The Student Uprising We’ve All Been Waiting For

The first thing I do in the morning is check my phone for messages from my family in Gaza. The time difference between Minneapolis and Gaza and the spotty connection make it difficult to have live chat conversations. Often, I’m scrambling to respond to messages several hours after I have received them, hoping that someone is still awake—that their connection is still strong. Knowing what we know and seeing what we’ve seen, seeing the two blue checks on a WhatsApp message (two to show the message was delivered; blue to show the message was read) are a huge relief for those of us with family in Gaza. Those two blue checks mean that our family members and close relatives are still alive. They mean that there’s still hope that those in Gaza might live to see another day. You start to think about how they received your message. What state are they in? Are they displaced again? Did the house get bombed? Did they get targeted as they stood in line for bread? Or even worse, did they nearly sacrifice their lives trying to climb to a higher elevation to connect with the mobile network to send you that message? Everything in Gaza is a matter of life and death—even connecting to your phone.

One day, my relative Ahmad sent me a message.

“It seems you (the world) forgot about us already,” he said.

How do I respond to that? We already feel an immense guilt. If it weren’t for one small historical moment, it would have been me and my family in Gaza with him under a constant barrage of American bombs.

“How can anyone forget?” I asked.

Little did Ahmad and I know what was to come next. A short time later, Columbia University launched an armed attack on its own students, sparking global outrage and spawning a new movement: now more invigorated and determined than ever before to end this genocide and this occupation once and for all. Gaza had done something to us in the United States. Gaza has freed us all. Gaza has freed us from the worry of losing jobs and the dread of suspension and reprisal from the administration. Gaza has freed us from the debilitating effects of getting doxed and from the fear of being criminally prosecuted. But most importantly, Gaza has freed our minds from the clenched grip of colonialism and white supremacy. Gaza has freed us all.

Seeing students on campuses across the country locking arms and singing freedom songs while facing off against a highly militarized police force was a sight that gave hope to me and my relatives in Gaza. Students have built an incredible alternative to the reality we are living in. In a world filled with exploitation, mass murder, climate crisis, unfettered capitalism, and a lack of general empathy for human beings, the students gave us a glimpse of what a better world could look like. They are showing the world that the system created to make them feel dependent is a house of cards that can all come down in a matter of minutes.

I know the feeling of being arrested. The handcuffs clicked around my wrists. Officers spread my legs as they patted me down, asking me if I had anything sharp that may hurt them. I’ve been locked in a jail cell and criminally prosecuted for protesting. Having gone through all that myself, I can say with confidence that the 2,500 students arrested for protesting this genocide have probably never felt freer. There is something about standing up for what you believe in, no matter the consequences, that is so liberating. It’s hard to explain in words.

Hamid Dabashi recently said, “The rhetoric of genocidal Zionism is finally being dismantled.”

Zionism’s unraveling isn’t only taking place because people are witnessing what Israel is doing in plain view. That’s been happening for decades. Zionism is unraveling because what was supposed to be unknown is now being exposed. The people behind the decisions, the closed-door meetings, the NDAs, and the forces that have acted with impunity for decades—the student uprisings against this genocide on U.S. campuses have lifted the curtain and forced these actors to play their cards in the open. From the deep-pocketed capitalists forcing university presidents to resign for not coming down hard enough on their students, to the U.S. government officials making unwelcome guest appearances on campuses demanding police tear apart peaceful encampments, to Zionist advocacy groups such as the ADL meeting with federal law enforcement to surveil students, it’s all coming out into the open. The state–capital–military–Zionist nexus has been laid bare. We are now hearing of WhatsApp groups of billionaires, U.S. and Israeli government officials, and progenocide lobbyists clamoring over what to do as a response to losing the global narrative (“U.S. Billionaires Joined WhatsApp Group”). The ruling class isn’t supposed to be this sloppy. They like to be perceived as more composed. But they’re failing miserably. 

The speed with which the rhetoric of genocidal Zionism is being dismantled is causing Zionists to lose their minds. They’re physically attacking student protestors, shooting students wearing kaffiyehs, threatening universities with lawsuits and withdrawal of donations, and urging Congress to designate student groups as terrorist organizations. All these things do nothing but further unravel and dismantle Zionism. For Zionists today, the game is lose–lose. This generation quite simply doesn’t give a damn what happens next.

Academic repression and punishing students for speaking out against the genocide aren’t effective. Despite the best efforts of administrators and Zionist groups and the most draconian punishments, students and faculty continue to speak out. Steven Salaita recently stated, “If the goal is punishment in and of itself, then the tactic is effective. But if silence is the desired outcome, then Zionist organizations are failing miserably and will continue to fail miserably. Nobody’s going to stop talking about Palestine at this point” (Lennard).

None of us has forgotten—we never will. This is the student movement we’ve all been waiting for. The images of the battle raging on our campuses speak for themselves. I don’t always have the words to respond to Ahmad. Now, I just send him pictures. 

Taher Herzallah is a proud Gazan scholar in training going into his third year of the PhD program in American studies at the University of Minnesota. Herzallah’s interests are in Palestine activism in the U.S. context over the last century, particularly among Muslim Americans.