Anti-Israel student groups from five different Ivy-League universities shared a social-media message on Sunday calling for “an open intifada in every capital and every city.”
“Escalate disruption and confrontation across historic Palestine, from every checkpoint and street corner to the face of every settler and soldier,” the groups — from Columbia, Harvard, Princeton, Yale, and the University of Pennsylvania — wrote in an Instagram post. “Escalate protests to an open intifada in every capital and every city in order to deprive the world from its heavy slumber that comes at the expense of the bodies and remains of those who survive; disrupt all facets of daily life until our people can breathe freely without the taint of the Israeli, American, and European war machine.”
The statement continued, with the student groups urging followers to disrupt day-to-day activity across the globe.
“In every city and street, in every school and university, in every place of work and gathering,” they wrote, “it is time to paralyze all aspects of normal life until the massacres stop and Gaza and its people are given the justice they deserve.”
The message was titled “A CALL FOR A WORLDWIDE ESCALATION.”
Protests at most of those schools either disrupted or caused large-scale changes to commencement celebrations over the past several weeks. Columbia University canceled its school-wide ceremony after the encampment on its lawn ultimately led to the storming of a university building, while at Princeton and Yale Universities, though events took place as planned, a relatively small number of students demonstrated during proceedings.
At Harvard University, hundreds of students, faculty, and staff walked out of the commencement ceremony, and speakers used their allotted time to criticize the university’s response to campus protests and rail against Israel. Those who walked out joined a “People’s Commencement” event at a university church that pastors said was unauthorized.
Of the five schools where student organizations shared the call for escalation, only the University of Pennsylvania did not see disruptions to its commencement, with the university administration announcing an increased security presence before the event.
The call for global disruption comes as opposition to Israel from activists and hostile governments mounts over the IDF offensive in the southern Gaza city of Rafah.