Negotiations Fail, UC Santa Cruz-Gaza Solidarity Encampment Prepares for Police Repression

Negotiations Fail, UC Santa Cruz-Gaza Solidarity Encampment Prepares for Police Repression

SANTA CRUZ, CA, May 10, 2024, 12pm - Ten days after first taking over Quarry Plaza at the center of the University of California Santa Cruz (UCSC) campus, students in the Gaza Solidarity Encampment are bracing themselves for the prospect of police violence. Negotiations between student intermediaries from the Gaza Solidarity Encampment and the UCSC administration failed this morning when the administration refused to meaningfully concede to Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) demands. The process cratered because Governor Gavin Newsom's office, alongside the UC Office of the President (UCOP) and the UC Regents, intervened in the negotiations, creating artificial limits to negotiations.

Pointing to the fact that Rafah is under Israeli military siege and over a million Palestinian lives are at risk, SJP stated, "We established the UCSC-Gaza Solidarity Encampment as a necessary student escalation in the ongoing fight for Palestinian liberation from settler colonialism, occupation, and apartheid.: SJP and UCSC-Gaza Solidarity Encampment intermediaries entered into negotiations with UCSC administration with the intention of a long-term plan of full divestment from the UCSC managed and UC-wide investments, both active and passive, in war-economy. They also demanded full disclosure and transparency of UCSC and UC-wide investments and donations from explicitly Zionist institutions, paired with a demand to cut ties with those Zionist institutions.

Though the UCSC administration engaged in negotiations with student intermediaries, it failed to take seriously the urgency of SJP's demands, ultimately refusing, as a result of gubernatorial intervention to even offer a statement in condemnation of the occupation and genocide in Gaza/Palestine. One of the student negotiators who chose to remain anonymous stated, "We were told that the use of the word 'genocide' in a statement was off the table completely, which truly disappointed us and further proved that the UC is not yet brave enough to stand on the right side of humanity. This system has the power to act on our demands and make divestment possible, we have seen it happen before in the case of South African apartheid and fossil fuel reliance, and it is possible now."

Students across the encampment expressed disgust at Newsom's interference in the process. Pointing to Newsom's visit to Israel last October as a sign of his political investment in Zionism, Savvy, an encamped Jewish SJP member, expressed the following: "Neither the democratic nor republican party are willing to represent what we, the youth, are ideologically about. We are pro-resistance, pro-liberation and anti the conflation of anti-zionism with anti-semitism."

Students awaiting the sweep indicate that they will remain to defend the encampment. "We expect the police to act violently, as they have in response to students across our country and our system," stated SJP. A graduate student, who chose to remain anonymous, recalled the wildcat strike in early 2020: "The UCSC administration deployed police from across the Bay Area to brutalize us. This could happen again." SJP has issued calls for community witnesses - faculty, fellow students, university workers, community members, and press and media - to bear witness and come out in support. Journalists, in particular, are requested to be onsite to document any instances of police brutality or unjustified arrest. SJP stated, "Please come and show your support for our right to free speech, expressed through our encampment in solidarity with Gaza."

- SJP & UCSC Divest