Jewish Voice for Peace is an American Jewish anti-Zionist and left-wing advocacy organization. It is critical of Israel's occupation of the Palestinian territories, and supports the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) campaign against Israel.
Students for Justice in Palestine is a pro-Palestinian college student activism organization in the United States, Canada and New Zealand. Founded at the University of California in 2001, it has campaigned for boycott and divestment against corporations that deal with Israel and organized events about Israel's human rights violations. In 2011, The New York Times called it "the leading pro-Palestinian voice on campus". As of 2024, National SJP has over 350 chapters in North America.
The Israel–Hamas war has sparked protests, demonstrations, and vigils around the world. These events focused on a variety of issues related to the conflict, including demands for a ceasefire, an end to the Israeli blockade and occupation, return of Israeli hostages, protesting war crimes, and providing humanitarian aid to Gaza. Since the war began on 7 October 2023, the death toll has exceeded 40,000.
Protests, including rallies, demonstrations, campaigns, and vigils, relating to the Israel–Hamas war have occurred nationwide across the United States since the conflict's start on October 7, 2023, occurring as part of a broader phenomenon of the Israel–Hamas war protests around the world.
As a result of the Israel–Hamas war, nationwide protests occurred across the UK. These demonstrations occurred as part of a broader movement of war-related protests occurring around the world.
A series of pro-Palestinian protests were held in the United States on April 15, 2024.
A series of occupation protests by pro-Palestinian students occurred at Columbia University in New York City from April to June 2024, in the context of the broader Israel–Hamas war protests in the United States. The protests began on April 17, 2024, when pro-Palestinian students established an encampment of approximately 50 tents on the university campus, calling it the Gaza Solidarity Encampment, and demanded the university divest from Israel.
Pro-Palestinian protests on university campuses started in 2023 and escalated in April 2024, spreading in the United States and other countries, as part of wider Israel–Hamas war protests. The escalation began after mass arrests at the Columbia University campus occupation, led by anti-Zionist groups, in which protesters demanded the university's disinvestment from Israel over its alleged genocide of Palestinians. In the U.S. over 3,100 protesters have been arrested, including faculty members and professors, on over 60 campuses. On May 7, protests spread across Europe with mass arrests in the Netherlands. By May 12, twenty encampments had been established in the United Kingdom, and across universities in Australia and Canada. The protests largely ended as universities closed for the summer.
On April 25, 2024, a student protest began at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) to protest the administration's investments in Israel. The occupation, self-titled as the 'Palestine Solidarity Encampment', was a part of pro-Palestine protests on university campuses campaigning for divestment from Israel. The encampment was attacked multiple times by counter protestors, leading to clashes. On May 2, the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) raided and dismantled the encampment, arresting the protestors and ending the occupation.
On April 29, 2024, approximately 100 University of Oregon students established a camp on the Eugene campus to support Palestinians in Gaza and demanding action from administrators. As part of the 2024 pro-Palestinian protests on university campuses, demonstrators requested for the university to divest from “the state of Israel, Israeli companies, and any weapons or surveillance manufacturing.”
In May 2024, peaceful pro-Palestinian student protesters at the University of Virginia (UVa) demonstrated on the campus. The protesters organized an anti-war occupation on university grounds in support of Palestinian nationalism in the context of the mass death and displacement of tens of thousands of Palestinian civilians during the Israel–Hamas war.
The McGill University pro-Palestinian encampment was an occupation protest which took place on the downtown campus of McGill University, in Montreal, from 27 April to 10 July 2024. It was the first notable Canadian demonstration in the 2024 movement of pro-Palestinian protests on university campuses, which call for universities to cut ties with Israel amid the country's assault on Gaza in the Israel–Hamas war. Like many of its predecessors, the protest at McGill took the form of an encampment, a group of tents occupied day and night by protesters.
On April 25th, students at University of Pennsylvania began an encampment to protest the ongoing Israel–Hamas war and to call for divestment from Israel. The occupation, named the "Gaza Solidarity Encampment," was part of a series of 2024 pro-Palestinian protests on university campuses. On May 10th, the encampment was raided and protesters were arrested, ending the occupation.
The pro-Palestinian campus occupations at the University of Oxford are ongoing occupation protests in Oxford, England, organised by Oxford Action for Palestine (OA4P). The occupations started on 6 May 2024 on the Museum of Natural History's lawn, in front of the Pitt Rivers Museum. Escalating the protests, a second encampment was established on 19 May outside the Radcliffe Camera. Protests have taken elsewhere in the city, including on Wellington Square, where 17 students were arrested after occupying the Vice-Chancellor's office on 23 May. Protesters demands include disclosure of investments and divestment from Israeli companies, among others. The university refused to negotiate with protesters until responding to an email to arrange discussion on 5 June. The protests have been supported by over 500 members of staff, and criticised by the university as intimidating.
A series of protests at Ohio State University by pro-Palestinian demonstrators occurred on-campus in response to the Israel-Palestine conflict beginning on October 7, 2023. A solidarity encampment was constructed on OSU's South Oval on April 25, 2024, during which there were at least 36 arrests, making for the largest en masse arrests on campus since the 1969–1970 Vietnam War protests.
Pro-Palestinian protests at the University of Texas at Austin began on April 24, 2024, organized by the Palestinian Solidarity Committee in response to the ongoing Israel-Hamas War. The protests have included sit-ins, marches, and encampments on campus, calling for the university to divest from companies linked to Israel's actions in Gaza. The demonstrations escalated when university officials, with support from local and state law enforcement, intervened to disperse protestors, leading to multiple arrests and sparking criticism over the suppression of free speech on campus. Despite arrests and clashes with police, the protests have continued, drawing significant attention and raising debates about civil liberties and the role of university administration in managing campus protests.
The Palestine exception, otherwise known as the Palestine exception to free speech, is a term given to a described legal carve-out of the First Amendment to the United States Constitution and free speech laws in Canada and Europe that allows government establishments and other institutions to suppress pro-Palestine protests. The term has been used by pro-Palestinian activists especially during the Israel–Hamas war and associated protests calling for a ceasefire, criticizing US military and diplomatic support to Israel, and Israel's invasion of the Gaza Strip and its war conduct. The term has also regularly been used by academic freedom and freedom of speech advocates to criticize policies implemented by university institutions against pro-Palestine campus protesters calling for their disinvestment from Israel.
