News and Views from the People's Struggle
Los Angeles, CA – On the afternoon of Wednesday, June 12, in an act of escalation for Gaza, pro-Palestinian student protesters occupied the student services building at the California State University – Los Angeles (CSULA) campus.
Fight Back New Service is circulating the following statement from Students for a Democratic Society (SDS).
On Friday, June 7, the University of South Florida (USF) made the decision to expel Victoria Hinckley, a leader of the Tampa Bay chapter of Students for a Democratic Society. Hinckley had previously been suspended and barred from walking at graduation, despite being in her final semester. Joseph Charry, another leader of SDS and an international student, was also suspended for a year which threatens his student visa and puts him at the risk of deportation.
Publicado el 7 de mayo de 2024
Los ocupantes Israelíes de Palestina han intensificado sus ataques contra la ciudad de Rafah en el sur de Gaza durante las últimas 24 horas. Han atacado viviendas y han matado a niños. Los aviones están fabricados en los Estados Unidos. El material de guerra que se utiliza lo suministra la administración Biden. Se está llevando a cabo un genocidio en Palestina y Washington, D.C. lo está facilitando.
Fight Back! recently interviewed Fern McBride and Rick Toledo. Both are pro-Palestine activists and SDS members that played important roles in supporting the occupation and the historic resistance at Cal Poly Humboldt, in Arcata, California. What started as sit-on on April 22 escalated into outrageous repression that was, however, met with determined resistance. On May 28, some of the activists had their first court appearance.
Fight Back!: Could you say a few words about how the occupation at Cal Poly Humboldt came about?
Fight Back News Service is circulating the following statement from the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP). The English translation appeared on the Resistance News Network on Telegram.
Milwaukee, WI – On June 6, the student movement steadfastly continued their efforts to get the University of Wisconsin System to disclose its funds and to divest from the apartheid regime of Israel.
At the June UW System board of regents meeting, approximately 15 students and community members entered the open-session financial meeting to disrupt the scheduled programming.
Minneapolis, MN – On June 6, hundreds of protesters unwelcomed former Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett, who came to downtown Minneapolis to speak for the Center for the American Experiment, a conservative think tank based in the suburb of Golden Valley.
The Center has supported a number of Republican-led political initiatives and regularly features right-wing speakers at its events. Ticket prices for the event ranged from $300 for individual seats to $30,000 “diamond sponsor” tickets that included special VIP access to Bennett.
Bennet is known as a war criminal who in 2013 said, “I’ve killed a lot of Arabs in my life and there’s no problem with that.” Bennett was the prime minister during 2021-22 and represented the New Right political party, which opposes the establishment of a Palestinian state and demands Israeli sovereignty over all of Palestine. He describes himself as more right-wing than even Netanyahu. After Israel’s assault on Gaza began in October, Bennett mocked concerns for Palestinian lives, saying in an interview, “Are you seriously asking me about Palestinian civilians?” and “I am not going to feed electricity or water to my enemies.”
The police stood alongside Zionist ticket holders, who heckled the crowd with racist and Islamophobic slurs, flipping off community members, including young children, while cops took no action.
Over the course of three hours, hundreds of Minneapolis police officers, including SWAT and riot teams, joined the racists in antagonizing the demonstrators.
One protester was violently arrested by riot police armed with rifles as he was peacefully walking away. Four others, including three Muslim Twin Cities residents – two of them minors – were arrested later, violently picked off the street by a large, black SWAT BearCat vehicle.
Wyatt Miller from the Anti-War Committee said, “The supposedly progressive city of Minneapolis helped facilitate the visit of an Israeli leader who helped lay groundwork for the current genocide, invited by a right-wing think tank to speak at a major downtown venue. We call on elected officials to denounce this hateful event and the fact that MPD was allowed to set up an apartheid-like militarized area on its behalf.”
The juveniles were released later that night, but the other arrestees were held until the evening of June 7.
#MinneapolisMN #MN #AntiWarMovement #International #MiddleEast #Palestine #MNAWC #MNFreePalestineCoalition
Baton Rouge, LA- On May 3, Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) and Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) at Louisiana State University co-hosted a walkout and rally for Palestine. The protest was in response to the university’s involvement in the Go-Med Consortium, an initiative with the goals of developing oil drilling practices in the Mediterranean Sea off the coast of occupied Palestine, with the eventual goals of bringing the developed technology to the Gulf of Mexico. The consortium includes Louisiana universities as well as Israeli universities.
Colorado Springs, CO – On May 30, the Colorado Springs People’s Coalition (CSPC) gathered outside the South Gate entrance of the United States Air Force Academy to tell Kamala Harris that she is not welcome in Colorado Springs while supporting the genocide of the Palestinian people.
Denver, CO – On Saturday June 1, several hundred people turned out to City Park in Denver, Colorado in the summer heat on a clear day. A week earlier Israeli airstrikes on United Nations refugee camps in Rafah martyred 50 people who had been displaced into these “safe-zones.” People were stirred to action again by the images coming out of Rafah of martyred children among the dead.
Los Angeles CA – On Tuesday, May 28, hundreds of workers and students at the University of California Los Angeles walked off the job in response to the university’s brutal crackdown on pro-Palestine encampments earlier this month.
The striking workers are graduate students and academic researchers represented by the United Auto Workers union local 4811 (UAW) which represents 50,000 workers across the UC school system. The UAW declared the university’s response to the protest an unfair labor practice and will be on strike until at least June 30 or later if the strike is extended.
