{"id":33702,"date":"2024-05-15T20:14:30","date_gmt":"2024-05-16T03:14:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/?p=33702"},"modified":"2024-05-15T20:14:32","modified_gmt":"2024-05-16T03:14:32","slug":"ucsf-students-employees-set-up-pro-palestinian-protest-encampment","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/2024\/05\/15\/ucsf-students-employees-set-up-pro-palestinian-protest-encampment\/","title":{"rendered":"UCSF students, employees set up pro-Palestinian protest encampment"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.sfexaminer.com\/users\/profile\/Natalia%20Gurevich\">By Natalia Gurevich | Examiner staff writer<\/a><\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>May 13, 2024\u00a0Updated\u00a0May 14, 2024  (SFExaminer.com)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/bloximages.chicago2.vip.townnews.com\/sfexaminer.com\/content\/tncms\/assets\/v3\/editorial\/c\/44\/c441ae5e-1181-11ef-af40-3f1b0f642f34\/6642a47aad2aa.image.jpg?resize=400%2C300\" alt=\"Pro-Palestine protest UCSF\"\/><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">Jess Ghannam, a professor at the school and the chief of medical psychology at UCSF Medical Center at Mount Zion, speaks at a pro-Palestine rally at UCSF&#8217;s Parnassus campus on Monday.&nbsp;&nbsp;Natalia Gurevich\/The Examiner<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>More than two dozen UCSF students and employees set up a tent encampment on the school\u2019s Parnassus campus Monday, joining the&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/interactive\/2024\/us\/pro-palestinian-college-protests-encampments.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">nationwide network of collegiate protesters<\/a>&nbsp;calling for a cease-fire in the Israel-Hamas war and for their universities to cut ties with Israel.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Nearly a month after Columbia University students set up an encampment on their New York City campus, around 30 people did the same Monday at UCSF as they held a rally to draw attention to their demands.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cWe&#8217;re calling on UCSF \u2014 because we&#8217;re a health sciences campus \u2014 to demand an immediate and permanent cease-fire and a resumption of humanitarian and medical aid to be brought into Gaza,\u201d said Jess Ghannam, a professor at the school and the chief of medical psychology at UCSF Medical Center at Mount Zion.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" width=\"750\" height=\"563\" src=\"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/05\/image-69.png\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-33708\" srcset=\"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/05\/image-69.png 750w, https:\/\/occupysf.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/05\/image-69-300x225.png 300w, https:\/\/occupysf.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/05\/image-69-150x113.png 150w, https:\/\/occupysf.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/05\/image-69-200x150.png 200w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 750px) 100vw, 750px\" \/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Ghannam said he has traveled to Gaza for more than 25 years. The Palestinian American\u2019s most recently scheduled trip was derailed in the aftermath of Oct. 7, he said, and he hasn\u2019t been able to return since.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Hamas killed around 1,200 people that day, according to the Israeli government, taking around 250 people hostage. Israel has killed more than 35,000 Palestinians in its subsequent military offensive, according to the Gaza Ministry of Health.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cI&#8217;ve lost four colleagues and their family members, ranging in age from 4 months to 77 years,\u201d Ghannam said. \u201cI have a personal connection there.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>UCSF Palestine Solidarity Encampment organizers\u2019 calls echoed those of&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.sfexaminer.com\/news\/education\/why-uc-berkeley-palestine-protests-avoid-national-limelight\/article_bd175584-0f10-11ef-8e60-0b98e3b65764.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">demonstrations at other University of California campuses<\/a>, demanding the system divest from all companies, programs and organizations with financial ties to Israel and its military. The university system said last month it \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/www.universityofcalifornia.edu\/press-room\/university-california-statement-divestment\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">has consistently opposed boycott against and divestment from Israel<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>UCSF didn\u2019t respond to a request for comment prior to publication.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Unlike many of the encampments to grab headlines over the last month, UCSF demonstrators set up theirs at a postgraduate campus with no undergraduate presence.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cWe don&#8217;t have an undergrad population here,\u201d Hadi, a demonstrator who asked to only go by her first name for privacy reasons, told The Examiner on Monday. \u201cWe all have jobs. We all have families or loved ones or other responsibilities that we have to take care of. That&#8217;s also made it a lot harder, but it&#8217;s also made it a lot more rewarding.