We reject the smearing and caricature of the Student Intifada by mass media and continue to demand an immediate end to our universities’ complicity in the Gaza genocide.
New York, New York—On Monday, July 23, CUNY4Palestine, Within Our Lifetime, and National Students for Justice in Palestine call for a Week of Rage to protest the filming of an FBI: Most Wanted episode at CUNY Queens College featuring a fictionalized Gaza Solidarity Encampment scene, complete with tents, a “chase and arrest” scene, and a mock-explosion. This is a clear attempt to simultaneously demonize and profit from the Student Movement against the ongoing genocide of Palestinians in Gaza. This episode deliberately obfuscates and undermines the concrete demands of the Student Intifada: our universities must divest from settler colonialism and genocide and cut all ties with Israeli academic institutions.
In a recent email issued by Queens College, the VP of Student Affairs claimed that the episode being filmed on QC campus is about “climate” rather than about Palestine. Whether or not the fictionalized encampment is framed around Palestine solidarity or climate, the rental of the QC campus for this film shoot is a clear attempt to simultaneously demonize and profit from the student movement against the ongoing genocide of Palestinians in Gaza. CUNY is obviously attempting to capitalize off of recent Pro-Palestine encampments while ignoring and erasing Palestine. Palestine, Stop Cop City, Indigenous Liberation, demilitarization and climate–our struggle is one. This is a slap in the face to all of our movements.
This exercise in copaganda comes as the Zionist-imperialist genocide in Gaza enters its 290th day and as our comrades from the CCNY encampment face ongoing criminalization—including felony charges—for organizing in solidarity with the Palestinian liberation struggle. The portrayal of the student encampment by FBI: Most Wanted is designed not only to manufacture consent for the brutal repression of our movement for Palestinian liberation but to hasten the expansion of fascist policing of the working-class, Indigenous, Black, and Brown communities.
The media industry has a storied history of working hand-in-hand with the police and military to normalize and sensationalize the racist police state and US empire, glorifying agents of state repression as heroes and further vilifying the state’s victims. We understand corporate media to be the propaganda wing of the capitalist-imperialist state. It is the media’s duty to legitimize and mock the violent repression faced by students and our broader communities at the hands of both the state and the Zionist/fascist vigilantes it enables.
The repression of our movements and communities will only be compounded by the construction of more than 69 Cop City projects of varying sizes across Turtle Island. Under the guise of “training” and “developing security,” private corporations and capitalists are pouring millions of dollars into these militarized police training centers and programs nationally. Queens itself is set to be the site of the latest cop city, providing training for 18 police departments at the cost of $225 million.
The malicious framing of this film shoot is especially egregious in light of QC President Frank Wu’s forcible shutdown of all but one entrance at QC during the CCNY encampment, preventing further protests from materializing. Wu has also called for increased police presence at every QC student protest for Palestinian liberation and against genocide. Back in November, he called upon the NYPD to investigate the Muslim Student Association (MSA) over social media posts. All of these actions culminate in a culture of pro-cop, anti-Palestinian repression; President Wu has shown that rather than protect his students, he will defend the interests of the empire.
Instead of heeding our encampment’s Five Demands to divest, boycott, demilitarize, and reinstate a People’s CUNY, the CUNY administration has invested millions more in “security,” refused FOIA requests for disclosure of public records, and continued to build relationships with Zionist institutions—all while aiding and abetting the NYPD’s brutalization of Palestine solidarity organizers city-wide.
In the face of the accelerating atrocities in Gaza and rising fascist repression across Turtle Island, we must continue to organize and mobilize for an end to the genocide and for a free Palestine, from the river to the sea. The more they try to silence us, the louder we will be. Disclose, Divest, We Will Not Stop, We Will Not Rest!