New Brunswick, NJ – On Tuesday, April 29, Rutgers Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) held a rally against a speaking event hosted by Rutgers Hillel. The speech was part of “Israel Week,” a series of events intended to justify and celebrate the ongoing genocide and occupation of Palestine., New Jersey U.S. Representative Josh Gottheimer, a staunch Zionist and supporter of Israel’s war crimes, was invited to meet with students that day.

About 60 protesters gathered in front of the building entrance, chanting slogans like, “Every time Gottheimer lies, a family in Gaza dies!” As more people began arriving at the rally, an SDS member told the crowd, “Hillel has invited a Zionist, genocidal psychopath to campus! Someone who supports the murder of innocent Palestinians! Entire families are being killed.”

Along with SDS, Central New Jersey chapters of DSA and Jewish Voice for Peace helped organize the rally.

As the speakers were about to begin, protesters walked past the metal barricades and onto the sidewalk outside the building. Hillel began playing loud music to silence the protest, but the crowd drowned it out with even louder chanting. Rutgers University police started ordering the crowd to disperse, but the rally did not back down.

Shortly after the warning, police rushed into the crowd and began violently grabbing protesters. Several students were shoved to the ground, and officers threw people into the barricades, knocking over the entire row. One arrestee was slammed onto the sidewalk and held down by multiple officers. The crowd eventually dispersed after witnessing the excessive brutality used by RUPD.

In total, four people were arrested, including three students. About 20 protesters walked to the jail to await their release. That night, the students were released, while the fourth protester, Thomas Whitehead, is still being held in jail, with a court date scheduled for May 6. All the arrestees were charged with felonies, and the students received suspensions from the university.

SDS released a statement condemning the arrests and calling for the charges to be dropped. They also demanded that Rutgers lift all suspensions of the arrested students. The organization pledged to continue fighting for a free Palestine and resisting the repression of the student movement on campus.

Representative Josh Gottheimer defended the violent actions of the police in a statement given to Jewish News Syndicate, a pro-Israel news agency. Gottheimer is an outspoken Zionist and defender of Israeli genocide, and he is well known for leading legislation that strengthens U.S. ties with Israel and increases military support. In late 2024, he announced his bid for governor of New Jersey, looking to replace Phil Murphy.

No matter where Rep. Gottheimer goes, he will face fierce resistance from pro-Palestine activists fighting to end the genocide in Gaza.

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New Brunswick, NJ – On Friday, March 28, Rutgers Students for a Democratic Society led dozens of students in protest of a speaking event hosted by two Israeli soldiers. The event was protesting a nationwide tour intended to justify and celebrate the soldiers' war crimes and participation in the genocide of the Palestinian people. Students for Justice in Palestine, along with other local organizations, co-sponsored the protest.

Students rallied outside the College Avenue Gym, across the street from where the event was being held. After chants of “Free, free Palestine!” and “IOF deserves no rest, they bomb schools and kill the press!” they took to the streets, marching across campus.

During the protest, students faced intimidation attempts from university police and pro-Israel counter protesters. The original protest location, the gym lawn, was fenced off by police, so students took over the sidewalk instead. Several activists were also recorded and later posted on the social media accounts of Zionist hate organizations like Betar and Students Supporting Israel.

The march ended in front of the Helix tower, a construction site that is planned upon its completion to host operations for Tel Aviv University. An activist from NJ BURN spoke out against New Brunswick and Rutgers’ partnerships with the university, declaring, “That is gonna be a satellite campus for Tel Aviv University. The same university in Israel that is streamlining genocidal technology to maim and kill Palestinians!”

Rutgers SDS ended the protest with a commitment to future action, “We’re not done!” an SDS member told the crowd. “We’re gonna be back! Week after week, month after month, year after year, we will fight!”

