The New Yorker:

Activists with Students for Justice in Palestine have mobilized major campus demonstrations in support of Gaza—and provided an intellectual framework for protesters watching what’s happening in the Middle East.

By Emma Green

Hunter College’s campus, in New York, features buildings that are tall and nondescript, blending in with the apartment and office towers around them. Nearby sidewalks are labyrinths of construction fencing, pushing students and commuters shoulder to shoulder as they make their way to the 6 train, on the East Side of Manhattan. This landscape forms a natural stage, referred to as “the pit,” outside Hunter’s West Building, which is where students from the Palestine Solidarity Alliance gathered in mid-November for yet another protest against Israel’s bombardment and blockade of Gaza.

The crowd started small—maybe seventy-five people. Several young women in combat boots and hijabs, who had organized the rally, came out carrying homemade posters and a bullhorn. “Free, free Palestine!” a woman shouted into the bullhorn. “Free-free-free Palestine!” The crowd of students cheered and joined in, echoing her rhythm and words. Many of the protesters appeared to be Muslim. Some of the chants, in Arabic, were explicitly religious. “Takbir!” a woman shouted into the bullhorn, calling for the glorification of God. “Allahu akbar” (“God is greater”), the crowd replied. “There is no god but God,” they shouted, in Arabic. “The martyrs”—all those who have died in Gaza and Palestine—“are beloved of God.”

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