Facing a genocidal siege, isolated entirely from the outside world, Gaza stood tall and unyielding for 466 days, imposing its own conditions of victory onto the occupier. On Oct. 7, 2023, Gazans broke down the colonial border fences surrounding their city for the first time in a historical confrontation against an occupying force. Over the following 15 months, Gaza’s unbreakable resistance to invasion, bombardment, and siege secured this legacy. Earned through popular struggle, last week’s ceasefire agreement is a culmination of all 76-plus years of ongoing resistance against Zionist occupation—a victory for all oppressed and colonized peoples across the world, cementing Gaza as a permanent thorn in Western colonial ambitions. We breathe a sigh of relief at the thought of our people finally able to rest, rebuild, and continue their fight. We honour all the brave martyrs who stood tall in the face of genocidal aggression. Our martyrs are heroes of a rare kind, and to them we owe the world.
We must now turn our attention to rising aggression on the West Bank, particularly in the resilient city of Jenin, known as “Gaza’s sister in resistance.” As of writing, the Israeli Occupation Forces have commenced their “Iron Wall” operation on Jenin, attempting to isolate the city and eradicate the armed resistance within. The spectre of genocidal violence, as illustrated within Gaza, looms over Jenin, as well as the whole West Bank. Furthermore, Israeli expansionist efforts are not limited to Palestine. The Zionist project, in alliance with the United States, continues its plans to expand its violence towards the broader Middle East, through occupations of Lebanon, invasions into Syria, bombings of Yemen, and threats towards Iran.
As the resistance in Gaza shattered Israel’s façade as a “beacon of liberal democracy” in the Middle East, so too did it illuminate the deep contradictions within our own university. Through increasingly desperate acts of repression, our McGill administrators have exposed their rabid commitment to profit and donor influence. Every disciplinary action, incident of police brutality, and million spent on public relations, private security, or lawsuits is proof of a long-lost battle to maintain public opinion against a student-led movement that has long since proven its resilience.
While our administration redirects student effort towards existing bureaucratic channels and false promises to “explore the question of divestment,” they have simultaneously ignored and undermined these same channels. Notably, our administration’s repeated interference in student governance has resulted in the overturning of initiatives like the Policy Against Genocide in Palestine and the removal of Students for Palestine’s Honour and Resistance (SPHR) as a McGill-affiliated student organization. Our student union has the potential to be a strong proponent of student demands for divestment, but through repeated legal threats facilitated under the Memorandum of Agreement, the McGill administration put massive pressure on our union, creating an atmosphere of inaction, depoliticization, and fear within student democracy.
It is more important than ever that the student movement stays mobilized, drawing strength from the steadfast people of Gaza to guide the fight here in the West, where our governments and institutions remain cogs in the settler occupation of Palestine. Over the past 15 months, we have drawn pivotal lessons from the heroic people of Palestine and each other, informing our strategies as we move forward. As the student movement enters this new chapter, our role is to etch the struggle for Palestinian liberation, return, and dignity into the history of McGill. Building on these lessons, we look to strong mass student coalitions, collective participation in demonstrations, and student governance as the tools of a prolonged fight for divestment. We eagerly anticipate student mobilization in the coming months, ensuring the Palestinian struggle for liberation and the heroic people of Gaza remain the north star of the student movement, settling for nothing less than total divestment, full academic boycott and an end to military research at McGill. What is coming is greater.
