Chicago, IL – On Wednesday, August 25, the New Students for a Democratic Society (SDS at UIC) and Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP at UIC), alongside other progressive student organizations at the University of Illinois Chicago, ended the month strong on campus by organizing a hands-off Lebanon demonstration following not only the terrorist cyberattack/bombings against Lebanon but the deploying of U.S. troops to the region.

Angel Naranjo of SDS started off the rally talking about the fast escalation of the U.S. backed Israeli attacks on Lebanon.

Starting with Israel’s cyberattack, Naranjo informed the crowd, “Just last week the Zionists launched a cyberattack against the people of Lebanon that injured more than 3000 and murdered dozens – including four children. In order to carry out this attack Israeli intelligence agents put explosives inside pagers and walkie-talkies that then blew up all at the same time. Among the two children were an 11-year-old boy and a nine-year-old girl named Fatima Abdullah, she had just begun the fourth grade.”

Naranjo continued, “On top of that, not only did U.S. officials acknowledge that it was Israel who was behind the attack, but reports show that U.S. intelligence agencies knew that Israel was planning this attack for years!”

The crowd responded, shouting “Shame!” Naranjo made it clear that the Biden/Harris administration is not only complicit in the genocide of the Palestinian people, they are outspokenly supportive of it and are responsible for the aid Israel receives to attack nations like Lebanon. He spoke about the victims as “everyday people who were in their homes with their families, out walking on the streets, in stores buying groceries, doing regular everyday activities like you and me.”

Abdal Alfawaqa, a member of SJP told the crowd, “Dozens of Palestinians have been killed in Jenin. Paramedics were being blocked in by IOF military vehicles. The bulldozers flattening homes, and tearing streets apart are Caterpillar bulldozers which UIC is currently invested in. UIC continues to ignore Palestinian voices on campus, even as they demand divestment from corporations that continue to make the genocide possible,” adding, “While our universities continue to refuse divestment, turning their backs on their Palestinian students and their allies who pay tens of thousands of dollars in tuition each year, Israel runs a genocidal ethnic cleansing campaign using Caterpillar bulldozers specifically made with the IDF in mind.”

Liz Rathburn, speaking for Freedom Road Socialist Organization (FRSO) came out to express the organization's support for the united Palestinian and Lebanese resistance against Israeli terrorism and U.S. imperialism. The United States’ desperate need to hold control of the Middle East through its support of the apartheid state of Israel shows its hypocrisy when it talks about democracy.

Rathburn stated, “Where was the Biden administration when the IOF kidnapped and tortured Palestinian Americans in Gaza and, or when, they assassinated a Turkish-American activist in the West Bank? I’ll tell you, they were on the news defending ‘Israel’ and excusing their crimes, they were welcoming Netanyahu into Congress and shipping another load of bombs to Gaza.”

Rathburn continued, “So when I hear them say that U.S. troops are going into Lebanon to defend Americans, I call bullshit! This government doesn’t give a damn about the working and oppressed peoples in this country because it is not our government, it belongs to corporations, Wall Street and the one percent.”

Finally, Erin Boyle, also a member of SDS, stated, “They know that what they’re doing is deeply unpopular and that people won’t swallow their lies. They talk differently about what they’re doing – they feel the pressure of a ceasefire – and we can tell from their duplicity that they are afraid. Afraid of the power of our generation. Afraid of the student intifada. Just look at an interview Hillary Clinton gave this week on CNN. She once again denounced the student protests over Palestine as dangerous.”

Boyle continued, “Just this week our own UI System banned SJP at UIUC! And in Florida, took away the degree of my friend and fellow SDSer Victoria, because she led an encampment! The same sort of encampment that DePaul sent CPD [Chicago Police Department] to violently break up. But the harder they repress us, the harder the student movement will fight.”

Students marched past the Engineering Research Facility and Science And Engineering South (SES) buildings, where UIC corporations like Boeing and Caterpillar, in collaboration with UIC, make the bombs and weapons used by the apartheid state of Israel against Palestinians, possible. Student chants roared around campus and on to the road, “UIC it is time! Stop funding war crimes!”

Students stopped by the ROTC to remind everyone of the threat the United States military has been to oppressed peoples around the world, not just in the past, not just now, but in the future if it is not stopped.

#ChicagoIL #IL #AntiWarMovement #Lebanon #Palestine #SDS #SJP