Opposed to Genocide in Gaza, This Is the Conscience of a Nation Speaking Through Your Kids

Common Dreams Editor's Note: This is a transcript of remarks made by Professor Rashid Khalidi just outside the gates of Columbia University on Wednesday, May 1, 2024, just hours after NYPD officers raided Hamilton Hall to remove demonstrators who had occupied the building in protest of Israel's ongoing military assault on the people of Gaza.

My name is Rashid Khalidi. I am the Edward Said Professor of Modern Arab Studies at Columbia University. I've been teaching here for a total of 22 years.

When I was a student back in the 60s, we were told we were "led by a bunch of outside agitators" by politicians nobody remembers the name of today. We were the conscience of this nation when we opposed the Vietnam War and racism back in 1968 and 1969 and 1970. The Vietnam War stopped because the people opposed it, and the people who led that were students, and the students who led that were here at Columbia and at Berkeley and a few other campuses on this fair Turtle Island.

This is not about Columbia or CCNY or Berkeley or UCLA or any other place where the students have risen up. This is the conscience of a nation speaking through your kids—through young people who are risking their futures, who are risking suspension, expulsion, and criminal arrest in order to wake people up in this country.

Students have been on the right side of history at Columbia and at other universities ever since the 1960s. We today honor the students who in 1968 opposed a genocidal, illegal, shameful war. Columbia University honors them. They're on the Columbia website; you can check it out yourself—1968 is commemorated. And one day what our students did here will be commemorated in the same way.

They are—and they were—on the right side of history, and that will go down in history, that when the change finally came and finally the American people who have already opposed this war—who've already opposed this genocide—are able to force their craven politicians to stop it, which we can do.

The United States is part of this war. Every plane bombing Gaza is an American plane: F-16s, F-15s, F-35s. Every Apache helicopter is American. Every bomb dropped is American. Those are our taxes. Those are our representatives. Shame on them and shame on the administration of this university. They will go down in infamy for having done what they did the other night.

Columbia Prof’s Fiery Speech—Students opposed Vietnam War in '68, fighting against Gaza genocide nowwww.youtube.com

Today, nobody remembers the names of the administrators and the trustees who ordered the police onto the Columbia campus in 1968. They have gone down in ignominy and so will these leaders, President [Minouche] Shafik and the Board of Trustees.

And the students will be remembered one day on a Columbia website as the people who helped change the course of this country, together with the brave students up at CCNY. We should shout out to them—together with the students at NYU, FIT, and all over this country.

What we are witnessing in terms of police repression is a tiny fraction of what people under occupation in Palestine have been experiencing for 56 years: the kettling, the checkpoints, the blockades, the police dragging students out (many of them were injured last night), the lies [about] outside agitators. Wait until the numbers come out from One Police Plaza. They were all students. They were our students. And we are ashamed of our university for instead of continuing the negotiations—that many faculty were happy to be part of—decided to bring in the NYPD.

This administration has brought disgrace on Columbia University. Shame on them. Shame on them.

This is not and was not about safety and comfort, which is what they claimed. Do we feel safer today now that 100 of our students have been processed down at One Police Plaza? Do we feel safer today that faculty and students cannot get onto their own campus? Of course not.

Public opinion is already with us. It's just the politicians, the media, and the trustees and administration of this university who are blind, death, and dumb to the demand of a moral imperative coming from our students.

This was a craven capitulation to external pressure. The students didn't want it. The faculty didn't want it. Outside forces wanted it: the politicians; the media—which has shamefully failed to report so much of what's actually happening here and which has exaggerated incidents instead of looking at the whole picture.

I don't want to talk more about the media. This is not about safety and comfort. This is about a genocide being carried out with American money and with American weapons against a people that has been living under occupation for generation after generation after generation. That's what it's really about. That's what the students were about and that's what Faculty and Staff for justice in Palestine are about.

What we are witnessing in terms of police repression is a tiny fraction of what people under occupation in Palestine have been experiencing for 56 years.

We are faculty and staff who believe that our students should be safe—all of our students should be safe. But the right to protest, the right to free speech, and academic freedom—which is being infringed as we speak. University protocols, the arrangements that this university made since 1968 to deal with these things, have been swept aside in an arbitrary fashion by this administration in response to external pressure. Shame on this administration.

I repeat one more time: This is not about Columbia or CCNY or Berkeley or UCLA or any other place where the students have risen up. This is the conscience of a nation speaking through your kids—through young people who are risking their futures, who are risking suspension, expulsion, and criminal arrest in order to wake people up in this country. It's absolutely essential.

Public opinion is already with us. It's just the politicians, the media, and the trustees and administration of this university who are blind, death, and dumb to the demand of a moral imperative coming from our students. Thank you very much.