Palestine Solidarity Working Group
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palestineswg.bsky.social
Palestine Solidarity Working Group
@palestineswg.bsky.social
160 followers 40 following 13 posts
We are a revolutionary socialist, anti-Zionist, multiracial cadre organization! #FreePalestine https://palestineswg.org/
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palestineswg.bsky.social
In a historic first, Columbia has suspended nearly 80 students for participating in a teach-in honoring Basel al-Araj. The announcement comes just ahead of the University's deal with the Trump administration and the Anti-Defamation League.
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE JULY 22, 2025 PRESS INQUIRIES: cupopuni@proton.me Columbia Suspends Nearly 80 Students for Pro-Palestine Protest Ahead of Deal with Trump Administration and Anti-Defamation League While the US and Israel starve 2.1 million Gazans to death, Columbia has worked diligently with Trump's Deputy Chief of Staff, Stephen Miller, to suspend dozens of students for pro-Palestine activism. HARLEM, NEW YORK - On the afternoon of July 21, Columbia informed nearly 80 students that they had been suspended for one to three years or expelled for joining a May 2025 teach-in about Palestine in honor of the writer and freedom fighter Basel al-Araj, who Israel murdered in an extrajudicial assasination in 2017. The sanctions are believed to be part of a federal deal Columbia is about to announce that includes a formal partnership with the zionist Anti-Defamation League and an agreement to use the IHRA's definition of antisemitism, which equates criticism of Israel with discrimination against Jews. Once Barnard joins Columbia in announcing charges, these will be the most suspensions for a single political protest in Columbia campus history and hugely exceed sentencing precedent for teach-ins or non-Palestine-related building occupations. In collaboration with the Trump administration, Columbia's Acting President and Board of Trustees Co-Chair, Claire Shipman, illegally restructured the University Judicial Board (UJB) and removed student members and faculty oversight to pursue exceptionally harsh sanctions against its own students. The UJB's Rules Administrator, akin to a prosecutor, filed charges after protestors flooded Columbia's largest library to share a syllabus and readings about al-Araj and demand Columbia divest from the Israeli war machine. Columbia responded to the teach-in by illegally kettling and body slamming protestors who asked to leave, resulting in hospitalization of four students with concussions. (ALT TEXT continued below in third image) occupied Hind's Hall. Hind's Hall was renamed to memorialize Hind Rajab, the six-year-old who Israeli terrorists sprayed with bullets after killing her family while she begged for help. Students remain committed to ending US- and Columbia-backed Israeli genocide regardless of the school's sanctions. Testimony from students' July disciplinary hearings underscored they had nothing to apologize for: "Every university in Gaza has been destroyed. Hundreds of academics have been killed. Books and archives have been incinerated. Entire families have been erased from the civil registry. This is not a war. It is a campaign of erasure," explained one student quoted in a Columbia University Apartheid Divest blog post. "Knowledge divorced from struggle is betrayal," said another. The disciplinary letters demand suspended students submit apologies in order to return to campus in one to three years, which some students have stated they will refuse. If those protestors hold their ground by refusing to apologize, the suspensions will convert into de facto expulsions and the number of permanent sanctions will skyrocket. While Columbia likes to position itself as opposed to government overreach, the record demonstrates active collusion, not reluctant concessions. Columbia's legal team for the Miller talks is headed by right-wing ideologues Jay Lefkowitz, a Zionist with deep ties to Israel who served in the George W. Bush administration, and Matt Owen, a former law clerk for Antonin Scalia and Neil Gorsuch. In addition to AlPAC speaker Claire Shipman, Columbia's trustees include Jeh Johnson, who is on the Board of Directors for Lockheed Martin, Andrew Barth, a retired Chairman of Capital Guardian Trust Company - one of the largest shareholders in BlackRock - Dean Dakolias, a member of the pro-Israel lobby with Johnson on the Council on Foreign Relations, and Abigail Elbaum, who is on the board of the New York City Police Foundation. ALT TEXT