NEW PALTZ, N.Y. — More than a hundred community members, students, and activists demonstrated in support of Palestine on Saturday in response to the arrest of 133 people at a pro-Palestine encampment on the SUNY New Paltz campus on Thursday night.
The protest, described by organizers as a “community outrage demonstration,” took place in front of Elting Memorial Library, where participants held signs, chanted, and sang in support of those arrested.
Protestors chanted several sayings and slogans. They included “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free,” “The people, united, will never be defeated,” and “Judaism, yes, Zionism, no, Israel has got to go.”
The phrase “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free” was recently condemned as anti-Semitic in a vote by the House of Representatives, something which sparked another pro-Palestine protest in Kingston last week.
Ahmad Katnani, a Palestinian-American and media liaison for the Hudson Valley for a Free Palestine Coalition, was upfront at the demonstration. Katnani said he was at the encampment on Thursday and was one of the 133 arrested.
“It wasn’t a nice experience, I must say,” Katnani said. “You have to do what you have to do to get your freedom to speak.”
“It reminded me of my days in the Middle East,” Katnani added. “When the police come in, you know your days are ending,” he said.
Katnani was grateful for the support received from the local community. “Even the night of the encampment when the arrests happened, the community came out in support,” he said.
In addition to local leaders, a large number of the protestors were students. Charli Robinson, a senior at SUNY New Paltz, said she attended the event to show her support. ”
The SUNY New Paltz administration has failed our students,” Robinson said. “I’m here to show them and our community that we will not stand by that.”
Robinson, who was in the front of the demonstration holding a sign, said she was hit in the face with trash that was thrown at her from someone driving by. “I didn’t say anything,” she said. “I just picked it up and threw it away, because I’m not entertaining that.”
Several students who were present at the encampment shared their experiences upon being arrested. Rae Ferrara was the encampment’s media liaison before it was dismantled. Ferrara was inspired by the support received by other students during the arrests.
“As someone who was there, I was extremely impressed and extremely inspired by the amount of people who were not prepared to get arrested that night,” Ferrara said, “but after seeing the show of force from the police, made the decision to stand with us and to protect us.”
Ferrara, like others at the protest, was there to send a message. “The message we are trying to send is that as students, we need to protect our right to organize,” Ferrara said. “We need to make sure this doesn’t happen again, that the next time a group of students wants better from their university they are not brutally harassed.”
Lucas Jackson Peterka, a junior at SUNY New Paltz, was disappointed in the way the university has handled the conflict between Israel and Palestine.
“Students, by and large, have felt unheard by the university,” he said. “This is true for pro-Israel students, for pro-Palestinian students, this conflict has felt unaddressed by administration.”
Peterka said Saturday’s protest stemmed from the university still not listening to students voicing their concerns. “We want the university to listen and execute our demands,” he said. “Those demands are disclose, divest, and disengage.”
Alexandria Wojcik, the village of New Paltz’s deputy mayor, was at the protest. She said she was at the encampment when the arrests were made. Wojcik said she told students to take their tents down, figuring that they wouldn’t face arrest as the tents were the university’s main complaint.
“They came anyway and brutalized the campus community,” Wojcik said, referring to the police who arrested those at the encampment. “Not even just people who were prepared for arrests, necessarily, but everyone that was in the region.”
“It was one of the most shameful days in all of New Paltz history,” Wojcik said.
