On Saturday, about 50 students gathered on the Main Green for Brown Students for Justice in Palestine’s Rally for Palestine as a plane towing a banner that read “Brown 4 Israel” circled overhead.
Following several student speeches, demonstrators marched downtown to join the Rhode Island Party for Socialism and Liberation’s International Day of Action March for Palestine.
Brown SJP gathered to officially launch its campaign calling for an end to study abroad programs in Israel, which it says the University relaunched this year following their suspension in October 2023.
According to Brian Clark, University spokesperson, “no undergraduate study abroad participation in Israel has been authorized since the war was declared in October 2023, and Brown continues to assess the viability of resuming approvals for the semesters ahead.” All Brown-related travel to Israel “has required case-by-case review by Brown’s Global Risk Assessment Committee” since 2023.
Though applications have remained open, “Brown’s advisors continue to make clear to applicants that there is a possibility of cancellation based on safety assessments close to program start dates,” Clark wrote in an email to The Herald.
The University’s website currently states that it generally approves study abroad programs at five schools in Israel.
“Our demands are not just for divestment, but for the University to disaffiliate from apartheid and genocidal entities,” Ashe Shirazi ’28, a member of SJP and the emcee of the rally, told The Herald in an interview.
“We are protesting to not allow these years of genocide to be forgotten,” she added.
The Israeli government did not reply to a request for comment. Israeli officials have denied that Israel’s actions in Gaza constitute a genocide, while several United Nations affiliates and independent bodies have deemed it one.
“While individual members of our community are free to express their own views of the Israel-Palestinian conflict, Brown University does not support academic boycotts against Israel or any other country,” Clark wrote in an email to The Herald.
The rally included a series of speeches, poetry readings and chants. Throughout, speakers emphasized the intersection of issues facing Palestinians with a range of other causes, such as U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement activity, police brutality, U.S. imperialism and collective labor.
“In the 1980s and ’90s, Brown students fought to disaffiliate the University from apartheid South Africa. Like them, we fight to be on the right side of history,” Shirazi said during a speech.
Speakers also levied criticisms at some Israeli universities with which Brown has generally approved study abroad programs. For example, they denounced the Technion Israel Institute of Technology’s contributions to development of a remote-controlled “caterpillar bulldozer” that the Israeli military uses extensively and Tel Aviv University’s joint research centers with the Israeli Air Force.
Neither university immediately responded to a request for comment.
“Choosing to interact with institutions on the front line of genocide is the antithesis of ‘communicating and preserving knowledge and understanding in a spirit of free inquiry,’” Brandon Ateke ’30 said in a speech, referencing a part of the University’s stated mission. “Bombed schools can’t preserve knowledge. Dead children cannot live curious lives.”
Afterward, protestors marched down the hill to join R.I. PSL’s protest at Memorial Park. Along the way, they recited chants such as “Not another nickel, not another dime, no more money for Israel’s crimes” and “There is only one solution, working class revolution.”
The plane displaying a “Brown 4 Israel” banner followed the rally down to Memorial Park and continued to circle during the demonstration.
Candelaria Beatty ’28, a member of SJP, said that the plane “shows the kind of energy that the Brown for Israel movement has,” as they lack the “people power” of the pro-Palestine movement.
“They show up in a way that is just a monetary investment in something that is loud and disruptive, but not powerful,” she said.
The Rhode Island Coalition for Israel, which previously flew the “Brown 4 Israel” plane during convocation, did not immediately respond to The Herald’s request for comment.
At the PSL rally, speakers included Muhammad Akhtar from Doctors Against Genocide, Raya Gupta ’29 from Brown SJP and Reem Said-Awad from American Muslims for Palestine.
In an emotional ending, speaker Sterk Zaza brought out a young Palestinian girl named Nadia who she described as “representing the children of Palestine,” as Zaza spoke about the extreme death toll in Gaza.
“What happens to a child who watches their mother die? What happens to a child who is pulled from the rubble, only to discover that their whole entire family is gone?” she said, holding back tears.
The protest then marched through downtown Providence, as people waved Palestinian flags, held signs and recited chants. Members of PSL approached passersby throughout to discuss the movement with them and hand out flyers.
The march ended at the world headquarters of Textron, an industrial conglomerate that has produced weapons systems used by Israel, in downtown Providence. As a PSL organizer addressed the crowd and led them in chants for the final time that afternoon, four police officers emerged and stood in front of the crowd.
“Palestine has changed people’s consciousness forever, and there is no going back,” the organizer said. “Our answer cannot only be outrage. Our answer is organization.”
Talia Katz is a senior staff writer covering city hall and crime.