continued in IMAGE 4 below cont Columbia then called the NYPD for Columbia's third mass arrest since last year. Soon after, the University emailed nearly 80 students to announce that it would introduce sanctions through the illegally restructured Judicial Board. Barnard charges followed. Meanwhile, President Shipman has cracked down on pro-Palestine organizing in partnership with White House Deputy Chief of Staff, Stephen Miller, who devised Trump's policy of family separation and the Muslim travel ban. Monday afternoon's suspension and expulsion of nearly 80 students is presumed part of the near-final agreement Shipman negotiated with Miller - similar to the deal Columbia struck with the White House to expel students who allegedly IMAGE: Image of Palestinian Basel Al-Araj who was shot dead by Israeli forces on 6 March 2017 [Abeer-Almasri/Twitter] https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20170307-palestinian-basel-al-arajs-will/ IMAGE 4 cont The trustees use the Trump administration as cover to escalate their Zionist agenda. In an editorial dictated from ICE detention in April, Mahmoud Khalil accused Columbia of "laying] the groundwork for [his] abduction" by handing over thousands of pages of student records. Two weeks ago, an ICE official testified in court that the Trump administration uses lists compiled by Canary Mission to identify and, if possible, deport pro-Palestine activists on campus. Much of this has been coordinated through group chats like "Columbia Alumni for Israel," which includes Columbia faculty and an associate dean who have not been disciplined and whom it is widely believed act as a conduit between Columbia, Canary Mission, and ICE. That chat also includes alumni like Victor Muslin, who is said to help run Canary Mission and has echoed Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant's genocidal comparison of Palestinians to "human animals" by advocating for "the powers that be to squash [pro-Palestine students] like roaches." "We will not be deterred. We are committed to the struggle for Palestinian liberation," say the students. IMAGE: https://www.palestine-studies.org/en/node/1652721 Mural of Basel al-Araj in Nazareth by the Palestinian Nazarene Movement. Photo credit: Palestinian Nazarene Movement.
July 22, 2025 at 8:50 PM
palestineswg.bsky.social
✍️ write to Columbia administration to demand amnesty: tinyurl.com/cupopuni-let...
📣 follow Columbia campus groups:
IG: @columbia4palestine
X/BSKY: @columbiabds.bsky.social
Protest graphic with text: 'What use is an education if it doesn’t serve the people?' Below, a call to action: 'SIGN THE LETTER' and a URL: 'tinyurl.com/cupopuni-letter'.
July 15, 2025 at 4:58 PM
palestineswg.bsky.social
Basel al-Araj once said, “If you want to be an intellectual, you have to be an engaged intellectual.” Columbia students are now being punished for living that commitment. We must support them and their right to dissent! Write a letter and demand Columbia end its repression on student voices!
Quote on a peach-colored background: '“If you want to be an intellectual, you have to be a battling intellectual. The battling intellectual is the revolutionary intellectual.” — Bassel al-Araj'. Image of protesting students in two rows (one standing, one sitting) with locked arms and wearing N95 masks and keffiyehs. Graphic with image, text reads: "Our students are battling intellectuals. They are contesting intellectual strongholds on colonialism. We will not abandon them or Gaza." Image shows protesting students and a white sheet on which people have written in green ink "Thank you students for... Columbia, thank you!" Thank you students for your columbia. Thank you!'"
July 15, 2025 at 4:58 PM
palestineswg.bsky.social
This is a blatant escalation of repression targeting the Palestine solidarity movement on campus—and a dangerous precedent for all student and community organizers. From NYC, to LA, to Palestine: the attack on student voices must end.
Graphic titled 'SAME PLAYBOOK' with text: 'The many faces of the Zionist entity are coordinated in their strategy to suppress our movement, distracting the U.S. with repression while kidnapping Palestinian students in the West Bank.' Image of soldiers kidnapping a student at the bottom.
July 15, 2025 at 4:58 PM
palestineswg.bsky.social
On May 7th, students at Columbia launched the Basel al-Araj Popular University (a teach-in inside Butler Library to honor Palestinian revolutionary & intellectual Basel al-Araj). Columbia is now trying to suspend or expel over 70 students, violating its own rules and bypassing faculty oversight.
