In support of Palestine, students from University College Dublin (UCD) have constructed a camp on Belfield. The camp, initiated on Saturday evening at the main lake on the campus based in south Dublin, was organised by UCD Students’ Union (UCDSU) and the Boycott, Divest and Sanctions (BDS) faction of the college.
Notably, it is the second camp of its kind at an Irish university in recent times. The initial one, set up by students at Trinity College, concluded last Wednesday after a span of six days. This camp had resulted in the obstruction of public access to the Book of Kells until the University agreed to divest from three Israeli companies where they held investments in their endowment funds.
In the context of the UCD camp, protest organisers released a statement outlining a list of 12 requirements, stating that the non-violent camp would carry on until all demands were fulfilled.
These included demands for the severing of all academic relationships with Israel; disclosure of all academic and financial relationships with Israeli companies and institutions, and the pledge to divest from any investments in the country. They also demanded provision of scholarships for Palestinian scholars and opportunities for Palestinian academics to serve at UCD. The removal of Israeli goods and supplier contracts from the campus was among the other demands.
There was also a call to the university in the statement to publicly demand an end to the massacre of the Palestinian people by the Israeli state, and to raise the Palestinian flag on campus measures were put into place to cease hostilities. Furthermore, they called for the Future Learning building currently under construction, to be named in honour of Refaat Alareer, a Palestinian scribe and poet who died in an airstrike in Gaza last December.
The statement strongly rejected the inclusion of neutral statements that condemn violence on all fronts, arguing that it created a deceptive parity between the situations, and overshadowed Israel’s infliction of genocide on the Palestinian people.
UCD students made headlines for protesting the visit of former US House of Representatives Speaker, Nancy Pelosi, in April. She was on campus to receive an honorary degree. Astonishingly, UCD students’ union president, Martha Ní Riada, was escorted from the ceremony for describing Pelosi as a ‘Zionist and war criminal’.
In a subsequent social media post on Saturday evening, Ms. Ní Riada argued against the use of academic freedom as an excuse for not standing up against genocide, citing the devastation of all universities in Gaza.