At a Bryn Mawr College sit-in and rally calling for an Israeli ceasefire in Gaza, spokespersons for Students for Justice in Palestine and Jewish Voice for Peace refused to express an opinion as to whether or not the October 7 Hamas attacks against Israel were justified. The protest was held simultaneously and in the same building where the Bryn Mawr College Board of Trustees was meeting.
Before the sit-in and rally, the students issued a statement with their “Collective Grievances and Action Items.” The statement described Israel as a “colonial force in Palestine since 1948.”
Among their demands, the students called for The Study Abroad Office to “cut ties with the Hebrew University of Jerusalem Rothberg International School and the University of Haifa.” According to their statement, “The Hebrew University and The University of Haifa have both hosted the Havatzalot program, which is a competitive 3 year military intelligence officer training and double major in an intelligence related subject. This program makes Arab students at the universities feel unsafe, because the military students wear their IDF uniforms and carry their weapons on campus.The Hebrew University Medical School supports the Israeli military through research and development, and by maintaining partnerships with these Israeli universities, the College is directly complicit in the colonization and ethnic cleansing of Palestinian people.”
The statement also called for “an end to Israel’s occupation of Palestine.” When questioned whether they only meant what some refer to as “The Occupied Territories, or if they meant all of Palestine “From the River to the Sea” (after a long pause), the students acknowledged that they considered all of Israel to be occupied land.