, it doesn’t necessarily feel like the law is being that protective right now. So it’s a very scary place to be in. And I think that from our point of view, the main tool we have in this moment is just our solidarity with one another and labor power as a union because the federal governments does not seem that interested in protecting our rights as a union. And so we have to rely on each other in order to fight for what we need and what will make our workplace safe.
Maximillian Alvarez:
Well, and I was wondering, Allie, if I could also toss it to you there, because this makes me think of something you said earlier about how the conditions at Columbia, the structure of Columbia, how Columbia’s run, have sort of made it vulnerable to what’s happening now or the ways that Columbia talks about itself versus what Columbia actually is, are quite stark here. And connecting that to what Caitlin just said, I think it should also be understood as someone who has covered grad student campaigns, contract campaigns at Columbia and elsewhere, that when these sorts of strikes are happening when graduate student workers are taking action against the administration, the first ones that are threatened by the administration with punitive measures including potentially the revocation of their visas are international students. They have always been the most vulnerable members of grad student unions that administrations have actually used as leverage to compel unions to bend to their demand. So I make that point speaking only for myself here as a journalist who has observed this in many other times, that this precedent of going after international students in the way the Trump administration is like didn’t just come out of nowhere.
Allie Wong:
Exactly. Yeah. So I mean I think if you even look at how Trump campaigned, he really doubled down on immigration policy. I mean, it’s the most obvious statement I can say, but the high hyperbole, the hatred, the racism, you see that as a direct map onto what’s happening right now. And I think that’s part of what maybe isn’t unique about Columbia, but as we’re starting to see other universities take a stand, Caitlin mentioned Tufts. I know Princeton also recently kind said that they would not capitulate. So there is precedent for something different from how Columbia has behaved, and I think you see them just playing exactly into Trump’s hands folding to his kind of proxy policy of wanting to make Colombian example. And it’s a really disappointing thing from a university that prides itself on its liberal values, prides itself on its diversity on protecting students.
When you actually see quite the opposite, not only is Columbia not just doing anything, it’s actively participating in what’s happening on campus, the fact that they have yet to even name the students who have very publicly been abducted or chased out of the country because of their complicity, the fact that they will send emails or make these statements about values, but actually not tell us anything that’s going to be helpful, like how policies will be implemented when they’re going to be implemented, what these ice agents look like, things of that nature that could be done to protect students. And also obviously not negotiating in good faith. The fact that Grant was expelled and fired the day before we had a collective bargaining meeting right before we were about to talk about protections for international students, just communicates that the university is not operating in good faith, they’re not interested in the wellbeing of their students or doing anything within their power, which is quite a tremendous power to say to the Trump administration, our students come first. Our students are an entity of us and we’re going to do whatever we can in our power to block you from demonizing and targeting international students who, as you said, are the most vulnerable people on our campus, but also those who bring so much diversity and brilliance and life to our university and our country.
Caitlin Liss:
And I think on the subject of international students, you, you’re right that they have always been in a more precarious position in higher ed unions. But on the other hand, I think that that shows us what power we do have as a union. I’m thinking. So we’ve been talking a lot about to what extent it’s safe for international workers to stay involved in the union, and our contract is expiring in June, which is why we’re having these bargaining sessions and we’re talking about going on strike next fall potentially. And there’s a lot of questions about to what extent can international students participate now because who knows what kind of protections they’re going to have? And I’ve been thinking about the last time we went on strike, it was a 10 week strike and we were striking through the end of the semester. It was the fall semester and we were still on strike when the semester ended.
And Columbia said that if we didn’t come off strike that they weren’t going to rehire the workers who were striking for the next semester. So anyone who was on strike wouldn’t get hired for a position in the spring semester and for international students that was going to affect their visa status. So it was very scary for them. And we of course said, that’s illegal. You can, that’s retaliation for us for going on strike. You can’t do that. And they said, it’s not illegal because we’re just not rehiring you. And it was this real moment of risk even though we felt much more confident in the legal protection because it felt like they could still do it and our recourse would have to be going to court and winning the case that this was illegal. So it was still very scary for international students, but we voted together to stay on strike and we held the line and Columbia did not in fact want to fire all of us who were on strike, and we won a contract anyway, even though there was this scary moment for international students even back then. And I have been telling people this story when we are thinking about protections for international students now, because I think that the moral of the story is that even under a situation where there’s a lot more legal security and legal protection, it’s still scary. And the way that you get over it being scary is by trusting that everyone coming together and standing together is what’s going to win and rather than whatever the legal protection might be.
Maximillian Alvarez:
Caitlin and Allie, I have so many more thoughts and questions, but I know that we only have about 10 minutes left here and I want to use the time that we have left with y’all to sort of tug on the thread that you were just pulling there. Caitlin, looking at this through the union’s perspective or through a labor perspective, can you frame these attacks on higher ed and the people who live, learn and work there through a labor and working workers’ rights perspective, and talk about what your message is to other union members and other people who listen to this show who are working people, union and non-union, why this is important, why they need to care and what people can do about it.
