Emory Students for Socialism (SFS) hosted a protest in Asbury Circle yesterday evening to demand a permanent ceasefire in the Israel-Hamas war and for Emory University to divest from Israel. Additionally, SFS organized the protest to stand in solidarity with students at Columbia University (N.Y.) who were arrested while protesting last week to demand that Columbia divest from Israel.
About 40 students actively participated at the peak of the protest, with dozens of students watching from a distance.
During the protests at Columbia, the New York Police Department arrested over one hundred students for participating in a “Gaza Solidarity Encampment.” The encampment involved students pitching tents on Columbia’s lawn. Columbia and Barnard College, a women’s college affiliated with Columbia, have begun temporarily suspending students for participating in the “unauthorized” encampment.
In Asbury Circle, SFS co-President Zachary Hammond (23Ox, 25C) made an introductory speech, during which he called for Emory’s divestment from Israel.
“We’re here to dissent against the administration’s support for Israeli apartheid, stand in solidarity with the students at Columbia and the other solidarity encampments around the country and demand that which the entire student movement for Palestine wants: divestment of all universities from Israel and a free Palestine from the river to the sea,” Hammond said.
During the protest, Jacob Schneider (24C), who was wearing a shirt with the Israeli Defense Forces logo, ran into the area where the protest was being held and temporarily interrupted an Emory Stop Cop City member’s speech.
Hammond said the disruption to the protest is “best ignored.”
“I’m pretty pleased with the protest,” Hammond said.
However, Schneider called the merit of the protest into question, telling The Emory Wheel that the event seemed “a little too controlled.”
“It doesn’t seem like they’re being very honest,” Schneider said. “He says protests ought to be disruptive, but they have an officer helping them not disrupt anything and making sure that no one can disrupt them. So it just seems like the epitome of what they’re saying is the exact opposite of the demonstrable reality that is demonstrated by their performance.”
At the protest, there were six open expression observers, who are tasked with ensuring the rights of protestors “to express their opinions in non-disruptive ways.”
During the demonstration, protestors shouted chants such as “Fenves, Fenves you’re a liar, we demand a ceasefire,” “Up, up with liberation, down, down with occupation” and “There is only one solution, intifada revolution.”
An individual who identified themself to the crowd as a Jewish graduate student said their Sephardic Jewish heritage “compelled” them to speak out against Israel.
“I stand here as one of the thousands of anti-Zionist Jews across the country and around the world denouncing the 75 plus years of Israeli apartheid and occupation,” the student said.
During the protest, another individual who identified themself as a Pitts Theology Library librarian and Columbia alum spoke about the cultural damage caused by the ongoing conflict in Gaza.
“Irreplaceable historical materials have been lost over the last six months,” the librarian said. “The destruction of libraries represents the loss of not only book collections, but efforts of diverse librarians to acquire … and provide access to materials despite Israel's ongoing blockade of the Gaza Strip.”
