CUNY4Palestine launched its campaign to demand the City University of New York system divest from corporations complicit in Israeli occupation, apartheid, settler colonialism and war crimes at a press conference and rally on Friday, 28 May in New York City, The CUNY Statement of Solidarity with the Palestinian People, signed by hundreds of faculty, students and organizations in the CUNY community, also demands that the university system implement the Palestinian call for academic and cultural boycott of Israel and support the rights of students to organize for Palestine.
Palestinian student and youth organizations inside occupied Palestine issued a letter of support to the CUNY campaign, which was read out at the press conference by Reihan Ahmed of John Jay College. At the press conference, hundreds of CUNY students, faculty and supportive New Yorkers rallied in support of the demands to university administration.
The letter text and signatories follow:
Statement of Palestinian Student and Youth Organizations in Support of CUNY Boycott Campaign
We, Palestinian students living under occupation, apartheid and settler colonialism, wholeheartedly endorse the City University of New York Community Statement of Solidarity with the Palestinian people. For over 73 years, our people have been confronting all forms of oppression, and our students and universities have come under repeated assault.
Palestinian universities and students, throughout occupied Palestine from the river to the sea, face mass incarceration and repression, armed raids, bans on activities, racist regulations and fundamental violations of our right to education. Hundreds of Palestinian students are jailed by the occupation, subjected to detention without charge or trial and tortured under interrogation, while Palestinian students in Gaza are living under siege for over 14 years.
We know that Palestinian students and students supporting Palestine around the world, including in New York City, are also fighting against repression, injustice and attacks of all forms for standing up for Palestinian liberation.
We join you in demanding that CUNY immediately divest from corporations that aid the colonization, war crimes and occupation directed against the Palestinian people. We further demand the full implementation of the academic and cultural boycott of Israel; Israeli universities are built on our stolen land and are deeply involved in the research and development processes that build the bombs, tanks and bulldozers that destroy our villages and target our homes. We salute your organizing in the United States, where you confront a government that provides over $3.8 billion in support to the occupier every year.
We demand accountability and justice, on the road to liberation. We stand with you today in your campaign as you stand with us, the Palestinian people and our resistance, on the road to victory, liberation and return for Palestine, from the river to the sea.
Student Council – An-Najah National University
Student Council – Bir Zeit University
Student Council – Al Quds Open University
Student Council – Arab American Universtity/Jenin
Progressive Student Action Front — Gaza, Palestine
Fateh Youth Movement – Palestine
Islamic Bloc – Gaza
Student Organization for the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine
Almubadara Student Association
Union of Palestinian Student Struggle Committees
Palestinian Liberation Youth
Union of High School Students — Gaza, Palestine
Almuntada – Arab Law Students Forum — occupied Palestine ’48
National Democratic Alliance Students – Haifa University
National Democratic Alliance Students – Technion
Taliba Student Movement — Jerusalem
Edward Said Forum
Samidoun Network in Occupied Palestine
