At 1 p.m. on Nov. 9, the “Shut it down 4 Palestine” rally took place outside of Johnson Hall. UO Students For Justice in Palestine and UO Grads for Palestine rallied for UO president John Karl Scholz to denounce the Israeli response to Hamas and call for a “ceasefire.”
SJP further called for UO to cut ties with companies identified to be receiving funding from or providing funding to the Israeli government.
According to SJP, UO currently holds ties with five companies that help fund the Israeli government: Starbucks, Amazon, Subway, Sabra Hummus and Alphabet Inc. (ABC), a Google parent company.
“This is a call for action and a call for non-violent resistance and a call for the university to stop turning a blind eye to where that money is going,” one speaker said. “Can you [UO] not see what you’re doing? You have blood on your hands,” the speaker said.
The protest was part of the international “Shut it down for Palestine” movement calling for Nov. 9 to be the day for an “International Call for Action,” spurring protests worldwide.
Roughly 200 people were in attendance, holding signs saying “End Racist Delusions of Supremacy and Entitlement” and “Jews for Palestine.” The rally hosted five guest speakers, each sharing the importance of UO’s disaffiliation from Israeli backed companies.
“[We are] asking for President Scholz to say something about a ceasefire in general, because his first statement [was] initially painfully neutral,” Maxwell Gullickson, co-director of UO Anti-Imperialism and UO SJP, said.
Despite the initial expectations of the event organizers, there were no substantial counterprotest efforts. Other college protests in support of Palestine have seen counterprotests from pro-Israel students, many of whom claim their rhetoric is antisemitic.
According to Mariam Nadeem, a member of the UO Grads for Palestine, President Scholz lacks a strong stance on the war. “We feel that President Scholz’s statement was deliberately obfuscating the power dynamics at the heart of the Palestinian issue by framing Hamas as enacting genocide on a scale that deliberately obfuscates the way Israel [has] responded,” Nadeem said.
Many speakers discussed their belief that the university and the community have a duty to educate others about the attacks.
“We have a responsibility to educate our students and train them to react and respond to government policies that enact this kind of violence,” Adeem said.
Organizers implored participants to take further action by communicating with their local elected officials, and to boycott more companies that support the Israeli government.
“We have the chance to stand on the right side of history,” speakers said at the rally. “So do your part.”