St. Paul, MN – On Saturday, June 1, Women Against Military Madness (WAMM) members had their 17th annual Walk Against Weapons of War. The day was sunny as 125 WAMM members and supporters rallied at Langford Park within a residential community. They then continued with a march to Forward Edge ASIC, a subsidiary of Lockheed Martin.
Dallas, TX – On Tuesday, May 28 hundreds of community members marched in downtown Dallas, mere hours after the metroplex had faced floods, hail and multiple tornadoes that caused widespread power outages. Despite these obstacles, the people of Dallas-Fort Worth came out to demand the U.S.-backed Israeli regime leave Rafah and the rest of Gaza.
Chicago, IL – Hundreds of students and faculty at the University of Chicago walked out of graduation ceremonies on Saturday, June 1. They were demanding that the university disclose its investments, divest from arms manufacturers and Israeli companies, and stop withholding the degrees of student pro-Palestine protesters.
Duluth, MN – On June 1, between 300 and 400 people from across the state protested the Minnesota DFL State Convention at the Duluth Entertainment Convention Center (the DECC).
It was a show of broad geographic support for ending the U.S. support for Israel’s genocidal military campaign in Gaza, and against the stances of DFL (the name of the Democratic Party in Minnesota) politicians like U.S. Senator Amy Klobuchar and Governor Tim Walz, who have shown strong support for Israel.
Littleton, CO – On Wednesday, May 29, the Denver Anti-War Action (DAWA) continued their pro Palestine actions against weapons manufacturer Lockheed Martin with another all-day picket at the corporation’s Colorado headquarters.
Around 50 protesters engaged in direct action throughout the day, forcing Lockheed employees to take fact sheets that laid out their location’s specific role in the ongoing genocide in Palestine, attached with explicit imagery of carpet bombing and the brutal effects of white phosphorus.
The fliers pointed out the connections between Lockheed Martin and Israel, included graphic imagery of war crimes, and the specifics of the activity that Lockheed Martin is engaged in in Colorado. Lockheed Martin’s primary roles in the genocide are sending F-35s, F-16s and C-130-Js to the occupation as well as providing the tools for mass surveillance and missile and drone targeting with satellites and GPS systems that are produced in Littleton.
One protester with the DAWA, Solveig Swain, explained, “We have to see these traumatizing images constantly by following the news coming out of Gaza. Those actively contributing to the genocide, the people providing the satellite surveillance used to target Palestinians, need to see the results of their crimes as well.”
These engineers of a genocide at Lockheed Martin did not appear out of thin air but were hand picked by Lockheed Martin. Tom Chaney, an organizer with the Students for a Democratic Society Denver (SDS) explained, “These young engineers are brought in with promises of money, with promises of safety and security for the future. There is no security when you’re funding a genocide.
Lockheed Martin, through “donations” and funding for “research” provided to Colorado universities, has deep ties to these institutions which allow them to aggressively recruit Colorado’s students. The end of this relationship is one of the demands of the SDS,and DAWA is also fighting to break the ties with corporations that arm Israel.
Another speaker with the DAWA, Julia Swezy, laid out the future of the movement, “We are building our discipline and militance daily. We will fight until the resistance achieves the victory they deserve, the liberation they are entitled toAs the resistance forces in Palestine wage their struggle against the occupation, those in the United States fight to end the supply of weapons that facilitate the genocide. By building militant people power in a similar fashion to the protests against the war in Vietnam, these activists hope to strike blows against domestic weapons manufacturers in solidarity with the Palestinian resistance.”
#LittletonCO #DenverCO #CO #AntiWarMovement #International #MiddleEast #Palestine #StudentMovement #SDS #DAWA #WeaponsIndustry
![Hatem Abudayyeh, national chair of the United States Palestinian Community Network \[USPCN\] urges march on the DNC at Chicago press conference. | Fight Back! News/staff](https://i.snap.as/jszIJ9Sg.jpg "Hatem Abudayyeh, national chair of the United States Palestinian Community Network [USPCN] urges march on the DNC at Chicago press conference. | Fight Back! News/staff")
Chicago, IL – Preparations for the March on the DNC are well underway, with tens of thousands of people slated to march within sight and sound of the United Center on August 19 to demand that the Democratic Party helmed by Joe Biden end the genocide on Gaza and end U.S. aid to Israel.
Recently, the Democratic Party announced, to comply with shifting Ohio laws, that it will virtually nominate Biden before the convention, meaning that some business of the convention might be resolved before the August in-person convention.
Detroit, Michigan – The encampment at Wayne State University, known as the Popular University for Gaza, Detroit campus, was raided by police in riot gear in the early hours of Thursday morning, May 30.
Around 5:30 in the morning, those staying overnight at the Popular University were woken by the Wayne State Police Department issuing a dispersal order through a megaphone. With only minutes left before the cops broke in, the students organized to decide how they would respond.
Fight Back News Service is circulating the following statement from the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP). The English translation appeared on the Resistance News Network’s Telegram channel.
The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine confirmed that our people, with all their forces and components, are united in demanding the cessation of aggression and that no deal or proposal has any value if it assumes the continuation of the genocide war or maneuvers to allow the occupation to continue its crimes. The resistance forces are entrusted with the demands of our people.
Columbia Heights, MN – On May 21, over 100 members of the Palestinian community and supporters held a spirited bannering and rally to draw attention to the dire situation in Gaza. The action was organized by the Free Palestine Coalition in response to the ongoing bombing of Rafah and slaughter of over 100 people in Gaza in their tents in a supposed “safe zone.” The event took place at a busy commercial intersection during rush hour.