SANTA CRUZ — After forming just more than a week ago, The Palestine solidarity encampment in Quarry Plaza on the campus of UC Santa Cruz has steadily grown, with tents popping up around and above the camp’s original perimeter every day.
“We’ve had to expand into the upper balcony and it’s amazing to see how much the encampment has grown since the first day when we set up just a few tents,” said encampment media liaison and UCSC student Max Sárosi. “And personally, it’s amazing to see how the camp has been able to sustain itself, providing three meals a day, educational programming all day and community-forum, collective decision-making. It’s been an incredible example of how we can all collectively take care of one another, educate one another, and sustain ourselves.”
Student protesters are gathered in solidarity with similar encampments around the country and world to highlight the deaths in the Israel-Hamas war, call for the liberation of the Palestinian people and demand that universities stop doing business with Israel or companies that support the war in Gaza.
According to the Associated Press, Israel’s retaliatory military operation following the Hamas attack on Israel Oct. 7 has killed more than 34,700 Palestinians, according to local health officials, and driven around 80% of Gaza’s population of 2.3 million from their homes. In the United States, more than 2,100 protesters supporting Palestine have been arrested over the last two weeks on universities across the country.
The UCSC encampment, which was organized by the local chapter of Students for Justice in Palestine, has a list of specific demands that can be found in a link on its social media page. The UCSC protesters stress that the demands must be met before they will disperse.
The six demands, in short, call for the university to completely divest from weapon-manufacturing companies and to cease research collaborations with weapon manufacturing industries, and that instead UCSC should invest in its students and workers — and to disclose and provide full transparency of the University of California’s assets including investments, donations and grants.
The demands include an “end to targeted repression and policing of pro-Palestinian advocacy on campus. Reject the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s definition of anti-semitism which conflates anti-zionism with anti-semitism. Protect free speech and roll back all academic discipline and/or charges against protestors.”
The group also demands all police officers be removed from UCSC campus, and that the university sever ties with the Santa Cruz Police Department and remove all mass surveillance technology on campus.
The group demands “that UC must acknowledge the ongoing genocide of Palestinians since the inception of the zionist state, and call for an immediate and permanent ceasefire in Gaza, and an end to the occupation in Palestine.”
The demand that has received the most public scrutiny is one calling for “a complete academic boycott,” which includes “cutting ties UC wide with all zionist institutions — including study abroad programs, fellowships, seminars, research collaborations and universities. Cut ties with the Helen Diller foundation, Koret foundation, Israel institute, and Hillel International. Comply with BDS (boycott, divestment, sanction), as according to the BDS National Committee, within all University operations. Universities should not be working with universities which are complicit and benefit from genocide.”
The local chapter of Hillel International, Santa Cruz Hillel, published a statement about the encampment on its social media pages stating that, “We respect students’ right to protest about causes they care deeply about and know Jewish students on campus have different feelings regarding this protest.”
The statement concludes, “we are deeply concerned that the protesters’ demands include a UC-wide boycott of organizations that support Jewish studies, Jewish life, and address campus climate and antisemitism.”
“Many people are confusing Hillel International with the individual Hillels,” said the encampment’s media liaison Savvy Lane. “Hillel International is a major Zionist organization that is pro-student suppression and anti-BDS (boycott, divestment, sanction). As long as we have ties to Hillel International here we cannot have BDS. We are not trying to eliminate safe space for Jewish people. We just think there should be safe spaces for Jewish people that also do not condone genocide.”
Sárosi, a third-year UCSC student and who is Jewish, elaborated further about why the protesters are demanding a “complete academic boycott,” especially from Hillel International, which states on its website that, “Israel is at the heart of Hillel’s work.”
“We are here because we are trying to get the university to divest from complicity in violence against Palestinians and it has very little to do with the Jewish people,” said Sárosi. “The issue we have, especially as a Jewish student here, is that the institutional relationship that UC Santa Cruz has with Hillel, is one of a monopoly over all Jewish cultural life. For example, UCSC consults Hillel regarding anything Jewish, and that’s an issue for us because Hillel does not welcome us or represent us.”