Re Nesrine Malik’s article (Don’t let the sound and fury over Gaza protests drown out what the students are saying, 6 May), the students of Columbia University, and those at about 100 universities throughout the world, have put their futures at risk to secure Palestinian human rights. At least 15 UK campuses have joined in the protests and, in a joint statement by the Oxford and Cambridge University and College Union branches, campaigners have said that they refuse to accept their universities’ complicity in Israel’s attacks on the Palestinian people.
The students are on the right side of history, and governments will need to listen to demands from some for disinvestment in companies sustaining Israel’s tyranny. People have a right to know why their supposedly democratic governments and professed upholders of human rights, international law and the rules-based order are not only failing to uphold them but are undermining them by their support of Israel. This has not diminished despite Israel’s slaughter of nearly 35,000 Palestinians, including almost 15,000 children, since 7 October 2023.
Patrick Owen
Rhayader, Powys
• That oppressed Palestinians in Gaza are showing their appreciation of the support given by American students must bolster the students’ resolve to continue doing so (‘I was happy they still stand beside us’: Palestinians in Rafah on US campus protests, 5 May). They are doing what their elders are demonstrably not doing. They are showing compassion despite being misrepresented as attention-seekers by the rightwing press and governments, despite the risk of arrest, and despite the disruption to their studies.
These are highly moral human beings representing the conscience sadly missing in their president, who courts popularity with both the Arab and Jewish diasporas, who meekly accepts the contempt of Israel’s prime minister whose behaviour he fails to condemn, and continues to supply weapons, which create the misery that he tries to assuage only by advocating an increase in aid supplies to Gaza.
Brave students, your turn will come. Those like you and the late Yitzhak Rabin, who pursued non-racist, non-partisan approaches, will eventually bring peace to Israel and Palestine.
Dr Gilbert Pugh
Richmond, London
• The student protests are not about hate, quite the opposite – they are about justice for all. We have taught our children and students about the universal values of basic human rights, equality and antiracism. But it seems that we are quick to forget these ideals when economical or political reasons make them inconvenient.
However, the students have reminded us that these values apply everywhere, including in Gaza. This is not about condoning violence on either side. We should applaud the students for reminding us of what we taught them.
Marianne Gemmeke
Chandler’s Ford, Hampshire
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