Chicago, IL – On Thursday, September 12, New Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) at UIC and a host of other student and progressive organizations participated in a National Day of Action called for by National Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP).

The Progressive Student Coalition at UIC had coalition members speak for their respective organizations at the protest including Students for a Revolutionary Union (SRU), SJP, Anakbayan, and SDS.

The group of about 50 students demanded Israel withdraw from the West Bank and Gaza and that the U.S. government stop funding the genocidal apartheid state of Israel. They also supported the demands of SJP at UIC to get the university to divest from Israel and cut ties with Israeli institutions.

Ness Gorlewski, a member of SDS at UIC, began their speech by bringing attention to the Israeli occupation forces’ recent bombing of a school in a refugee camp for displaced Palestinians. They told the crowd, “Schools should be places of safety, of refuge. Palestinian children deserve full and complete lives. They deserve to grow old.”

Gorlweski added that these airstrikes on the refugee camps occurred in the context of Israel’s increased aggression and assault on a number of cities in the West Bank. They ended their speech with a message of solidarity, stating, “The student movement is stronger than ever! We will not stop fighting until Palestinian children can grow old, and until Israel stops the occupation and the genocide against the Palestinian people.”

Next to speak was a member of SRU, who said, “It is with a happy heart that I announce, as some of you may have already seen, that San Francisco State University has successfully divested from Caterpillar, Lockheed Martin, Palantir and Leonardo,” he said. These are all corporations that produce and manufacture the weapons Israel uses to kill people in Palestine today.

Jenin Zayed, a Palestinian student and president of SJP at UIC, called out the Democratic and Republican parties for their full support of the genocide. “On Tuesday, our so-called democracy had a debate,” she said. “When it came to the issue of Israel, both parties competed over who supports the genocidal regime more.”

Zayed also called out UIC for its complicity in the mass murder and displacement of Palestinians, reaffirming the democratic right of students to know where their money is going to and how it gets allocated, stating, “Our university has investments in these very same companies that are funding the illegal occupation of our people.”

Zayed continued, “It is up to this university to side with the people or with the empire – and I swear that if it sides with the empire, this year and every year that follows it will witness a student intifada not seen before.”

Ángel Naranjos spoke on behalf of the Freedom Road Socialist Organization, stating, “Wall Street is fixated on the Middle East’s strategic location, vast oil resources, and important markets. So, Israel acts as the regional policeman for the U.S. and is used against any country that wants to break out of the orbit of imperialism.”

Naranjos ended their speech by saying, “Our task in this prison-house of oppressed nations that we call the United States is to organize and bring about a strategic alliance between the working class movement for socialism and the movements of the oppressed nations for full equality and self-determination!”

Finally, Giotl Araujo, a new member of SDS at UIC, wrapped up the rally as the last speaker in the program.

Araujo kicked off their speech by recalling the George Floyd Rebellion in 2020 and the oppression that led to them becoming an anti-war activist. Then, they announced SDS at UIC’s campaign for the fall semester.

“With the ‘Fund Student Needs, Not the War Machine’ campaign, us at SDS are not only continuing our struggle for the funding of cultural centers and ethnic studies but are continuing our firm solidarity with Palestine and all oppressed people worldwide,” Araujo said. “We want an end to the relationship between UIC and the U.S. military!”

Afterwards, students marched around campus, with others joining the march as it went along. The march attracted the attention of students, classes that were in session, and was able to loop around UIC’s University Hall, where it was within sight and sound of the administration.

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