NATIONAL SJP 

Amidst the genocides and aggressions occurring throughout Palestine, Lebanon, and Iran, a covert economic Cold War between two rival nations quietly shapes the alliances which facilitate the ongoing conditions within the region. The UAE’s recent decision to leave OPEC is only the latest development in its economic rivalry with Saudi Arabia, one which has pushed the two nations to back warring factions in proxy conflicts throughout the region, from Yemen, to Sudan and Somalia. This economic Cold War puts these two sub-imperialist powers in a favorable position with imperialist powers, such as Israel and the US, and other sub-imperialist powers like Turkey and Egypt. These two nations put themselves at direct odds with the liberation of the masses by wedding themselves to economic supremacy, and thus must be accurately examined if we are to accurately identify who are our friends and enemies within the Palestinian liberation movement.

Yesterday and throughout last night, on the first days of Eid Al Adha, the zionist entity escalated its violent campaign of expansion in Lebanon. For years, the occupation forces have been bombarding the South in an attempt to permanently displace and kill the indigenous people of Jnoub with countless ceasefire violations, airstrikes, indiscriminate killing, and land poisoning operations. This renewed commitment to permanent occupation is sowing deep instability for the people of South Lebanon, the Bekaa Valley, and South Beirut once again, all while the death toll continues to climb and the Lebanese state continues to abandon any semblance of sovereignty in service of Western priorities. We honor the martyrs sacrifice, we grieve those who have been unjustly taken from us, and we will always remain committed to full liberation and decolonization. From Tripoli to Zahle to Saida to Bint Jbeil to Tyre, Lebanese self-determination can only be actualized through the rejection of Zionism, normalization, and imperialism.

Today, Palstinians observe Eid al-Adha while continuing to endure a genocide, and over 1 million people in Lebanon observe the holdiay while displaced by zionist bombardment and occupation. Last night as people in Gaza went out in prepration for Eid, they were met with zionist bombardment. The airstrikes on rsidential building in the al-Rimal neighborhood killed 6 people and wounded 20 more. While in Lebanon, the zionist entity continues to expand its occupation, issuing evactation orders in Tyre. Bombardment and forced displacement on EId is a long standing tactic of the zionist entity to break the spirit of those who suffer under their brutal occupation. Eid is more than a celebration, it’s a chance to reflect and to reground ourselves in causes that exist beyond us. It gives us an opportunity to recommit ourselves to the struggle for liberation, and to sacrifice that which we are materially attached to, to advance the cause, as those in Palestine, Lebanon, and throughout the region have done and continue to do. May this Eid bring us one year closer to the day we can pray Eid in a liberated Palestine, and may we one day get to hear the takbirat echo throughout our liberated land, with chants echoing from Gaza all the way to Al Aqsa.

On this day 26 years ago, the illusion that zionist occupation was a permanent inevitability was shattered, and the inevitability of decolonization and liberation was proved in the south of Lebanon. Following decades of occupation, the Lebanese people broke down the indestructible facade of zionism and won liberation through their own terms, not through diplomacy, normalization, or international appeals. Liberation was struggled for by the people and succeeded only through them. Today, the memory of the liberation of the South serves as a sobering reminder that the dismantling of zionism is not only possible but inevitable, and that the Lebanese people will never bow to occupation - 26 years ago, today, or tomorrow.

As another school year comes to a close, we remain steadfast with the understanding that our universities remain complicit in the zionist imperialist expansion currently being waged throughout Palestine and beyond. Though we may face repression on our campuses, it pales in comparison to the conditions imposed upon students in Gaza. To be able to attend university is a privilege those in Gaza don’t enjoy, and thus it’s our responsibility to use our privilege to continue to heighten the contradictions on campus and escalate. Though another year has ended, our mission remains the same. We reaffirm that our struggle will continue until divestment, the dissolution of zionism, the establishment of a popular university, and the liberation of Palestine.