Poster with text: 'The targeting of popular universities across the country is an attempt to stifle the truth and control the people.' Below, large text reads: 'COLLECTIVE KNOWLEDGE = COLLECTIVE POWER' with an image of protesting students and a handmade sign that reads 'BASEL AL ARAJ POPULAR'
July 15, 2025 at 4:58 PM
palestineswg.bsky.social
🚨URGENT SUPPORT NEEDED FOR COLUMBIA STUDENTS FACING SANCTIONS🚨
THREAD with action items at the end!
Protest graphic with bold text on a peach-colored background: 'COLUMBIA CRIMINALIZES EDUCATION' at the top, and 'DROP THE CHARGES!' Image at the bottom of NYPD arresting a student. Text on a peach-colored background: "Columbia wants to expel 15 people and suspend dozens more. WHY? For creating the Basel al-Araj Popular University, a community teaching space in Columbia's largest library renamed after the revolutionary Palestinian intellectual and martyr."
July 15, 2025 at 4:58 PM
palestineswg.bsky.social
💸Cashapp: $palestineswg
💸https://actionnetwork.org/fundraising/2024-gaza-fundraiser
While our steadfastness is with all of the people of Gaza and Palestine, for the first part of this fundraiser we focused it on our siblings in the north, because they experienced the highest rates of death from starvation and water contamination. But now the total blockade has lasted 67 days and the IOF intensifies its destruction of infrastructure everywhere, with no end in sight. So aid efforts are primarily water distribution wherever it can be done. who the funds go to: pictures of kids
May 25, 2025 at 9:25 PM
palestineswg.bsky.social
Please help with what you are able, save, share, like, and comment on this post to increase circulation.
💸Cashapp: $palestineswg
💸https://actionnetwork.org/fundraising/2024-gaza-fundraiser
May 25, 2025 at 9:25 PM
palestineswg.bsky.social
100% of proceeds go directly to the distribution project in Gaza, and the transfer of funds and proof of distribution will continue to be managed by a PSWG member on the ground.
💸Cashapp: $palestineswg
💸https://actionnetwork.org/fundraising/2024-gaza-fundraiser
May 25, 2025 at 9:25 PM
palestineswg.bsky.social
The latest blockade has lasted 67 days & the IOF continues to destroy infrastructure everywhere, with no end in sight. Aid efforts are mostly water distribution wherever it can be done. 🌊Help them keep the water flowing!
💸https://actionnetwork.org/fundraising/2024-gaza-fundraiser
May 25, 2025 at 9:25 PM
palestineswg.bsky.social
Solidarity to all our comrades who have supported this mutual aid fundraiser! Help us get to $15,000 to support food, water and baby formula distribution in Gaza.

💸Cashapp: $palestineswg
💸https://actionnetwork.org/fundraising/2024-gaza-fundraiser
pswg gaza fundraiser - we've reached $10,000 of our $15,000 goal Help us get to $15,000 to support food, water and baby formula distribution in Gaza. With nearly 20 months of siege and genocidal attacks, it is our duty to support the steadfastness of our Palestinian siblings there in any way we can. Contributions of any amount are appreciated and make a difference. qr code and cashapp: $palestineswg
May 25, 2025 at 9:25 PM
palestineswg.bsky.social
Our No Appetite for Apartheid Campaign Quarterly Call is soon approaching! Join us to hear about new & revised materials, tactics, & community building approaches. Open to new & active campaigns! Save the Date: June 1, 7:00pm ET/4:00 PT. Zoom RSVP: pswg.link/NA4A2025Calls
The image is a digital "Save the Date" flyer featuring bold, stacked text in large letters: “NO APPETITE FOR APARTHEID!" Below this slogan, it announces a "National Quarterly Call" scheduled for June 1st, 2025, at 7:00 PM ET / 4:00 PM PT. The text notes the virtual event is open to both new and active campaigns, with a registration link: pswg.link/NA4A2025Calls. The design uses high-contrast colors and bold typography to emphasize the anti-apartheid message and event details.
May 20, 2025 at 4:54 PM