About 75 pro-Palestine activists marched from Asbury Circle to Convocation Hall on Friday in protest of Israel’s campaign in the Gaza Strip. Emory Students for Socialism, a new campus club dedicated to “the replacement of capitalism with socialism,” organized the protest.
The Israel-Hamas war has now continued for 134 days. Israel has furthered its offensive in the Gaza Strip as it pushes southward, capturing Gaza’s Nasser Hospital on Friday.
Demonstrators at Students for Socialism’s Friday protest listen to a speaker. (Tiffany Namkung/Social Editor)
During the protest, participants shouted chants such as, “There is only one solution, intifada revolution,” “free, free, free Palestine” and “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free.”
“Intifada” is a word for an uprising that is used to describe periods of Palestinian militant attacks on Israel throughout history.
Emory-Israel Public Affairs Committee (EIPAC), a pro-Israel group on campus, denounced the slogans protestors used at the event in a statement posted to Instagram Saturday morning. The group called on the University to condemn the protest.
“The blatant incitement to violence and calls for an ‘intifada revolution’ and ‘hey hey ho ho Zionists have got to go’ are appalling, break the Open Expression Policy and Student Code of Conduct, and pose a direct threat to the safety of Jewish students on our campus,” EIPAC wrote.
In a statement to the Emory Wheel, Students for Socialism denied that the chant served as an incitement to violence. The statement said the slogan was in reference to the “Palestinians’ right to resist occupation, invasion and genocide.”
“Pro-Israel groups at Emory desperately need to mischaracterize pro-Palestine activists’ statements as antisemitic or a call to violence because this [is] the only means they have to repress us and silence our voices,” the statement said.
Emory’s Open Expression Policy prohibits expression or protestors that “use or threaten violence or force, or encourage others to use or threaten violence or force.”
EIPAC Senior Advisor Cassidy McGoldrick (24C) said she briefly witnessed the protest and expressed her displeasure with the protestors’ use of the word “intifada,” which she said “means a violent uprising.”
“That’s how it has been carried out in the past, and so calling for a violent uprising is antisemitic, but more than that, it puts people’s lives at risk,” McGoldrick.
Assistant Vice President of University Communications Laura Diamond declined to comment on the protest.
Zachary Hammond (23Ox, 25C), a member of Emory Students for Socialism who helped organize the protest, called the event a success. He said Emory should pull out of its link to Israel through the Georgia International Law Enforcement Exchange (GILEE) program, which is a collaboration between Georgia State University and local, state, federal and international public safety and law enforcement agencies. The GILEE program has facilitated exchanges between Georgia and Israeli law enforcement.
Campus groups have previously alleged a linkage from Emory to the GILEE program. University President Gregory Fenves sits on the Atlanta Committee for Progress, which supports the Atlanta Police Foundation. In turn, the Atlanta Police Foundation supports the Atlanta Police Department, which has participated in GILEE.
“We’re out here today, because we want to call on the Emory administration to do three things,” Hammond said. “We want them to divest from the GILEE program, we want them to cut all ties with Israel and we want them to call for a permanent ceasefire now.”
In addition to cutting their ties to the Atlanta Police Foundation and GILEE, the protestors demanded that the University suspend study abroad programs at universities in Israel. Emory currently has two such relationships, with the Hebrew University in Jerusalem and Tel Aviv University.
Pro-Palestinian demonstrators marched from Asbury Circle to the Quad, where they looped around before students gave speeches on the steps of Convocation Hall calling for the University to cut ties with Israel and demand a ceasefire. The protest then ended back at Asbury Circle.
Around 20 pro-Israel counter-protestors were also present at the Friday demonstration, remaining at Asbury Circle for the duration of the event. The counter-protestors shouted statements such as, “What about the hostages?” over the protestors.
Counter-protestors also attended Friday’s protest. (Tiffany Namkung/Social Editor)
An Emory student, who requested to remain anonymous due to safety concerns, said she attended the counter-protest because Hamas killed a member of her family in the Oct. 7 attacks.
“’I’m just here to show my support for Israel,” the student said. “It’s not really in disagreement with the protests, but it’s more to show that there’s another side on this campus and that there are other voices.”
Elijah, an Emory Students for Justice in Palestine executive committee member who requested to keep his last name anonymous out of fear of retaliation, said that turnout was higher than expected.
“We had allies from all parts of the Emory community, including neighbors,” Elijah said. “So I would say that it was a huge success.”\
Correction (2/22/2024 at 8:21pm): A previous version of this article misstated the number of protestors at the event.
Jack Rutherford (27C) is a News Editor at the Emory Wheel. He is from Louisville, Kentucky, majoring in Economics on a pre-law track. When not writing for the Wheel, he can normally be found with the Emory Rowing team or at a Schwartz Center performance. In his free time, Rutherford enjoys listening to classical music or opera, or is out walking in Lullwater.
