On Wednesday, over 150 7C students gathered on Marston Quad at Pomona College for a vigil, teach-in and die-in as part of an international Shut it Down for Palestine action. These efforts come in the wake of weeks of student organizing at the Claremont Colleges advocating for the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement and demanding investment disclosure from Pomona’s administration.
Students started gathering at 10:00 a.m. for a vigil, decorating a memorial for Palestinian lives lost on the front stairs of Pomona’s Big Bridges Auditorium with teddy bears, flowers and Palestinian flags.
The vigil was followed by a teach-in where unidentifiable student organizers read from a presentation, which they shared with protesters via QR code. They reiterated demands that Pomona divest from “all weapons manufacturers and all institutions that aid in the ongoing occupation of Palestine.”
At the die-in, which started around 1 p.m., students wearing all black laid on the ground in the walkway between Bridges and Marston Quad. A poster with the names of thousands of children killed in Palestine since Oct. 7 was placed amongst the demonstrators. Organizers read the names aloud using a microphone.
Large banners were attached to the front of Bridges reading “Divest from apartheid” and “Ceasefire now!”
In response to TSL’s inquiry regarding demands from the community to divest from Israel, Pomona Chief Communications Officer Mark Kendall said that Pomona has no intentions of divesting.
“Beyond the requirements of U.S. law, Pomona’s investment policies do not single out any nation, nationality or region of the world for investment exclusion,” Kendall said via email Wednesday evening. “There are no plans to alter this approach to single out any individual nation, nationality or region for exclusion.”
Although Pomona has yet to respond directly to protestors, this week the college also hosted the first in a series of talks about contextualizing the conflict in Gaza. This is the first event the college has endorsed since President Gabrielle Starr promoted a vigil for the Jewish community to mourn lives lost on Oct. 7 and an interfaith prayer event for students in an Oct. 11 message to the Pomona community.
On Tuesday, almost 100 students, faculty and community members gathered to listen to Pomona professors Joanne Nucho and Mietek Boduszyński contextualize the ongoing conflict in Gaza involving Hamas and the Israeli Defense Forces. The office of the dean of Pomona organized the talk, which was held during lunchtime in Frank Dining Hall.
Nucho, Pomona’s anthropology department chair and coordinator of the Middle Eastern Studies major, spoke first, providing an analysis of Palestinian lived experiences since 1948. Boduszyński, an associate professor of politics at Pomona and a former diplomat with the U.S. Department of State, followed. His section of the talk focused on the United States’ role in the conflict.
Nucho began her talk by showing images of mundane moments of Palestinian life in Gaza, such as a young Palestinian girl surfing or boys backflipping off a concrete barrier, taken by documentary photographer Tanya Habjouqa.
Nucho said that she sought to center Palestinian lived experiences through the images in order to better understand the historical roots of the current violence and its impact on Palestinians.
Nucho then jumped back in time to the founding of Israel in 1948, which she said displaced 750,000 Palestinians. She said that this displacement was a colonial project, quoting a 1902 letter in which Zionist founder Theodor Herzl asked former Prime Minister of the Cape Colony Cecil Rohes to support Israel, which he described as “something colonial.”
Nucho said that in Israel, Palestinians live as second-class citizens, referencing a variety of laws that deny them equal access to housing, water and electricity.
Moving to the current violence, Nucho quoted from several scholars of genocide who have labeled Israel’s assault on Gaza a genocide, including Israeli scholar Raz Segal, who declared the conflict a “textbook case of genocide” in the leftist magazine “Jewish Currents.”
Nucho said that, contrary to media narratives, this framing is not controversial within academic disciplines she works in, such as Middle Eastern Studies.
Nucho concluded by calling for a permanent ceasefire, seeing it as the most important step toward resolving the conflict. But for people in the audience, she said, the mission of the liberal arts college is to encourage a deeper understanding of the context surrounding the violence.
Boduszyński then began his portion of the talk, opening with a question: Why should the United States care about the state of Israel?
He said that Israel became a close ally of the United States during the Cold War. He also noted American economic interests in Israel — the annual trade between the United States and Israel amounts to nearly $50 billion.
In terms of values, Boduszyński said that although there has been debate over Israel’s treatment of Palestinians, many American presidents have argued that Israel is a democracy and therefore a valuable ally.
Boduszyński then gave a brief overview of the history of different presidents’ support for Israel, beginning with President Harry Truman in the 1940s and ending with President Joe Biden. He noted that Biden has always been firm in his support of the state, although Biden did rebuke Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu over recent efforts to undermine the power of Israel’s Supreme Court.
Boduszyński concluded by discussing U.S. aid to Israel. Since World War II, the United States has provided the most aid to Israel of any foreign country. It has also used its veto power in the UN Security Council to block resolutions critical of Israel 34 times.
Boduszyński suggested this aid gives the United States leverage to restrain Israel’s response in the current conflict, although he noted that there is a debate within the U.S. government about whether or not unconditional aid is actually in the best interests of the United States.
In an interview with TSL via email, Boduszyński said that he wanted to communicate that although the United States supports Israel, “it is also a highly complicated relationship in which the [United States] and Israel have differed sharply at times.”
He also pushed back against the idea that an event like the talk must be inherently “pro-Israel” or “pro-Palestinian.”
“One can be for the existence of Israel and for its security and also for the dignity and security of the Palestinian people,” he said.
Renee Tian contributed reporting.
Dec. 6 1:59 p.m.: An earlier version of this article incorrectly said a Nov. 28 talk at Pomona College was the first event President Gabrielle Starr endorsed since a vigil for the Jewish community to mourn lives lost on Oct. 7 in an Oct. 11 message to the Pomona community. It has been updated to reflect the interfaith prayer event President Starr also promoted in her Oct. 11 message. TSL regrets this error.
Facebook Comments