Caitlin Liss:
It’s very clear why it’s important and why other workers should care. The funding cuts to Columbia University and other universities really threaten not just the university, but the whole ecosystem of research. So these are people’s careers that are at risk and careers that not only they have an interest in having, but careers that benefit everyone in our society, people who do public health research, people who do medical research, people who do research about climate change. These are really important jobs that the opportunities to pursue them are vanishing. And so that obviously is important. And then when we’re looking at the attacks on international students, if m kil can be abducted for speaking out in support of Palestine and against the genocide and Gaza, then none of us are safe. No worker is safe if the governments can just abduct you and deport you for something like that.
On the one hand, even people who aren’t citizens are protected by the first amendments, but also it’s not clear that that’s where they’re going to stop. I think that this is a moment that we should all take very seriously. I mean, it’s very serious for the future of higher education as a whole. I feel like we are in sort of an existential fight here. And at the moment, Columbia is just completely welcoming this fascist takeover with open arms and it threatens higher ed as an institution. What kind of university is this? If the Middle Eastern studies department is being controlled by some outside force who says what they can and can’t teach, and now Trump is threatening to put all of Columbia under some consent decree, so we’re going to have to be beholden to whatever the Trump administration says we’re allowed to do on campus. So it is a major threat to higher education, but it’s also a threat I think, in a much larger sense to workers all over the country because it is sending the message that none of us are safe. No one is safe to express ourselves. We can’t expect to be safe in the workplace. And it’s really important that as a labor union that we take a stand here because it is not just destroying our workplaces, but sort of it’s threatening everyone’s workplace.
Allie Wong:
Exactly. That’s exactly what I was thinking too. I know it’s such an overused word at this point, but I think a huge aspect of this has to do with precedent and how, as we were mentioning, Columbia is so symbolic for a lot of reasons, including the fact that all eyes are on Columbia. And so when Columbia sets a precedent for what can and cannot not be done by University of Administration in caving to the federal government, I think that sets a precedent for not just academic institutions, but institutions writ large and the workers that work in those institutions. Because what happens here is happening across the federal government and will happen to institutions everywhere. And so I think it’s really critical that we bake trust back into our systems, both trust in administrations by having them prove that they do have our backs and they do care about student workers, but also that they trust student workers.
They trust us to do the really important research that keeps the heartbeat of this university alive. And I think that it’s going to crumble not just Columbia, but other academic institutions if really critical research gets defunded. Research that doesn’t just affect right now, but affects our country in perpetuity, in the kinds of opportunities that will be presented later in the future, the kinds of research that will be instrumental in making our society healthier and more equitable place in the future. And so this isn’t just a moment in time, but it’s one that absolutely will ripple out into history.
Caitlin Liss:
And we happen right now to be sort of fortunately bargaining a new contract as we speak. So like I said before, our contract is expiring in June. And so for us, obviously these kinds of issues are the top of mind when we’re thinking about what we can get in the contract. So in what way is this contract that we’re bargaining for going to be able to help us? So we’re fighting for Columbia to restore the funding cuts we’re fighting for them to instate a sanctuary campus and to reinstate grant minor, our president who was expelled, and Ronan who was enrolled, and everyone else who has been expelled or experienced sanctions because of their protests for Palestine. And so in a lot of ways, I think that the contract fight is a big part of what we’re concentrating on right now. But there’s also, there’s many unions on Columbia’s campus.
There’s the postdoc union, UAW 4,100, there’s the support staff and the Barnard contingent faculty who are UAW 2110. There’s building service employees, I think they’re 32 BJ and the maintenance staff is TW. So there’s many unions on campus. And I think about this a lot because I think what we’re seeing is we haven’t mentioned the trustees yet, I don’t think, but recently our interim president, Katrina Armstrong stepped down and was replaced by an acting president, was the former co-chair of the board of trustees Claire Shipman. And in many ways, I think what we’ve been seeing happening at Columbia is the result of the board of trustees not caving, but welcoming the things that Trump is demanding. I think that they’re complicit in this, but the board of trustees is like 21 people. There’s not very many of them. And there’s thousands of us at Columbia who actually are the people who make the university work, the students, the faculty, the staff, thousands of people in unions, thousands of non-unionized students and workers on campus as well.
And we outnumber the trustees by such a huge amount. And I think that thinking about the power we have when we all come together as the thousands of people who do the actual work of the university as opposed to these 21 people who are making decisions for us without consulting us that we don’t want, and that’s the way we have to think about reclaiming the university. I think we have to try and take back the power as workers, as students, as faculty from the board of trustees and start thinking about how we can make decisions that are in our interests.