Allowing Zionist soldiers on campus is just one of the many ways Rutgers supports Israel. Despite facing overwhelming support for divestment, the university has refused to comply with the demands of the students. Rutgers also continues to defend its partnership with Tel Aviv University, with President Johnathon Holloway saying last April, “We were asked to sever that relationship. We will not. Period.”

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“Short staffing remains our number one priority, and our members clearly don’t believe this contract went far enough in this area,” said Local 4-200 President Judy Danella. “We need better staffing so that we can keep workers safe on the job and continue providing top-quality care for our patients.” 

More than 1700 members who work as nurses throughout the hospital have been on strike against management’s unfair labor practices since August 4.

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New Brunswick, NJ – “Yes to peace! No to war!” rang out in Arabic over the campus of Rutgers University as more than a thousand students walked out of classes on March 27 to protest five years of the occupation of Iraq. The walkout came a week after over 90 SDS chapters and progressive student organizations held demonstrations denouncing five years of the U.S. occupation of Iraq.

The chant was led by student leader Sumia Ibrahim. In a speech strongly supportive of Iraq she told the crowd that in 1991, when what she called the war against Iraq started, Iraq had a really good educational system. Now bullets are piercing classrooms forcing students to duck, a symbol of national destruction.

She spoke of the more than one million Iraqis killed in the war, more than four million displaced from their homes and one third of Iraqi children who suffer from malnutrition. The crowd chanted thunderously with her, “Iraq for Iraqis! Troops out now!”

Tiffany Cheng from Rutgers Against War said the students had jumped through hoops to get information about university investments in companies like Exxon Mobil, Raytheon and Halliburton. She raised the demand that all information of this kind be made freely available to the public and called for divestment. She pointed out that a vibrant divestment movement against South African companies in the 1980s had contributed to the end of apartheid. She quoted Frederick Douglas’s statement, “Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never has and it never will!”

Erik Straub, one of the organizers of the rally, said the crowd were not just people who knew enough to oppose the war, they knew enough to walk out in protest. He said that evil is organized; it has billions of dollars at its disposal and means to use its money. He called for systematic political organizing to build people’s power.

Chemistry professor Larry Romsted, who is also a member of the People’s Organization for Progress, told the rally about anti-war actions in Washington D.C. the week before. Recalling the Vietnam War, he said Nixon had pledged to end the war in 1968 but it went on many years more. “I would like this to end a lot sooner,” he said, and urged students to be creative in finding many different things to do to end the war.

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Last week, students at over 90 campuses responded to a call from chapters of Students for a Democratic Society and organized protests to mark five years of U.S. occupation of Iraq. Across the United States, high schools and universities became sites of demonstrations and dissent against the war. Classes were interrupted as marchers chanted slogans and urged their classmates to join them. The demonstration at Rutgers will be continuation of this wave of protests.

Last year on March 20, over 500 Rutgers students walked out from their daily routines in protest of the occupation of Iraq, marched through downtown New Brunswick and on to Route 18, temporarily shutting down the major highway. Named the biggest action on the east coast on the anniversary of the war last year, organizers for this year’s Walkout Against the War expect an even larger, more spirited demonstration. Already more than a thousand students have indicated to organizers that they will participate.

“Education is only meaningful if it translates into action,” remarked Hoda Mitwally who plans to attend the rally. “Students feel that if we take what we’re learning seriously, we have an obligation to speak out. These are our peers that are dying in this war. Just recently, 91 Rutgers-Newark students were recalled to active duty from reservist status in the National Guard. They will be in our thoughts on March 27.”

Adriel Bernal, a Walkout Coalition organizer agrees: “The Walkout shows that for one day we’re willing to disrupt our everyday lives to show that there will be no business as usual until all the troops come home.”

“I think it’s great that they’re protesting,” says Rutgers student Rafay Siddiqui, an Iraq War veteran and member of Iraq Veterans Against the War who recently testified in the Winter Soldier Hearings. “A lot of Marines I know have serious doubts about why they’re in Iraq. Most of them just want to be home with their families.”

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