A Palestine flag hung from a tree and posters with such words as “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free” formed the backdrop to an outdoor “teach-in” Thursday at Colorado College.

The topic: “Palestine 101.”

Chants concluded the lunchtime session led by members of state and local affiliates of Students for Justice in Palestine.

“Not a nickel, not a dime, no more money for Israel’s crime.”

“From Palestine to Mexico, border walls have got to go.”

“Red, black, green, white, for Palestine we will fight.”

Students chant at the conclusion of a lunchtime “teach-in” led by members of state and local affiliates of Students for Justice in Palestine.

By Debbie Kelley
debbie.kelley@gazette.com

The chants rang out across one of the campus’ quads as 50 or so students who stopped to hear the group’s messages were told that the chanting was in preparation for a demonstration that the organization will hold Saturday at the Capitol in Denver.

Speakers – who did not identify themselves and who were silenced by group leaders from speaking with The Gazette after the presentation – emphasized to the audience that they “believe in justice for the people of Palestine.”

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Pro-Palestine groups have held similar rallies and events on other college campuses across the nation in the days following what’s been called an unprecedented attack on Israeli civilians by Hamas, a militant Islamist group that rules the Gaza Strip.

The action launched the region’s fifth war since 2006 and what Israelis are calling the most inhumane and brutal, with stories emerging of execution, torture, rape, beheadings and children being held hostage and used as shields by Hamas attackers.

“We are fighting human animals,” Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said on Monday, two days after the surprise Hamas incursion.

Presenters at Thursday’s event at Colorado College read what they said was correspondence from Palestinians on the ground in Gaza, which included a statement from one person, “Even animals would not endure such treatment.”

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Palestinian supporters such as Students for Justice in Palestine hold that Israel has been waging acts of cruelty on the 2.3 million people living in the Gaza Strip since Israel vacated the space in 2005 and imposed what is defined by many as illegal air, land and sea blockades.

The United Nations Human Rights Office said Thursday that it condemned the actions against civilians on both sides, called for a truce and urged the international community to address the root causes of the violence in the region, which has been ongoing since the middle of last century.

“This amounts to collective punishment,” United Nations’ officials said in a statement. “There is no justification for violence that indiscriminately targets innocent civilians, whether by Hamas or Israeli forces. This is absolutely prohibited under international law and amounts to a war crime.”

In retaliation for Saturday’s attack, the Israeli Defense Force launched air strikes and has cut off deliveries of food, water electricity and fuel to Gaza.

The lack of those basic necessities already is leading to dire thirst and starvation and that “any condemnation of violence is vapid,” one speaker said.

The group called for “the end of occupation” of Gaza, which they say is “the only way to peace.”

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Supporters of Israel, such as Kobi Chumash, executive director of Temple Shalom in Colorado Springs and a former Israeli soldier, said Israel’s military has not done anything along the lines of what Hamas did last weekend.

“It’s unbelievable, shocking and barbaric,” he said. “Civilians were the target in the most brutal way – by slaughtering them. It’s similar to what happened in the attack of 9/11 on the United States.”

One presenter who opened her part of the program with the words “Peace be with you” in Arabic, which she said is her first language and that of Palestine, cried as she said the U.S. has spent billions on supplying weapons and other military equipment to Israel.

“My tax dollars are paying for the killing of my siblings,” she said.

Chumash and other supporters of Israel say Hamas wants to destroy Israel, not free Gaza.

The Students for Justice in Israel club was approved by the Colorado College Student Government Association in 2019, according to campus officials, although the club does not appear on the list of active clubs on campus, said spokeswoman Alexa Gromko.

Clubs can receive funding from the school if they meet the requirements of a freedom of expression policy and follow the school’s code of conduct, she said.

“This is an educational institution, and we support the right of everyone to learn and express themselves,” Gromko said.

In the spring semester this year a swastika was painted on the Colorado College campus in a public alleyway near the Interfaith House, according to campus chaplain the Rev. Kate Holbrook, who wrote a commentary on the anti-Semitic gesture.

The action was “hurtful, causing harm to members of our Jewish community and to everyone who values human life and justice,” she wrote. “The symbol is threatening and an affront to our sense of community and our collective values, including respecting every person’s dignity and worth.”