Allie Wong:
One more thing that I wanted to call out, I’m not sure where this fits in. I think Caitlin talking about the board of trustees made me think of it is just the fact that I think that another big issue is the fact that there’s this very amorphous idea of antisemitism that all of this is being done under the banner of, and I think that it’s incredibly problematic because first of all, what is antisemitism? It’s this catchall phrase that is used to weaponize against dissent. And I think that when you look at the track record of these now three presidents that we’ve had in the past year, each of them has condemned antisemitism but has not condemned other forms of racism, including an especially Islamophobia that has permeated our campus. And because everything is done under the banner of antisemitism and you have folks like Claire Shipman who have been aligned with Zionist organizations, it also erodes the trust in of the student body, but then especially student workers, many of whom are Jewish and many of whom are having their research be threatened under the banner of antisemitism being done in their name. And yet it’s the thing that is stunting their ability to thrive at this university. And so I think that as we talk about the administration and board of trustees, just calling out the hypocrisy there of how they are behaving on campus, the ways that they’re capitulating and doing it under the guise of protecting Jewish students, but in the process of actually made Jewish students and faculty a target by not only withholding their funding but also saying that this is all to protect Jewish students but have created a more threatening environment than existed before.
Caitlin Liss:
Yeah, I mean, as a Jewish student personally, I’m about to go to my family’s Seder to talk about celebrating liberation from oppression while our friends and colleagues are sitting in jail. It’s quite depressing and quite horrific to see people saying that they’re doing this to protect Jews when it’s so clearly not the case.
Maximillian Alvarez:
Well, I wanted to ask in just this final two minutes that we got here, I want to bring it back down to that level to again remind folks listening that you both are student workers, you are working people just like everyone else that we talk to on this show. And I as a former graduate student worker can’t help but identify with the situation that y’all are in. But it makes me think about the conversations I had with my family when I was on the job market and I was trying to go from being a PhD student to a faculty member somewhere and hearing that maybe my political activism or my public writing would be like a mark against me in my quest to get that career that I had worked so many years for and just having that in the back of my mind. But that still seems so far away and so minuscule in comparison to what y’all are dealing with. And I just wanted to ask as act scholars, as people working on your careers as well, how are you talking to your families about this and what future in or outside of academia do you feel is still open to you and people, graduate student workers like yourselves in today’s higher ed?
Caitlin Liss:
I mean the job market for history, PhDs has been quite bad for a long time even before this. So I mean, when I started the PhD program, I think I knew that I might not get a job in academia. And it’s sad because I really love it. I love teaching especially, but at the end of the day, I don’t feel like it’s a choice to stop speaking up about what’s happening, to stop condemning what’s happening in Gaza, to stop condemning the fascist takeover of our government and the attacks on our colleagues. It’s just I can’t not say something about it. I can’t do nothing, and if it means I can’t get a job after this, that will be very sad. But I don’t think that that is a choice that I can or should make to do nothing or say nothing so that I can try and preserve my career if I have to. I’ll get another kind of job.
Allie Wong:
Yeah, I completely agree. How dare I try to protect some nice job that I could potentially have in the future when there are friends and students on campus who are running for their lives. It just is not something that’s even comparable. And so I just feel like it’s an argument a lot of folks have made that if in the future there’s a job that decides not to hire me based off of my advocacy, I don’t want that job. I want a job based off of my skills and qualifications and experience, not my opinions about a genocide that’s happening halfway across the world, that any person should feel strongly against the slaughtering of tens of thousands of children and innocent folks. If that’s an inhibitor of a potential job, then that’s not the kind of environment I want to work in anyway. And that’s a really privileged position to have. I recognize that. But I think it’s incredibly crucial to be able to couch that issue in the broader perspective of not just this horrific genocide that’s happening, but also the future of our democracy and how critical it is to be someone who is willing to take a risk for the future of this country and the future of our basic civil liberties and freedoms.
Maximillian Alvarez:
Alright, gang, that’s going to wrap things up for us this week. Once again, I want to thank our guests, Caitlin Liss and Allie Wong of Student Workers of Columbia, and I want to thank you for listening and I want to thank you for caring. We’ll see you Allall back here next week for another episode of Working People. And if you can’t wait that long, then go explore all the great work we’re doing at the Real News Network where we do grassroots journalism that lifts up the voices and stories from the front lines of struggle. And we need to hear those voices now more than ever. Sign up for the real new newsletter so you never miss a story. And help us do more work like this by going to the real news.com/donate and becoming a supporter today. I promise you it really makes a difference. I’m Maximilian Alvarez, take care of yourselves. Take care of each other, solidarity forever.
This war would not have been possible without the unlimited U.S. support for the occupation, whether through military funding, political and diplomatic backing, or arms deals that kill our children, women, and elderly every day. The U.S. administration under Trump has continued what the previous administration started, becoming a direct accomplice in genocide, ignoring the voices of millions inside and outside OF the United States, and an overwhelming majority of the nation, who reject this brutal aggression.
Therefore, we call on you, the American labor unions, to translate your solidarity into effective actions that go beyond statements and speeches and create real pressure to stop this dirty war.
On April 14, Palestinian Columbia University student and leading pro-Palestine activist Mohsen Mahdawi was detained by immigration agents as he attended an interview as part of his application for US citizenship in Colchester, Vermont.
Mahdawi is the second Palestinian Columbia University student activist to be kidnapped by immigration authorities, after Mahmoud Khalil’s arrest which has earned international attention as demands for his release grow.
With Mahdawi’s detention, pro-Palestine groups have renewed calls to end Trump’s attacks on students and free speech.
Unbelievable
(@MuhammadSmiry) 