Today, we recognize 5 years since the Unity Intifada, a moment which brought the Palestinian cause to the forefront of popular consciousness and one which shifted the terms of engagement through all of occupied Palestine. Sparked by displacement efforts in Sheikh Jarrah, the movement spread quickly into global protests expressing solidarity with both Sheikh Jarrah and all of Palestine. This moment served as a prelude to the current political moment we find ourselves in now, and we understand that the popular movement and mobilization from 5 years ago lives on now through our continued struggle. From Sheikh Jarrah to Gaza, the Intifada lives!

Yesterday’s attack on the Islamic Center of San Diego is the product of decades of coordinated anti-Arab and Islamophobic propaganda, surveillance, and dehumanization normalized by the U.S. and Western powers. This agenda of violence has cultivated the conditions that target Muslim communities, from our masjids and neighborhoods within the diaspora to ethnic cleansing and siege abroad. National Students for Justice in Palestine stands with the San Diego community grieving the devastating loss of their loved ones. We mourn and honor every one of our martyrs, from the martyrs of the ICSD attack to Wadea al-Fayoume to the hundreds of thousands of Palestinians martyred in Gaza.

THE NAKBA NEVER ENDED: AIRSTRIKES IN GAZA CITY As Palestinians marked the 78th anniversary of the Nakba, the mass displacement and ethnic cleansing of more than 750,000 Palestinians in 1948, Gaza once again endured a night of relentless bombardment. IOF airstrikes targeted residential buildings in Gaza City overnight, killing at least 9 Palestinians and injuring more than 40 others according to initial reports. Omar Hamad, a writer from Beit Hanoun in northern Gaza and founder of The Phoenix Library, described arriving near the site of the attack, “Today, before I even reached the bombing site, and from 200 meters away, I smelled the scent of blood, as if my mind knew it and could distinguish it among so many others odors of dust, sulfur, rubble, and gunpowder. Instantly, my mind flashed back to the countless scenes of blood I lived through during the genocide.” As Western institutions and governments continue to bankroll the ongoing siege, displacement, and genocide, our responsibility in the imperial core continues to grow. From the airstrikes on residential buildings paid by university endowments to the research our universities produce for weapons manufacturers, our institutions remain materially tied to the destruction of Gaza. The violence of the ongoing Nakba must not be normalized or allowed to continue for another generation. The Nakba must not remain continuous. We must unwaveringly resist and commit to Palestine’s liberation.

Today, we commemorate the 78th anniversary of the ongoing Nakba. The Nakba, Arabic for “catastrophe,” marks the mass dispossession of the Palestinian people in 1948, when the zionist entity forcibly expelled more than 750,000 Palestinians from their homes, brutally and systemically emptied 530 villages, and carried out over 70 massacres in its campaign to establish a settler colony on Palestinian land. Though the Nakba is commemorated on May 15th, we understand that the ethnic cleansing campaign has never ended—it remains continuous and ongoing. Throughout the past 78 years, and more recently the past 31 months of heightened decimation, Palestinians have remained steadfast in the face of relentless violence and attempts of erasure, from enduring genocide, displacement, and siege in Gaza to escalating settler violence, land theft, incursions and raids, and detainment in the West Bank. Despite the colonizers’ persistent attempts, they will not, and will never, succeed in erasing Palestinian people. Despite the Nakba continuing for 78 years, the Palestinians’ desire to return to their home is not a dream but a future to be achieved through the struggle to free their land from zionist occupation. This future can only be achieved through the steadfast resistance, achieved through struggle, from the homeland to the diaspora. Generation after generation, until liberation and return.

Over the last 3 years, Gaza’s universities, libraries, and scholars have been systematically targeted in a deliberate attack on Palestinian life itself, all bankrolled by complicit Western institutions we attend and are graduating from. As students across North America graduate this Spring, we remember the thousands of Palestinian students in Gaza who shared our dreams and hopes, who we now continue the struggle in honor of. These are the names of a small fraction of the martyred students who would have graduated this year. We refuse to forget our martyred peers. No graduation until Gaza’s liberation.