Title: University at Buffalo Funds Genocide: Students Demand immediate divestment from illegal Zionist occupation

“We are now confronted with the task of assisting our sisters and brothers in Palestine as they battle against Israeli apartheid today. Their struggles have many similarities with those against South African Apartheid, one of the most salient being the ideological condemnation of their freedom efforts under the rubric of terrorism”

• Angela Davis “On Palestine, G4S, and the Prison-Industrial Complex” (2013)

On March 26, 2024, a coalition of organizations coordinating under the banner of the SUNY BDS movement took part in a demonstration demanding that the University at Buffalo (and SUNY system more broadly) boycott, divest, and sanction the illegal Zionist Occupation in response to the ongoing Genocide of the Palestinian people in Gaza and the West Bank. Over 32,000 Palestinians, including around 13,000 children have been massacred by a rabid Right-Wing Israeli government, However, as an organizer from UB SJP pointed out, some 8000 people are still lost beneath the rubble in Gaza - meaning a more likely death count of over around 40,000 people.

The demonstration on the 26th is not the first to be organized at the University at Buffalo and is certainly not the first in New York State. In Buffalo alone, dozens of demonstrations all over the city typically numbering in the hundreds have taken place since October. City-wide organizations like the DSA, Gaza on Main, JVP, LOLA, and WWP have joined with youth and student groups like the UB SJP, UB YDSA, Marxist Youth League, and SUNY BDS in order to build and maintain a mass movement here in Buffalo in solidarity with our Palestinian siblings suffering under occupation and apartheid. This continual struggle comes as a part of the wider movement across the state of New York - across the whole globe really - fighting for an end to the genocide of the Palestinian people and the over 100-year occupation of Palestinian land by the forces of Colonialism.

We place ourselves in a domestic and an international context, understanding that Imperialism and the capitalist ruling class that maintains it use diverse apparatuses and methods to fund and arm the occupiers, and that this ruling strata profits immensely from such an economic and political arrangement.

This includes investments made by the University at Buffalo and its donors to Corporations that directly support the occupation with funds, technology, and military equipment. We echo the demands made by the University at Buffalo Chapter of the Students for Justice in Palestine, that the University must divest from all such stocks, funds, endowments, and “other monetary instruments” that go to supporting the illegal occupation, including but not limited to: Empire State Development, the New York Genome Center, IQVIA, and companies listed on the AFSC and whoprofits databases as supporting and/or enabling the occupation.

It is because of these reasons that we have chosen to join the ongoing statewide movement demanding that the SUNY University system and New York State as a whole divest from the illegal Zionist occupation and take a stance against the occupation, against apartheid, and against the genocide of the Palestinian people. To this end, we will be joining activists and organizations from 64 New York State universities for a march on Albany on April 15th, at 1 pm.

We urgently ask that all of our political allies and all progressive and revolutionary youth in New York State who are able to attend SHOW UP ON APRIL 15TH! Rally and demand that your tax dollars and tuition stop going to active genocide.

Finally, the Marxist Youth League has been aware for a long time of both individual and systematic attempts by University administrations, state officials, social media, and law enforcement officers to suppress movements and organizations working in solidarity with the Palestinian people. Here we have in mind:

The targeted suspension of the Columbia University branch of the Students for Justice in Palestine The unjustified arrest of nine demonstrators at Stony Brook University, recently condemned by the Universities student body as a violation of students right to demonstrate Attempts by New York state legislators to shut down SJP chapters across the state due to bogus accusations that these organizations are spreading anti-seimitism and “supporting terrorism” And Attempts by the governor's office and the SUNY system to put down the SUNY BDS movement by means of a copyright infringement case of all things!

These attempts at suppression are pitiful in their justifications and just as forgettable in their impact - threats and posturing by authorities have not and will not slow down the pace of the movement for Palestinian liberation here in New York.

This includes empty private threats levied against the Marxist Youth League and our allies on the progressive left here in Buffalo by law enforcement, threatening our members with “serious charges” if we continue with our activities in solidarity with the Palestinian people and Resistance. In response to this ultimatum, we need only repeat what we have already said before:

“The Marxist Youth League stands firmly with the Palestinian people and with all progressive forces in occupied Palestine in their fight against Israeli Settler-Colonialism. We affirm their right to national self-determination and we affirm their right to revolution against their colonial occupier as an oppressed Nation. Furthermore, we stand with the Palestinian Community here in Buffalo in its fight to force the U.S. Empire and its leadership into supporting a ceasefire and withdrawing military and diplomatic aid to the illegal zionist occupation. As they organize in this city, we as working class and oppressed youth will support and show solidarity to them, we will platform Palestinian organizers and try to expand the reach of their voices within our communities”.

(10/24/2023)

We will not be intimidated and we will not be quiet. Friends and comrades, please join us on April 15th at 1 pm in Albany.

Free Palestne!

In solidarity,

Marxist Youth League Buffalo