Cambridge Anti-Israel Encampment Is Part of an ‘International Movement,’ Leader Says

An anti-Israel group at Cambridge University launched a “liberated zone” encampment at the school on Monday and has already amassed thousands of dollars in donations as the unrest that has roiled American college campuses continues to spread.

The encampment was established by a group called “Cambridge for Palestine,” and it has received backing from at least one communist group on campus.

Just hours after it began, the encampment held a rally with roughly 200 people. The protesters banged drums and chanted things like “disclose, divest, we will not we will not rest,” “from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free,” and “from the sea to the river, Palestine will live forever.”

The organizers at Cambridge initiated a fundraising campaign online, which has raised nearly £6,500 — or over $8,170 — for “vital supplies.” 

“I also want to emphasize that this is part of an international movement,” Anne Alexander, a representative of the Cambridge University and College Union, told the crowd during the rally. “As we know, there are hundreds of colleges and universities across the U.S. whose bravery and commitment has sparked this international student mobilization.”

“We’re not gonna stop until they f***ing divest,” a masked and hooded man told the crowd. 

The Cambridge for Palestine group is demanding that Cambridge University 1) Disclose its financial and professional ties with organizations “complicit in the ongoing ethnic cleansing of Palestine,” 2) Divest funds and collaboration away from such organizations, 3) Reinvest in Palestinian students, academics, and scholars, and 4) Protect students at risk, and become “a university of sanctuary.” 

The group specifically demands that Cambridge University condemn “Israel’s ongoing genocide,” create “a new Centre for Middle East studies” that would be “Palestinian-led,” disclose the identities of donors who give over £10,000 to the university, cease all academic ties with Israeli institutions, rename buildings “with links to imperial profiteers and apologists,” to instead honor “martyred Palestinian academics and journalists,” and create specific scholarships and fellowships for Palestinian and Sudanese students, among other things. The group further calls for no disciplinary action to be taken against the encampment protesters. 

“Community guidelines” for the encampment at include “wear masks at rallies and pickets,” “no recreational drug/alcohol consumption,” “never photographing or videotaping another community member without their affirmative consent,” and “not engaging with zionist counter-protestors.”

“In order to practice solidarity, we are committed to building a community with no tolerance for antisemitism, islamophobia, anti-blackness, racism, misogyny, transphobia, or ableism,” reads a social-media post by the Cambridge for Palestine group. 

The Cambridge encampment was launched the same morning as a similar camp at Oxford University. Both protests share some of the same signage, which read “Welcome to the People’s University for Palestine,” “there are no universities left in Gaza,” and “Israel has killed 5479 students.” Other signs at Cambridge say “we’re young, we’re f***ed, we’re coming,” “Divest from genocide, drop Elbit, Caterpillar, Rolls Royce,” and “make soup not war,” according to photos shared on social media. 

“We, the Revolutionary Communist Party, say no more,” an activist at the encampment says in a video released by the account “Cambridge Communists” that is captioned “from Cambridge to Gaza, long live the intifada.”

“We demand the university opens its books to scrutiny for students and workers, and divests from investors linked to the genocide in Palestine,” the activist says.

The Cambridge for Palestine group schedule for today includes “de-escalation training for all campers” and a dinner funded by the Palestine Solidarity Campaign, a U.K-based organization. Two former leaders of the Palestine Solidarity Campaign met with Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh in Gaza in 2012, according to the Jewish Chronicle. 

“We will join students across the world in refusing the weaponised conflation of anti-Zionism with antisemitism, and the ways this is deployed to undermine the international movement for justice in Palestine. Our tradition is one of justice, and one of liberation,” reads a social-media post by the “Cambridge Jews for Justice” group, which describes itself as “a group of Jewish students at the University of Cambridge working to oppose Israel’s occupation of Palestine, and the ongoing genocide in Gaza.”