Updated: 6/21 12:50 p.m.
Hundreds of Temple students, faculty and community members marched through Main Campus to City Hall led by Temple Students for Justice in Palestine Thursday, advocating for Palestinian liberation and university action through financial divestment, academic boycott and public acknowledgment.
The protesters rallied together amid a national increase of pro-Palestine demonstrations and arrests of participating students on university campuses. Student groups across the country have urged their institutions to divest from companies supporting Israel.
As many as 200 participants gathered at the Bell Tower at 1 p.m. They listened as SJP organizers demanded Temple disclose all investments and endowments and withdraw any funds from companies aiding Israeli war efforts amid the latest Israel-Hamas war, like those outlined in the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement, a non-profit dedicated to protecting Palestinian human rights.
SJP also urged the university to sever ties with Israeli universities, from study abroad programs to research collaborations, and to make a public statement acknowledging the situation in Palestine as a genocide and calling for a ceasefire.
“We’re here to punish the genocide, and we’re here to punish our university’s complicit involvement in the genocide,” said student Rishi Arun.
Francesca Albanese, the United Nations’ Special Rapporteur on human rights in the Palestinian territories, reported on March 27 that there were grounds to believe Israel was committing genocide against Palestinians. Israel rejected the report and criticized her for “delegitimizing” the creation of the state.
“Citizens executed at point blank with their hands tied behind their back, buried in mass graves; mothers who outlive their children; Palestinians drowning as they swim to retrieve aid dropped in the water,” an organizer said in a speech to the crowd. “We, as students, have the moral obligation to fight what the ruling class has decided is normal.”
Temple’s Department of Public Safety partnered with the Philadelphia Police Department and university administration before the protest to oversee the event, leading to PPD presence and university administrators watching from the sidelines.
“The university will continue to emphasize the values our community holds dear, including respect for all people and the rejection of violence and terrorism in any form,” a university spokesperson wrote in a statement to The Temple News. “As an institution of higher learning, Temple remains dedicated to promoting peace, justice and understanding. Our approach will always be guided by our fundamental mission to educate in a safe, collaborative community that fosters inclusion and acceptance.”
After the speeches at the Bell Tower, a growing group of hundreds of participants began their walk through campus, crossing 13th Street to move down Liacouras Walk. A group of a dozen people stood in front of Charles Library, waving large Israeli flags and trying to shout above the noise of the rally. One sign read, “We’re done explaining our right to exist.”
Temple’s Hillel, a Jewish college student organization on campus, put out a statement on Wednesday to address the protest and announce a Passover celebration for Jewish students to begin at the same time Thursday.
“In advance of the planned protest tomorrow, we want to reiterate that the most important priority for Hillel at Temple is keeping Jewish students safe – first, foremost and always,” Hillel wrote in the statement for its Instagram. “Jewish students at Temple should be able to express their Jewish identities and support for the Jewish state without fear, in a learning environment that is free of hostility.”
The crowd stopped on Liacouras Walk between Speakman and Shusterman Hall, cheering loudly when they saw the words “Divest Now” displayed above on the glass walls of the Lynne and Charles Klatskin Skywalk. The organizers directed them to chant louder when close to Sullivan Hall, where some administrators’ offices, including the President’s, are located: “Expose, divest, we won’t stop, we won’t rest.”
One counter-protester, wrapped in an Israeli flag, stood next to the SJP organizers as they continued their speeches. Qais Dana, a protester carrying a Palestinian flag, also stood with the organizers and led the crowd’s chants. Both demonstrators showed their respective flags to the crowd but did not confront the other.
Dana, a freshman at the Community College of Philadelphia who plans to transfer to Temple, joined in the protest because he is Palestinian and most of his family still lives in the West Bank.
“It brings tears to my eyes,” Dana said. “I’ve never seen it like this before. I’ve lived 19 years, going to protests since I was a child, and I’ve never seen such immense love and solidarity for my people and our cause and our struggle, especially with my own personal ties.”
The rally approached the corner of Broad Street and Cecil B. Moore Avenue at 2 p.m., when student organizers asked the group to make its way to City Hall.
Two PPD helicopters circled overhead as roughly a hundred students squeezed onto SEPTA subway platforms, where chants continued: “Gaza, Gaza you will rise, Temple is on your side.”
Twenty minutes later, the rally regathered at City Hall. Faculty, like adjunct music professor Chelsea Reed, also joined the next step of the march.
“It’s important to show Temple students that faculty does stand with them and we also want Temple to divest from Israel and have a firm stance denouncing the genocide,” Reed said. “It’s important to show up today to galvanize more people to become involved. We’re seeing protests happen all across the country and Philadelphia should be a part of that, to get more people to join this cause and to speak up.”
The student leaders began teaching Arabic chants to the crowd as they waited for the numbers to grow again. When a few hundred people reconvened, the group walked onto the street and began marching around City Hall.
Temple SJP’s gathering at City Hall was the first part of the Philly Palestine Coalition’s march. The groups continued to march a planned two-mile route to Drexel and University of Pennsylvania’s campuses.
Penn students set up encampments on their campus at the end, following another national protest trend seen at universities like Columbia and George Washington in the last week. There are at least 10 tents set up at Penn, ready to stay through the weekend, The Philadelphia Inquirer reported.
It’s been six months since Oct. 7 when Hamas attacked Israel, killing 1,200 people, taking roughly 250 hostages and initiating the most recent Israel-Hamas war. Since then, 34,000 Palestinian people have been killed, The Associated Press reported.
“This is our tuition dollars and it’s going to genocide,” Arun said. “Divestment is nothing new. We did it with apartheid South Africa. It’s necessary and this is where it’s gonna hit [the university]. We can’t just stay outside chanting ‘Free Palestine’ without concrete demands — we won’t accomplish anything.”
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