Pro-Palestine protesters marched from Cowley to the Weston Library on Saturday 31st October, demanding Oxford University’s divestment from Israel.
Around 120 people attended the protest, including groups such as Oxford Students for Palestine (formerly Oxford Schools for Palestine), Oxford Action for Palestine, Oxford City Green Party and Health Workers & Allies for Palestine.
The protest started with a speech about Oxford-educated administrators’ role in the creation of Israel, notably through the Balfour Declaration.
Green councillor Ahalya Bala also commented on the current situation in Palestine: “This is not a war. This is annihilation… The atrocities are still happening. It is just the pace that changes.”
“In the West Bank, forced displacement, seizures, neighbourhoods levelled to the ground, military raids, arbitrary detentions, torture, rape, executions, and land theft for Israeli expansionism and the cruel racial segregation and domination of Palestinians.”
A large banner at the centre of the gathering read: “Israel bombed 36 hospitals in Gaza and murdered more than 1700 healthcare workers. Targeting healthcare is a war crime. Arms embargo & Sanctions now!”
As protesters moved through Oxford, they chanted “blood money on your hands, show us your divestment plans”, “arms embargo right now”, and “Oxford University pick a side, justice or genocide”.
Two march attendees, Lisa and John, have been protesting for Palestine daily outside Carfax Tower. They spoke to Cherwell about the current state of the student movement for Palestine. Lisa, a current graduate student said that: “For students the consciousness is there and the willingness is there but people are afraid.” John added that Oxford’s prestige meant “there is a lot of power and opportunities to speak up concentrated here”.
Outside the Weston Library, protesters heard speeches from Nick Maynard, an Oxford alumnus and surgeon who has worked extensively in Gaza, and Haya Adams, an activist from the SOAS-liberated zone. Maynard, who went to Exeter College, said in his speech: “There are moments in history when silence becomes a form of complicity… More than 22,000 children have been killed in Gaza in the last three years.” He told the audience about individual patients he had seen in hospitals in Gaza, explaining that, on one occasion, his colleagues were stripped of critical supplies of baby formula by the Israeli military upon entering the strip.
Regarding the international treatment of Palestine, Maynard later told Cherwell: “We know it’s been failed by our governments, we know it’s been failed by our media, but it’s also being failed by our academic institutions… They have not given students a sufficient platform to talk about the genocide. Students have been fantastic. The university needs to give a much bigger platform to its students.”
Oxford Students for Palestine, one of the groups organising the protest, told Cherwell: “We wish to remind the University and others that Oxford city is extremely pro-Palestine, that we call for the end of the genocide and apartheid, and we call for every Palestinian to be liberated and have the right to return. We are twinned with Ramallah for a reason.”
The group added that “we’re calling on Oxford University and its colleges to disclose and fully divest from any Israeli investments, products, or banks like Barclays”. They also criticised the Oxford University Endowment Fund (OUEM) as “fundamentally resistant to disclosure and divestment”.
Adams, from the SOAS-liberated zone, told Cherwell: “The most basic and bare minimum thing that Oxford University can do is cut ties with genocide through their investments, through their partnerships. There really are ethical alternatives… Oxford University can also protect the right to free speech by allowing students to speak up for Palestine with no disciplinary action. They need to be held accountable for the arrests that happened during the time of the encampments.”
In response to a right of reply, Oxford University said: “Oxford is steadfast in its commitment to freedom of expression and to the right to peaceful protest within the law. At the same time, we have a legal and moral duty to uphold the rights, dignity and safety of every member of our community. When behaviour, including protest, causes serious disruption, harassment or safeguarding concerns, we will act in accordance with the law and our own established procedures.”
OUEM did not respond to our request for comment.
As the march ended, Oxford Students for Palestine reflected on how it fit with the global student movement. They told Cherwell: “The last thing we will say is that the students united will never be defeated, as we’ve seen across the world.”
Additional reporting by Stanley Arlidge and Freya Robson.
