Walkouts at U.S. Colleges Demand End to Aid for Israel, Include Support for Terror

On Wednesday, October 25, 2023, students at more than 100 U.S. college campuses staged walkouts demanding an end to U.S. aid to Israel and that their institutions divest from weapons companies allegedly involved with Israel. The walkouts, prompted by Israel’s military response to Hamas’s October 7 massacre, were organized primarily by Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) chapters and several other student groups. Some events included language that both explicitly and implicitly condoned and/or praised Hamas’s actions, promoted the destruction of Israel as we know it, and called for the exclusion of “Zionists” from public life on campuses.  

The vast majority of the rallies were nonviolent, but in at least one case anti-Israel protesters aggressively confronted and harassed a group of Jewish students. At the Cooper Union in New York City, following the walkout, which included a full day of both protests and counterprotests (by Jewish students), an anti-Israel group forced their way up the stairs in the building in an apparent attempt to reach the President’s office, disregarding security staff’s clear request for the students to stop. When the group failed to reach the office, the students apparently continued to roam the building and, upon noticing the visibly Jewish students in the library, they began banging on the glass with what appeared to be the inside cardboard of a wrapping paper roll. The anti-Israel protesters then moved to banging on the doors while chanting, “Free Palestine.” The Jewish students shared that they felt intimidated and vulnerable. They called for help, and eventually the New York Police Department assisted in escorting them out of the library.

Many walkout participants attacked Zionism, a core element of Jewish identity for a majority of American Jews. Some went further and demanded that Zionism or Zionists be marginalized or expelled from campus life.

Source: STL Today

• University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee (Milwaukee, WI): 
  • On social media, the walkout organizers from Students for Democratic Society (SDS) UW-Milwaukee reaffirmed that "Zionism has no place on our campus" and used the hashtag "#ZionismOffCampus." 
• UC-Santa Barbara (Santa Barbara, CA):  
  • Roughly 200 attendees participated in the walkout. Chants included: “We don’t want Zionists here.”  
• Grinnell College (Grinnell, IA):  
  • Hundreds of attendees participated in the walkout, chanting and holding signs that included: “Zionism is white supremacy.” 
• Rice University (Houston, TX):  
  • A poster displayed by Rice SJP organizers read: “Zionism = violence.” 
• DePaul University (Chicago, IL):
  • Hundreds of students participated in the walkout, where chants included: “Death to Zionism.”

Many walkout participants expressed support for the end of the state of Israel. Chants such as “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free” and similar language was common. Such rhetoric effectively calls for the state of Israel to cease to exist.

• New York University (New York, NY):
  • Signs at this large rally included, “Palestinian Return by Any Means Necessary,” and “Please keep the world clean” with an Israeli flag in the trash can.
• San Diego State (San Diego, CA): 
  • Attendees chanted: “Israel, Israel you will learn, by the millions we'll return.”
• UC-Irvine (Irvine, CA): 
  • Chants included: "We don't want two states, we want '48." 

Other SJP chapters explicitly or implicitly condoned violence against Israelis. Calls for “resistance” were common at the rallies, including chants such as, “Resistance is justified when people are occupied;” and although in many cases that may be a reference to non-violent resistance, in other cases a more sinister meaning emerged (see below). Some called for “intifada” (literally “shaking off”), a reference to two violent periods in Israel during the late 1980s and early 2000s when more than 1,000 Israelis were killed by Palestinian terrorists.

• University of Minnesota (Twin Cities, MN):
  • A speech at the rally included: “The destruction of the Zionist regime is the aim. That is the goal. We must have as the aim the destruction of the imperialist Zionist regime for a successful intifada.” Following the speaker’s remarks, the crowd chanted, “Intifada until victory! There is only one solution: Intifada, revolution.”
• University of Wisconsin, Madison (Madison, WI):
  • Dozens of students participated in the walkout, and at least one attendee held a sign that read, “Resistance is not terrorism,” a particularly chilling statement in light of the nature of the “resistance” that Hamas engaged in on October 7.
• DePaul University (Chicago, IL):
  • An attendee held up the flag of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), a terrorist group that has attacked Israeli civilians.

Individuals associated with at least 65 colleges and universities participated in the walkout, including:

Appalachian State University
Binghamton University
Brooklyn College
Brown University
City University of New York, Graduate Center
Clark University
Columbia University
Cooper Union
Cornell University
DePaul University
Drexel University
Florida International University
Grinnell College
Hampshire College
Howard University
Hunter College
Lawrence University
Lehman College
Loyola University Chicago
Metropolitan State University of Denver
New York University
Northwestern University
Princeton University
Rhode Island School of Design
Rice University
Rutgers University, New Brunswick
San Diego State University
Seattle University
Swarthmore College
Temple University
The College of New Jersey
Tufts University
Sarah Lawrence College
Smith College
University of California, Berkeley
University of California, Irvine
University of California, Los Angeles
University of California, Riverside
University of California, San Diego
University of California, Santa Barbara
University of California, Santa Cruz
University of Central Oklahoma
University of Chicago
University of Colorado, Boulder
University of Colorado, Denver
University of Florida
University of Houston
University of Illinois, Chicago
University of Maryland, Baltimore County
University of Massachusetts, Amherst
University of Massachusetts, Boston
University of Michigan
University of Minnesota, Twin Cities
University of North Florida
University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill
University of North Carolina, Charlotte
University of Oklahoma
University of Pennsylvania
University of Pittsburgh
University of Texas, Dallas
University of Virginia
University of Washington, Seattle
University of Wisconsin, Madison
University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee
Vassar College
Washington University in St. Louis