After concerns about Columbia University Apartheid Divest (CUAD), a new Palestinian-led coalition debuts its Instagram with a public statement on “The Student Movement for Palestinian Liberation.” 

On October 24, the Columbia Palestine Solidarity Coalition (CPSC) debuted its new Instagram page with a statement on “The Student Movement for Palestinian Liberation.” The CPSC is a new organization run by Palestinian students who are “committed to recentering Palestine in the fight for divestment from Zionist settler-colonialism.” 

The Columbia Spectator published an op-ed by the CPSC titled “Recentering Palestine, reclaiming the movement” on October 19, where they expressed their “wish to disaffiliate from” Columbia University Apartheid Divest (CUAD) and refocus the movement through their new collective. CPSC highlighted their concerns that CUAD “has lost focus, opting to center individual organizers and revolutionary ideals over [their] core demands.” 

Under a slide titled “Palestine is Our Compass,” CPSC stated that “the people of Gaza remain steadfast” and that CPSC “stands with them, committed to amplifying their voices and holding Columbia accountable in their complicity in the genocide.” 

CPSC also emphasized the Palestinian “Right to Resist, by any means necessary,” demanding that “[their] land, [their] liberation, and [their] right of return are non-negotiable.” They also provided a statement of acknowledgment, recognizing they “are operating on the ancestral land of the Lenape people of gentrified Harlem.” They utilized this point to reaffirm their movement as a collective resistance with “all oppressed peoples resisting colonialism and imperialism—from Palestine to Turtle Island, Sudan, Congo, Kashmir and beyond.” 

The four demands of CPSC are to “divest from companies and weapons manufacturers profiting from the Zionist occupation and genocide of our people,” “cancel the Tel Aviv Global Center, which restricts access for Palestinians,” “stop the dual-degree program with Tel Aviv University,” and “end the School of General Studies’ recruitment pipeline of zionist forces complicit in genocide.”

The full text of CPSC’s Instagram caption can be found below. 

CPSC’s Instagram caption on “The Student Movement for Palestinian Liberation”:

We are Columbia Palestine Solidarity Coalition!

Palestine is our compass, guiding all of the work that we do in our fight for liberation.

We call on all groups and individuals committed to justice to join us now in the struggle to end the genocide in Gaza and Columbia University’s complicity.

Join us email: cupalsolidaritycoalition@gmail.com

CUAD protest via Bwog Archives