An encampment has been constructed in Oxford in protest of Israeli action in Palestine and calling for the University to “end complicity with genocide”. Students, faculty, and staff have gathered to demand that the University reveal and divest funding into Israel and arms companies, as well as boycott all institutional connections with Israeli universities.
Positioned in front of the Pitt Rivers Museum, the encampment was established early Monday morning and is in coordination with a similar protest in Cambridge. It has been organised by the newly founded Oxford Action for Palestine (OA4P).
In a joint statement with Cambridge for Palestine (C4P), OA4P told Cherwell: “we refuse to accept our universities’ complicity in Israel’s war crimes against the Palestinian people – and we refuse to stand by while they justify Israel’s campaign of mass slaughter, starvation, and displacement.”
The encampment in Oxford comes after a string of similar movements at other universities across the world, including Yale, Harvard and UCLA, where 132 were arrested and rubber bullets used against the students.
A student participating told Cherwell: “It’s not even 10am and we’ve already had dozens of people join us in the building of a beautiful community in our Liberated Zone, and more people stream in from the street with each passing hour. It’s an honour to stand alongside people who care so deeply for Palestinian Liberation and demand that the genocide in Gaza must end.
“Our university is complicit in Israel’s genocide, occupation and apartheid – and as a coalition of students, staff and faculty we say no more [emphasis added by student]. After seven months of overwhelming support for Palestine on campus, we call on [the Administration] to take action that’s long overdue.”
The group has made seven demands of the University, primarily relating to the assets and investments held. They demand a disclosure of all University assets and a divestiture of all holdings in arms companies and companies “complicit in Israeli genocide, apartheid and occupation of Palestine”.
OA4P has said: “Oxbridge’s profits cannot continue to climb at the expense of Palestinian lives, and their reputations must no longer be built on the white-washing of Israeli crimes. Today we join the university students, faculty, and staff across the globe who refuse to continue business as usual while our institutions profit from genocide.”
It is also demanded that the University and its subsidiaries end all banking with Barclays. This comes after a protest in January outside the Oxford branch in protest organised by the Oxford Palestine Solidarity Campaign.
A boycott of institutional relationships with Israeli universities has also been demanded. This consists of the ending of exchange programs, joint projects and conferences. They also demand that the Univerisity “end research, career, and procurement partnerships with companies and institutions that are complicit in Israeli genocide, apartheid, or occupation.”
Demands relating to changes in University investment include adding an ethical restriction against investing in companies that are “complicit in Israeli genocide, apartheid, and occupation” and utilising an ethical investment review process to have decisions adhere to ‘justice-based guidelines’”.
The group demands the University provides financial and material means to rebuild Palestinian universities, establish a long-term task force to recommend how best to rebuild the higher education sector in Gaza and allocate resources to support Palestinian students such as exchanges, joint projects and scholarship programmes.
A University spokesperson said that they were aware of the demonstration, and stated that they “respect our students and staff members’ right to freedom of expression in the form of peaceful protests”, asking protestors to “do so with respect, courtesy and empathy.”
They further emphasised that the university’s primary focus was the health and safety of the community, and to ensure that any impact on work, research or exams are minimised: “As we have stressed in our student and staff communications there is no place for intolerance at the University of Oxford.”
The University also reiterated that the Museum of Natural History and the Pitt Rivers Museum remain open.
At 6pm, around 500 demonstrators attended a vigil held just outside the encampment. The aim of the vigil was to demonstrate solidarity with the healthcare and education workers of Gaza. The protesters say that their workplaces have been destroyed through Israeli bombardment.
Participants along the first rows at the vigil held placards with names of healthcare workers who have lost their lives as a result of the ongoing conflict.
The first speakers, in scrubs, began by reading out the names of the deceased healthcare workers, of which there have been around 200, to an audience in silence. Later speakers spoke of the dismantlement of Palestinian civil society, with chants of “no justice no peace” from the audience.
Update, 12th May 2024:
On the evening of 11th May, a group of six men arrived at the encampment, shouting abusive and threatening remarks at the protesters – including “terrorist” and “I’ll f*cking kill you”. They also accused a Jewish student in the encampment of being a “fake Jew,” according to video footage, available on Instagram @madeleine_observes as of 11th May. The group of men also pushed several encampment members trying to block their advance.
