SFSU Pro-Palestinian Encampment Established as Students Rally for Divestment

Several hundred San Francisco State University students and faculty rallied on Monday in a central campus plaza, a handful of them setting up tents on a nearby lawn, to demand the California State University system disclose its financial ties to Israel and divest from those holdings.

“I’m here today standing in solidarity with students all over the country who have bravely put their bodies and their careers and their lives on the line against this genocide in Palestine, in Gaza,” said Sabreen Imtair, an SFSU graduate student, noting that SF State has a long history of Palestinian-focused student organizing.

And so it’s fitting that students here are now joining other campuses around the country that have “become a battlefield of ideas and divestment resolutions,” she said. “And it’s so obvious that young people are leading the way in shifting public sentiment.”

The action in Malcolm X Plaza, which drew minimal law enforcement presence, marks the latest in a slew of fierce protests against Israel — many involving tent encampments — that have swept campuses across the country over the last week, with the number of arrests nearing 1,000. Sparked by an ongoing student demonstration and clash with police at Columbia University in New York, students at scores of colleges have joined the fray, calling for their schools to divest from companies that provide military support to Israel.

In recent days, encampments popped up at a growing number of Bay Area universities, including UC Berkeley, Stanford and — as of this weekend — Sonoma State.

Further north, at Cal Poly Humboldt in Arcata, pro-Palestinian demonstrators last week occupied an administrative building, prompting school officials on Friday to close the campus for the remainder of the academic year.

And at the University of Southern California, in Los Angeles, administrators last week called off the school’s main-stage graduation ceremony, set for May 10 — after first canceling a commencement speech by its valedictorian who has publicly expressed support for Palestinians — amid ongoing student protests that have roiled its campus and led to some 100 arrests.

Most of the protests have been overtly anti-Zionist, with participants, many of whom are Jewish, calling for the liberation of Palestine and the dissolution of the modern state of Israel. That stance has prompted some critics to denounce the actions as antisemitic.

But Jewish activists like Alexei Folger, a 59-year-old SF State alumna, who attended Monday’s rally, argued that there’s nothing antisemitic about demanding the U.S. stop supporting Israel.

“We don’t consider it part of our Jewish tradition to support genocide or apartheid. And as American Jews, we feel like we have to take a stand,” said Folger, who is a member of the anti-Zionist group Jewish Voice for Peace.

She accused the media of presenting the situation as a “false narrative.”

“It’s a political question and an ideological question. The people on this side are supporting Israel’s policies that the people on the other side are not,” Folger said. “And that’s when it comes down to. It’s not Jewish on one side and Palestinian students and supporters on the other side.”

Student movements have always been a vital component of liberation struggles around the world, Omar Zahzah, an SF State professor of Arab, Muslim, Ethnicities and Diaspora Studies, told demonstrators on Monday.

“And today, seeing all of you in all of your splendor and all of your numbers only confirms this fact,” he said. “We are here today to say no to genocide, but ultimately to call for the total liberation of Palestinian land and people.”

In an emailed statement to KQED, SFSU spokesperson Kent Bravo said the investment policy of the SF State Foundation “reflects its commitment to the values of the University, prioritizing social and racial justice, environmental sustainability and climate action.”

The policy, he said, “does not address single-issue approaches for geopolitical issues” but is instead “designed to be effective in ways which can make a positive impact globally while supporting the enhancement of our students’ education.”

Monday’s demonstration comes after nearly seven months of the Israel-Hamas war, a brutal conflict sparked by a Hamas-led attack on Israel on Oct. 7, in which militants killed some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and took around 240 hostages, according to Israeli authorities. Israel’s retaliatory air, sea and ground offensive in Gaza has been relentless, reducing much of the enclave to rubble, killing at least 34,500 Palestinians, mostly women and children, and prompting a humanitarian disaster, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry. Famine is imminent in Gaza, with 1.1 million people expected to face “catastrophic conditions” by the end of May, according to international food insecurity experts.

In a statement, the newly formed SFSU chapter of the national Faculty for Justice in Palestine Network (FJP) urged administrators “to respect any and all collective displays of support for the Palestinian liberation struggle that our students undertake” and implored them to not “repeat the shameful, punitive and dangerous forms of repression imposed by universities across the country,” that have led to arrests, suspensions and evictions from campus housing.

The group pointed to the university’s long and now-celebrated history of student and faculty activism, including a monthslong strike in the late 1960s that led to the creation of the nation’s first College of Ethnic Studies.

“SFSU students are astute observers of history, engaged critical thinkers, and thoughtful political organizers,” the group said. “They know that change doesn’t happen without struggle, and they are taking action in solidarity with a worldwide movement in support of the liberation of the Palestinian people and divestment from entities that support and profit from colonialism, imperialism, ethnic cleansing and genocidal wars.”

On Monday, Bravo said the school has long honored the right of community members to peacefully protest “while preserving a safe campus environment, and we expect that will continue today.”

Mahmoud E. is a first-year civil engineering student at SF State who joined Monday’s rally. A Palestinian citizen who grew up in the West Bank, he said the situation on the ground in Gaza is even more dire than how the media portray it.

“We need to bring attention to this. Status quo isn’t something that should be upheld,” he said. “We will try to make our cause bigger and bigger and bigger until divestment and until liberation.”

KQED’s Sam Lim and Sara Hossaini contributed reporting to this story.

This story has been updated.