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Editor’s note: This story was updated at 10:05 p.m. on Sept. 12 to reflect an updated statement from the Schusterman Center for Judaic and Israel Studies. OU Daily has elected to not name certain individuals at the protest due to requests from OU Students for Justice in Palestine. 

OU Students for Justice in Palestine held a rally at the Oklahoma Memorial Union on Thursday, reaffirming a year-long demand for the university to divest from corporate partners involved in the war in Gaza. 

Around 60 students attended the rally with signs reading “Do not normalize genocide” and “Your tax dollars are funding genocide,” among others. Over the course of two hours, the rally included six speeches and four songs advocating for Palestinian liberation. 

During the protest, an SJP organizer listed the organization’s demands for OU administrators, including denouncing genocide, removing Zionist curriculum and divesting from weapons manufacturers, fossil fuel companies and intelligence companies. 

According to the organizer, fossil fuel companies like Chevron, an OU corporate partner, sent oil shipments to Israel to fuel its war planes. The organizer said OU has research contracts with weapons manufacturers and allows them to attend career fairs. 

“Listing all of the ways that our university works with these companies would take forever,” the speaker said. “We demand that OU cut ties with them now. To not do so is to knowingly play an active role in genocide.”

One counter-protester was present at the rally, holding a “Make America Great Again” flag and an Israeli-American hybrid flag. They walked through the middle of the protest five times and were told to move by a member of the Campus Event Response Team three times. 

Thursday’s protest is the latest in a series of protests organized by SJP on campus against the war in Gaza, which has a reported 40,000 Palestinian deaths as of August.

OU Students for Justice in Palestine organized a protest on Thursday in support of Palestine amid rising tensions and escalations in the Israel-Hamas war. Check out our best footage from the afternoon:

Filmed by Kadence Rodriguez

Edited by Kadence Rodriguez and Cassidy Martin

Last October, around 150 students staged a walkout across the South Oval, where they chanted and held signs calling for OU to divest from weapons manufacturers. 

In March, over 150 students congregated in the Oklahoma Memorial Union. Pro-Palestinian protesters and pro-Israeli counter-protesters gathered in the food court to advocate for their stances.

At a May Day rally in spring, SJP and the Student Socialist League organized over 100 students to protest Oklahoma Gov. Kevin Stitt’s dissolution of diversity, equity and inclusion in higher education, the closure of OU’s Gender + Equality Center and OU’s corporate partnerships, including Boeing and Lockheed Martin.

Abraar Hassany, a history senior and SJP director of public relations, said OU exists on Indigenous territory which was stolen from Native Americans who were massacred in the process. Hassany related this history to the war in Gaza. 

“Every day we see the Trail of Tears inflicted again and again on the people of Gaza,” Hassany said.

Hassany told OU Daily that students must recognize their involvement and complacency in the war in Gaza. According to Hassany, OU students live off of the wealth of the military industrial complex and corporate America. He said students cannot feign ignorance. 

“We must understand the implicit connections we have with this occupation, with occupations around the world. … That's why we ask all these students to recognize that fight on campus,” Hassany said. “Don't come here and tell me, ‘Oh, I don't know about the issue.’ I can't accept that as an excuse, because you're a part of it. You can either be part of it, or you can not be a part of it.”

Rallygoers chanted between each speech. Among the chants was “Long live the intifada,” which includes an Arabic term for an armed Palestinian revolution, according to Merriam-Webster.

Rhona Seidelman, director of the Schusterman Center for Judaic & Israel Studies, wrote in an email to OU Daily that Students for Justice in Palestine's use of the word "intifada" during the Thursday protest was calling for violence against Israelis and Jews.

"Some are doing this out of ignorance and others are doing it out of malice," Seidelman wrote.

Seidelman encourages the OU community to attend the Schusterman Center's Nov. 18 Zoom webinar "Women and Activism in Israel and Gaza" to learn more about the issue. 

"These students need to stop acting as a mouthpiece for Hamas on our campus and instead bolster the brave people who are actively trying to make Israel and Palestine places of peace for all the people from the river to the sea," Seidelman wrote. 

OU Daily asked Zack Higbee, OU Marketing and Communications assistant vice president of communications, about OU’s stance on the term “intifada.”

While not specifically addressing whether OU's administration finds use of that word to violate speech policies on campus, OU Marketing and Communications emailed a statement with a link to OU Report It!, an anonymous reporting service for OU faculty and students. 

“OU is committed to upholding free speech while ensuring a safe campus environment,” the statement read. “Any complaints received will be handled consistent with our policies. We will pursue disciplinary action should individuals target or harass any members of our community.”

One speaker demanded OU fire any Zionist faculty members and deny Zionist candidates. They said students of the College of International Studies should be involved in hiring and evaluating candidates who will teach non-biased lessons of Palestinian and Israeli history. 

“We demand zero tolerance for professors that claim to be Zionist and who identify as Zionist,” the speaker said. “Zionism is fundamentally tied to the oppression and dehumanization of the Palestinian people. (Zionist professors’) presence is a threat to our safety and the safety of every brown person, every Muslim on this campus.”

The speaker added SJP must clearly distinguish between anti-Zionism and antisemitism. 

“Criticism of Zionist policies is not antisemitic, it is a stand for liberation,” the speaker said. “We need classes that accurately depict the Israeli occupation as settler colonialism.”

Hassany said SJP will not stop protesting and invited more students to join its rallies. 

“The OU administration will never give up unless we force them to, unless we force them to give in to our demands. That's why I need each and every one of you to join us, to struggle with us,” Hassany said. “This doesn't end there, the killing will not stop in Gaza. I need you to stick with me, and most of all, I need a free Palestine.”

This story was edited by Anusha Fathepure, Ana Barboza and Ismael Lele. Mary Ann Livingood and Grace Rhodes copy edited this story.

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