USP students begin Palestine Defense Camp

This Tuesday (05/07), students of the University of São Paulo (USP) begin a camp in support of the Palestinian cause and in rejection of the massacre committed by the Israeli army against the civilian population in the Gaza Strip, which has already claimed the lives of more than 34 thousand people since last October.

The initiative came from various student entities at USP, and was organized around the Student Committee for Solidarity with the Palestinian People (ESPP-USP). Mobilization begins this Tuesday, at five in the evening, with the camp being held in the space of the History and Geography headquarters of the Faculty of Philosophy, Arts, and Humanities at the University of the South Pacific.

The camp opening ceremony will be held at approximately 6 p.m. with a panel discussion on this topic. At nine o'clock in the evening, a movie will be broadcast. The organization states that the movement has the support of university faculty and staff.

According to Ana Luisa Tiberio, part of the Workers' Party's Coletivo Graúna and member of the Student Committee for Solidarity with the Palestinian People at the University of the South Pacific, the camp and activities over the next few days “will be fundamental for us to connect with international struggles and show support for the Palestinian cause.”

The movement’s spokeswoman added: “In addition to showing our solidarity, we want to pressure the University of the South Pacific to break agreements with Israeli universities that support and finance the ongoing massacre in Palestine.” Opera MundiHe is also a master's student in political science at the university.

The camp schedule runs from Tuesday through Thursday (09/05). A workshop will be held on Wednesday (08/05) at 11 am by members of Coletivo Vozes Judaicas pela Democracia, one of the entities supporting the student movement.

The second event, which will continue until Wednesday, is a discussion table on international solidarity with Palestine, scheduled to be held at six in the evening, in which journalist Brenno Altmann, founder of the “International Solidarity with Palestine” organization, will participate. Opera MundiAnd Academician Reginaldo Nacer, a professor in the field of international relations at the Pontifical Catholic University of São Paulo (PUC-SP) who specializes in topics related to the Middle East.

Also on Wednesday, at nine o'clock in the evening, the concert will include a performance of Palestinian songs with different artists.

site below

Next to the camp, USP students started site below Demanding the institution, other Brazilian universities and “the government itself” to sever ties with the State of Israel.

According to the organizers, this measure includes abandoning “current academic agreements and any relations” linked to the State of Israel. “In particular, the FFLCH decides to immediately resign from the University of Haifa by its Congregation and its Administrative Technical Council,” the committee declares.

The petition also advocates removing all administrative actions from students who have shown solidarity with the Palestinian people, stating that “the media and the rectory are trying to equate anti-Zionism with anti-Semitism” and using such a narrative “as a justification to persecute the Palestine Solidarity Movement.”

“We will not accept intimidation and persecution: down with any oppression.”

A movement born in the United States of America

The work of USP students reproduces a pro-Palestinian movement in Brazil that began about a month ago in US universities, following student mobilization at Columbia University in New York.

Currently, more than 40 institutions in North America are mobilizing in favor of Palestine and rejecting the Israeli government – one of the movement's main demands is specifically for universities to cut investment in projects linked to the Zionist government led by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

The movement in North America has been the target of very strong police repression, with more than two thousand students arrested so far.

In addition to Brazil and the USA, the pro-Palestinian wave on campuses is also mobilizing students in countries such as France, the UK, Germany, Canada, Mexico and Cuba.