A statement from the encampment also alleges that the men destroyed banners, used “xenophobic and transphobic slurs” as well as “antisemitic language” targeting Jewish students. The statement furthers: “We are thankful no one was hurt, but we remain enraged at the politically-motivated fearmongering that jeopardised the safety of our campers…
“The incident falls squarely on the shoulders of Prime Minister Sunak, University Administrators, and irresponsible media, who all spent the week weaponising antisemitism to demonise campus protesters. In a shallow act of desperation, they’ve placed us in danger to distract from the fact that they are aiding and abetting Israel’s genocidal assault on Gaza.”
Who are Trump and Biden speaking to?
Many of us love American politics. We flock to see American politicians and leaders when they speak in Oxford, discuss elections and issues passionately around dinner tables, and casually mention that we read The New York Times as often as possible. Yet, we do all of that from our ivory tower of ‘across the pond’. Usually, when we discuss these issues and criticise politicians for their latest policy or statement, we completely forget that they are not aimed at us. To better understand them, I think we should ask ourselves who they are speaking to.
The United States is highly polarised. In his acclaimed book Why We’re Polarized, the journalist Ezra Klein discusses the causes and consequences of polarisation. Klein writes that Americans became “more consistent in the party we [Americans] vote for not because we came to like our party more – indeed we’ve come to like the parties we vote for less – but because we came to dislike the opposing party more”. This has been a core part of the growing divide in American society. As the Pew Research Center found, in the two decades before 2014 the ideological overlap between Democrats and Republicans shrunk substantially and the parties became more ideologically consistent and ‘pure’. Although they have not published another report about polarisation recently, there is reason to believe the trends they described continued or even accelerated in the decade since 2014.
So, just over six months away from the second Trump-Biden election, the public is nearly perfectly divided. In a new study published earlier this month, the Pew Research Center analysed the political coalitions in the United States. According to them, American voters are split between Democrats and Republicans, the former leading with 49% to the latter’s 48% of voters. However, within these voter blocks the differences are substantial. Although both parties became more diverse in recent decades, there are significant differences between Democratic and Republican voters. The Republican coalition consists of 79% White voters, 9% Hispanic voters, and 12% voters who are Black, Asian or belonging to other racial groups. In comparison, the Democratic voter coalition is made up of 56% White voters, 16% Hispanic voters, 18% Black voters, 6% Asian voters, and 4% belonging to other racial groups. As former Speaker of the House of Representatives, Nancy Pelosi said during a speech at Oxford Speaks this April: “Our [Democrats’] diversity is our strength”.
Yet, is Pelosi right in stating that Democrats are more diverse? Diving further into Pew’s data it appears so. The voter groups who predominantly support the Republican party are White evangelical Protestants; people living in rural areas; White men; and White voters without a college degree. On the other hand, the voter groups who mostly support the Democratic party are women with a college degree; religiously unaffiliated voters; voters living in urban areas; and the majority of Hispanic, Black, and Asian voters. Additionally, it should not surprise you to know that two in three young voters (18-24) align with Democrats while the majority of older voters (65 and older) identify with Republicans. These differences really are quite stark.
To put it bluntly to anyone reading, you are most likely not in either Trump or Biden’s mind when they speak. Both parties’ efforts will be aimed, mainly, at mobilising specific voter groups they identified as increasing their chances of winning. This includes making sure they remain loyal to the party, as well as go out to vote. Accordingly, the parties will focus on messaging (speeches, social media posts, and policy announcements) that will resonate with their expected electorate. Democrats will want to make sure young, urban, college-educated, non-religious, female, and racially diverse voters are excited about Biden (or terrified of Trump). For Republicans, almost the exact opposite is true: they will try to reach old, rural, religious, White, not-college-educated voters.
It is important to remember that most voters do not like Biden or Trump and were hoping for different candidates than what they now have. According to FiveThirtyEight’s analysis, approximately 56% of voters disapprove of President Biden. Furthermore, 538 found that at no point since leaving office did the majority of Americans have a favourable view of Trump. Today, approximately 53% of Americans hold unfavourable views of Trump. Here we should remember what Ezra Klein pointed out: voters do not like their own party; voters hate the other party. For this reason, we are seeing substantial campaigning not on the merit of the candidate but on the faults (or ‘HUGE RISKS’) of the other.
So, according to the data, if you were in the United States it is more likely that Biden’s messaging would be directed at you. But, as you are in the United Kingdom, you are, by and large, uninteresting to them (unless you are American, of course). Nevertheless, we should keep in mind, when reading about American politics, who the candidates are trying to convince (or scare) in order to win. That is, in most cases, the reason why they are saying what they are saying.