End the Genocide Stop Arming Israel
Martin Ralph, ISL
The anger of the students has made the encampment movement the most dynamic international protest movement in the world today in support of Palestine, against Israeli genocide, complicit governments and university support for the Israeli military.
The student occupations in the US began to inspire the world, but when the US cops started arresting students, 108 from Columbia, New York, and 1000 across the US, they instantly went global and accelerated international action.
Campaigns began to grow in France, the Netherlands, Australia and many other countries, and now 14 in Britain. The worst state attacks have been in the USA, France and repression in Australia. A French student said in an international zoom of 300 on 8 May that the police had not hit students so hard since 1968.
A camp started on 6 May at the University of Liverpool. It had been prepared by rising national struggle of weekly demonstrations, pickets and occupations across the country. Locally student activity included meetings on arms for Israel, two days of walkouts, student mobilisations and another student campus walk on 1 May.
There is also an important history of activists in the university union, the UCU, which has opposed the arming of Israel and research into more effective weapons and has worked with students for many years to build BDS.
An encampment leaflet says:
“We, the students of Alareer[i] Square, oppose the crimes against Palestinians and strive for their liberation. Our movement upholds the Thawabit[ii], rejects complicity in genocide and supports BDS against the Zionist entity. We are a diverse coalition committed to justice for Palestinians and all oppressed people. Discrimination is not tolerated we encourage public support and operate democratically. We expect respect for our peaceful protests against university complicity in Palestinian oppression.”
Each day there are teach-outs on anti-imperialism and many other issues and there are music, poetry and arts events.
The attack on Rafah, the students say, must be stopped, while the British armed forces support the Israeli onslaught and signed export licences to Israel as if it’s just another day at the office.
The level of organisation, discussion and continuous action by students and their supporters from the neighbourhoods and trade unions is impressive and developing. We applaud and support the actions of students around the world.
University of Liverpool Student Encampment
Socialist Voice interviewed three students from the ‘outreach’ team that is tasked with making connections with students not yet involved and the population of Liverpool and Merseyside.
Izmar
The different occupations across the world have very similar demands, but they can differ, what are your main ones?
Our main demands are:
- Divestment from arms companies that make weapons for Israel, including HP who make ‘soft’ weapons like surveillance for Israel.
- Cultural boycott of universities like Tel Aviv or Haifa universities
- Reconstruction of the Palestinian education sector, including Palestinian scholarships.
- No persecution by the university of students participating in the encampment.
How is it developing and what are you asking for?
We started three days ago with about 10 people, and we are now 30. We found a lot of students want to join. We need more equipment, more tents, more sleeping bags, more food. Everyone is doing GoFundMe, which is great, but that will take time and we need donations.
The university treats us like we are not here we need our community around Liverpool to show them we are here and that we are being supported. Liverpool is a city with a very great history we hold our standards high. Everyday day in the outreach team we see people coming and showing us what they have brought for us. It shows we are not alone.
We need unions and neighbourhoods to put pressure on the university. We are here in the encampment but there should be protests outside the university against the university’s connection with the arms research. The university represent the people of Liverpool, just because we are students here does not give us any special right to protest against the university, we need do it all together.
When the university is confronted on all fronts it would buckle.
Lydia
It takes determination and energy to build an encampment, how did it come about?
The camp started on 6 May after a walk about and a student rally with unions (UCU and FBU), Liverpool Friends of Palestine and Health Workers for Palestine.
On the demonstrations it can feel you are shouting into the void, and no one is listening. But the encampment means we can take a step that puts a dent in the Israeli campaign. We are looking for our institution to pull away from Israel and weapons manufacturing. It feels we have put our energies into one direct stream, which is an international stream.
This movement is popping up not only in the US but across the world, I think the student protests are on every continent. It makes you feel that you are part of a global movement to get the university to divest and raising the awareness of students on campus.
I have always been in political circles and fought for Palestine before this genocide, but many students have not experienced this before.
We have an outreach team chatting to people every day and at the entrance to the university Alareer Square – our encampment. We want to talk to anyone who is interested or disagrees. We are organising activities every day. Even if students cannot camp for whatever reason they can feel involved.
Last night we had a zoom call with 300 and many encampment people speaking.
What about security?
We always have some people who stay up and we organise shifts, so there are always some people awake in the camp. If anyone did try to enter and harass there would always be people to awake everyone up. We have plans in place if anything did happen, nothing happened so far, and it seems unlikely.
