Students and local community members gathered across the Department of Public Safety (DPS) on Oct. 25 to protest for an arms embargo in Palestine and Lebanon and call for academic divestment from Israel.
The entire rally was on public property. Protestors walked from outside of the DPS building to gather outside of Wallis Hall.
“They’re creating things that are directly being used in the illegal occupation of the Apartheid state,” student organizer Sarah Aljitawi said. “That’s happening on our own campus. And [stopping that is] something that we work tirelessly for.”
This is part of a larger movement by student organizers to advocate for academic divestment from Israel, building on when students conducted a sit-in at Wallis Hall earlier this spring.
Aside from this, speakers centered stories of University students in Palestine.
Junior Mowaz Alvi recalled seeing a news story about a 19-year-old university student burned down in a hospital alongside his mother.
“And when seeing all that, you think, ‘What are we doing? What are we fighting for?’ It feels like no matter what we do, there’s always bloodshed, there’s always war, there’s always genocide,” Alvi said.
Local community members joined students like members from the Rochester Committee to End Apartheid and the Party for Socialism and Liberation of the Finger Lakes division.
Felix AJ, a member of the Rochester Committee to End Apartheid, said, “I commend all of you for continuing to be out here. The student movement in Rochester has been leading the resistance for the entirety of the last year.”
Monroe County Legislator Carolyn Delvecchio Hoffman also spoke in support of student organizers’ efforts. Previously, Hoffman introduced a resolution to the Monroe County legislature urging for a ceasefire in Gaza.
“I would hope that [UR] would take a collaborative stance, like some of our other universities have. I think this is exactly what the University of Rochester is teaching their students to do, to stick up for their values and for their fellow humans,” Hoffman said.
