Pro-Palestinian demonstrators at UC Berkeley shut down their weekslong encampment this week after the university agreed to support some of the students’ goals.
At UC Berkeley’s Sproul Plaza on Tuesday, demonstrators who had agreed to end their encampment published a harshly worded and at times conspiratorial statement blaming “the red tape of procedural evil” for blocking their demands and implying that Zionism is responsible for “all the cruelties of this modern world.”
They did succeed in obtaining a handful of concessions from the university chancellor after a series of private meetings, but the tenor of the statement, posted on Instagram by the UC Berkeley Divest Coalition, conveyed their sense of disgust with the concessions as they pledged to continue fighting.
Among the concessions was a public statement from Chancellor Carol Christ expressing horror at what she called the “horrific killing of tens of thousands of Palestinians” and declaring support for a cease-fire and the release of hostages.
Videos captured at Sproul Plaza on Tuesday showed piles of dismantled tents and students rolling up their sleeping bags. A sign left on the lawn read: “Gone to Merced,” where some students planned to continue their protest at a UC Board of Regents meeting.
“From Berkeley to Merced, all the way to a free Jerusalem in a free Palestine — from the river to the sea,” the UC Berkeley Divest Coalition statement said. “We consider the results of this negotiation only the next terrain of struggle for full divestment and academic boycott of the Zionist state.”
The conclusion of the protest, which lasted just over three weeks, marked the end of a tumultuous period at UC Berkeley during which campus leadership resisted calls to dismantle the encampment as other universities had. At its height, an estimated 175 tents were erected on Sproul Plaza, though not all of the students participating slept there, a spokesperson told J. The encampment’s closure also followed Cal’s graduation, which took place Saturday and included multiple interruptions from pro-Palestinian demonstrators.
A number of Jewish students expressed sharp opposition to the encampment, saying the extreme statements and chants made them uncomfortable traversing a main campus thoroughfare. Two pro-Israel counterprotesters were attacked in incidents either wholly or partially captured on video.
Debates swirled about whether the protest was nonviolent. For her part, Christ characterized the action as “nonviolent political protest” that did not warrant police intervention but acknowledged “a few notable exceptions.”
Among those exceptions were incidents on April 26 and May 1. In the first, Noah Cohen, a third-year law student, was told to stop recording the protest and was punched in the face when he refused to do so by a pro-Palestinian demonstrator, though he was not injured. In the second, pro-Israel activist Ilan Sinelnikov was punched multiple times in the head, requiring medical attention and a concussion test.
Meanwhile, the demonstration suggested support for Palestinian militancy. A large banner above the steps at the center of the encampment, stretching across the colonnade, read “Glory to the martyrs, victory to the resistance!” It was decorated with two inverted red triangles, which are used in Hamas propaganda videos to indicate Israeli military targets.
The statement announcing the camp’s closure blamed a litany of evils on support for Israel, “from the extermination of indigenous peoples, to racist border regimes to industrializing killing and the policing of insurgent life,” stating that “Palestine condenses all” of those harms into one issue.
Embracing radical politics and criticizing liberals, it said “liberalism cannot contain our revolt because it cannot meet our demands.”
“Palestinians have given us the roadmap to liberation, and we will keep treading that path. Long live the Palestinian people, long live the Palestinian resistance. The revolution continues.”
Another stark post reprised the inverted red triangle, which first appeared in propaganda videos from the al-Qassam Brigades. “UC Regents, see you in Merced,” it said.
Meanwhile, Christ released three public documents, one dated May 5 and two dated Tuesday, outlining concessions made by the university — concessions that did not wholly satisfy the protesters but were used to claim victory. “By confronting the Zionist state,” the coalition statement said, “our revolt has cut to the heart of U.S. empire.”
Among other demands, protesters had called on the university to divest from all companies with ties to Israel. Christ promised to create a “task force” of students, faculty and staff to establish recommendations for an ethical investment strategy to submit to decision-makers. Divestment from Israel is “not permissible,” she said, but recommendations could target weapons manufacturers, as well as companies that contribute to “mass incarceration” and the “surveillance” industries.
Christ also said the university would review all complaints about its international programs, to make sure they are in line with Cal’s anti-discrimination policies. Student protesters had demanded Cal cut all ties with Israel, which Christ said the university would not do.