We have had a pretty good reception, you will always get students disagreeing, but those disagreements have been challenged into healthy debates. We had a few people shout things over the fence, but nobody felt threatened normally just one person shouting. We have safety in numbers and the camp is organised into teams for different tasks.
The university security has been OK. We asked that all the gates remain open because we wanted to be inclusive, and this is a student park, and we did not want to appear to be blocking students from coming in. Security staff closed all the gates except one on the first day but after that they accepted our demands.
Simon
Today you were out with leaflets, how did that go and why did you do it?
It went extremely well. Students understand that it is their money and that they should have a say where their tuition fees go. University education is the most expensive thing that I have ever bought. And students are excited to see that we have agency and that we can impose our views on the university, because it is unacceptable they way they have totally ignored our requests. It is a shame we have to do this but there really is an appetite for this action.
Over tuition fees, do you think you have the right to know how the university is spending your money and who it invites onto the university?
Absolutely, it is my money, and this is one of the most prestigious universities in the country and I am proud of that. I am very uncomfortable about the university behaving in the way that it does. I understand that there are standard operating proceeds, but the university relies on us the students. They have to learn from what we want.
There needs to be much more transparency.
What are you looking for from the unions and neighbourhoods?
We need action and support. The leaders of these organisation do not always represent the views of the people that support them. Like the university they depend on us for their position and legitimacy, we are not here to bankroll their lives and careers.
Workers need to organise and that would really push this movement to the next level. This is nice and visible for students but those with normal lives and everyday jobs they don’t see what we are doing and engage in social media the way younger people do.
It is important and imperative for the workers movement to make these issues more salient and raise the pressure against those who support the Israeli government.
Stop Arming Israel
On the 6 February 2024, the Liverpool University UCU meeting discussed ‘How the University of Liverpool is complicit in the genocidal war on Gaza’[iii]
The following are just a few points from that meeting.
BAE works closely with the School of Engineering, as research partners and / or in the design, development and delivery of programmes. The Flight Science and Technology group is a preferred academic partner of BAE.
Some University work has had EU funding through the Aircraft Research Association, ARA, controlled by BAE. One project, entitled BUCOLIC, concerned Buffet Control of Transonic Wings, an issue highlighted by the Pentagon during the development of the F-35. The EU coughed up £950k, of which £222k went to the University of Liverpool, and the rest to the ARA, i.e. BAE.
Liverpool and other North West universities partnered with the North West Aerospace Alliance and BAE, in the Growing Autonomous Mission Management Applications (GAMMA) programme to develop software and sensor technologies for autonomous systems, including an unmanned combat drone, Taranis.
Taranis is the most advanced UK aircraft ever designed. It is a £185m prototype produced by the MoD with BAE Systems, Rolls-Royce, GE Aviation and QinetiQ. Three of these firms supply the Israeli military directly, all four make components for the F-35, and all are active in the University.
BAE has 13 full members of the Peer Review college which oversees grant applications to the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council. Funding decisions are made by panels convened from the college. When Taranis was under development, an EPSRC panel meeting on Autonomous and Intelligent Systems had 14 members, of whom two were from BAE.
Many academic staff have pensions through the University Superannuation Scheme, USS. The scheme invests in at least five companies with UK military export licences to Israel since 2020, during which time there have been three major attacks on Gaza: BAE Systems, Chemring, Honeywell, RTX (Raytheon Technologies), and Teledyne. The licences permit exports in several categories:
- ML4 (Chemring): Bombs, torpedoes, rockets, missiles, other explosive devices and charges.
- ML5 (Teledyne): Weapon sights, bombing computers, gun laying equipment, target acquisition, designation, range-finding, surveillance; Detection, recognition or identification; Data fusion or sensor integration.
- ML10 (Honeywell, BAE): Aircraft, lighter-than-air vehicles, unmanned aerial vehicles, aero-engines, aircraft equipment.
- ML11 (Raytheon, Teledyne): Electronic equipment.
These licences concern direct exports to Israel. The USS also invests in at least a dozen major companies which supply components to the F-35 jets manufactured in the US by Lockheed Martin, the world’s biggest arms firm. F-35s exported from the US to Israel are used to bomb Gaza, in tandem with ground troops during the current invasion. USS invests in F-35 suppliers including BAE Systems, Teledyne, Honeywell, RTX (Raytheon), General Dynamics, General Electric, L3Harris.
[i] https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-67656787
[ii] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thawabit
[iii] http://www.labournet.net/other/2402/ucu1.html