BY TAMARA JACKA

Since October 2023, students on campuses across Australia have been protesting in large numbers in solidarity with Palestine and against universities’ complicity in Israeli occupation and genocidal violence in Palestine.

In April and May of this year, Palestine solidarity encampments were set up at eleven campuses. These were peaceful protest encampments, whose main demand was for universities to disclose their ties with Israel, divest from those ties, and sign on to the international Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions statement.

Relatively few individual staff have actively supported students’ protest actions. However, the National Tertiary Education Union and its member branches have repeatedly passed resolutions condemning and calling for an end to the Israeli occupation of Palestine and the violence in Israel and occupied Palestinian territories.

The universities’ responses to protests—in particular, encampments—have been mostly negative and repressive. They have imposed charges of misconduct against students and used coercion to force encampments’ closure and have generally made minimal or no concessions to protestors’ demands.

At the Australian National University (ANU), protests in solidarity with Palestine have included:

• rallies against complicity in genocide on the part of the Australian government and the ANU, staged in the centre of campus, outside the chancellery, and outside venues on campus where the foreign minister is speaking;
• protests against the university’s growing ties with the defense establishment and weapons manufacturers, staged outside the Research School of Physics, the School of Engineering, and other key sites;
• student-led tours of key sites on campus implicated in weapons research; and
• the ANU Gaza Solidarity Encampment.

The ANU Gaza Solidarity Encampment was the longest-running encampment in Australia, running from 29 April–17 August 2024. At its peak in May, thirty to fifty students (including Jewish students, those with a Palestinian background, and others), slept at the encampment each night. Teach-ins and daily meetings were held at the encampment during the day. Tents and other materials were donated by members of the public and evening meals were provided by the Palestinian community.

The encampment’s main demands were for the university to disclose and divest from arms manufacturers (the ANU has at least $1 million invested in Northrop Grumman, BAE, Lockheed Martin, and other arms manufacturers), and to cut all ties with Israeli education and research institutions.

In response, ANU management put the encampment under twenty-four-hour surveillance, laid charges of misconduct and imposed disciplinary measures against individual students, made spurious claims and misrepresented the encampment to the public, called in the police; conducted invasive “health and safety” inspections in the middle of the night, cut off electricity at the encampment, and banned all appliances other than mobile phones and laptop computers.

At no stage did either the ANU vice-chancellor or deputy vice-chancellor visit the encampment. They offered to meet with encampment representatives, only on the condition that they identify themselves. The students refused, firstly because, as a non-hierarchical group engaged in participatory democracy, they had no individual representatives. Secondly, they were justifiably afraid that if they identified themselves, they would be subjected to disciplinary measures.

In an attempt to improve communication, ten ANU staff, including myself, volunteered to act as intermediaries between encampment members and ANU management, and met with management to discuss encampment demands on three occasions. We were met with repeated stonewalling.

University management refused to address encampment demands. Instead, the university conducted a review of its Socially Responsible Investment (SRI) Policy, which covers what companies the university chooses to invest in.

Following the review, the SRI Policy has been updated with the addition of a negative screen for “manufacturers of controversial weapons (anti-personnel mines, cluster munitions, chemical weapons, biological weapons and nuclear weapons outside of the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons) and/or civilian small arms.”

To be clear, this does not address encampment demands. “Negative screening for controversial weaponry” is finance industry jargon designed to mask and confuse its true meaning, and there are several problems with its inclusion as well as with other aspects of the SRI Policy. Most obviously, there is no explicit negative screening for, divestment from, or ban on investment in companies that manufacture weaponry that contributes to illegal occupation and/or genocide, and it is unclear what is encompassed in “nuclear weapons outside of the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons and/or civilian small arms.”

The university has refused to answer the former staff mediation team’s questions regarding these and other flaws in the SRI Policy.

Meanwhile, all seven of the ANU students accused by the university of misconduct have been cleared. This includes a student who was previously accused of supporting a terrorist organization and expelled from the university and has now successfully appealed and been reinstated in their degree.

The struggle at ANU has not ended. Since the closure of the ANU Gaza Solidarity Encampment, its members and affiliated staff are continuing to put pressure on the university to cut all ties with Israeli educational and research institutions and to fully divest from all weapons manufacturers.

Tamara Jacka is emeritus professor in the College of Asia and the Pacific at the Australian National University and a member of the Independent and Peaceful Australia Network. In 2023–24, she has been active in campaigning in solidarity with Palestine and in opposition to the trilateral security partnership between Australia, the United Kingdom, and the United States and growing US-led militarization in Australia and the Asia-Pacific region.