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cWe&#8217;re not just here for the school semester,\u201d Hadi said. \u201cWe&#8217;re here for the long haul.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Students at UC Law San Francisco, another postgraduate school in The City, have not established an encampment. The school\u2019s student chapter of the National Lawyers Guild has been training legal observers to attend protests at other campuses to record interactions between police and demonstrators crossing any lines, Zoe Papadopoulos, one of the organizers, told The Examiner last week.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>There have been no arrests at San Francisco schools\u2019 protest encampments, nor have there been any violent clashes between opposing demonstrators. Both have occurred on other campuses around the country.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Roger Feigelson, the executive director of SF Hillel, said that this might just be due to the culture in San Francisco where students are more respectful of activism.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cI don&#8217;t want our Jewish students being harassed or bullied or targeted over this,\u201d he said. \u201cI&#8217;m not seeing that happen \u2014 it&#8217;s uncomfortable, but rhetoric is uncomfortable.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The atmosphere of college campuses lends itself naturally to these sorts of movements, he said, and he welcomes those conversations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cAn institution of higher learning is all about being open to new ideas, to scary ideas, to challenging ideas that you might not otherwise be exposed to,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In addition to their personal ties, UCSF organizers argued the school had a duty to speak out from a public-health perspective.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>A United Nations official said this month that northern Gaza was in \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/apnews.com\/article\/gaza-israel-famine-humanitarian-aid-children-8a4cb5736c42caf50b6e204f40d83a91\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">full-blown famine<\/a>.\u201d The World Health Organization warned last week that hospitals in the country\u2019s southern end were days away from running out of fuel. Only 12 of 36 hospitals there are functional, according to the U.N. agency.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cThe health care system has been absolutely decimated,\u201d Ghannam said. \u201cWe want the focus to be on protecting civilian lives, protecting physicians and health care workers, and protecting hospitals.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cHospitals are not a political space,\u201d Hadi said. \u201cBut they&#8217;ve been targeted and destroyed.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The UCSF organizers also joined peer protesters elsewhere in the University of California system to call upon the school system\u2019s administration, UC President Michael Drake, the UC Board of Regents and Gov. Gavin Newsom to condemn the conflict, demand a cease-fire, and allow aid and medical care to return to Gaza.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>But UCSF protestors have also singled out the school\u2019s relationship with the Helen Diller Foundation, one of its largest donors, for its ties to Israeli organizations and demanded that those funding ties be severed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Hadi said that it took longer for UCSF organizers to start encampment than others in the UC system for several reasons, including that the campus administration has made it difficult for them to protest in previous months.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cThe activism that we have tried to do on campus, within the bounds that the administration has given us, has been met with a lot of vitriol from people who work here,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Flyers and posters they\u2019ve put up supporting Gaza and calling for divestment have been ripped down, she said, and negative emails circulated within the student body about them afterward. Throughout all of it, she said, the administration has met with them but not taken concrete steps to meet their demands.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>More than two dozen UCSF students and employees set up a tent encampment on the school\u2019s Parnassus campus Monday, joining the&nbsp;nationwide network of collegiate protesters&nbsp;calling for a cease-fire in the Israel-Hamas war and for their universities to cut ties with Israel. Nearly a month after Columbia University students set up&#8230; <a class=\"continue-reading-link\" href=\"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/2024\/05\/15\/ucsf-students-employees-set-up-pro-palestinian-protest-encampment\/\"> Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr; <\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33702"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=33702"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33702\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":33709,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33702\/revisions\/33709"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=33702"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=33702"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=33702"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}