An attendee holds a candle during the Community Vigil for Gaza on Oct. 7, 2024.
After 15 months of war in Gaza, Israel and Hamas reached a temporary ceasefire, which will have rippling effects across the region, the world and even on Pitt’s campus.
Over the course of the 15 months, Pitt has seen numerous protests related to the Israel-Hamas war.
The co-presidents of Students for Justice in Palestine at Pitt said the six-week ceasefire is “a crucial first step, but it is not enough” in a written statement to The Pitt News.
“The ceasefire is an unsteady truce, one that has already been violated by Israel on numerous occasions,” SJP co-presidents said. “While this deal may temporarily halt the bombs in Gaza, it does nothing to stop the quotidian violence of occupation, home demolitions, land theft, or the denial of basic human rights. This ongoing brutality is evident in Israel’s escalating assaults on Palestinians living in the occupied West Bank,” they said, referring to recent Israeli operations that killed at least 12 Palestinians and prompted hundreds to flee their homes.
“SJP will continue to organize unapologetically for justice and liberation, because a ceasefire doesn’t dismantle apartheid, end the occupation or restore stolen land,” SJP co-presidents said.
The student group said in an Instagram post that Pitt is “moving to effectively suspend” SJP. Following the ceasefire, SJP reaffirmed its commitment to on-campus activism while facing possible suspension.
“Despite these barriers, we will continue to amplify Palestinian voices, educate the campus community on the systemic injustices faced by Palestinians, and push for divestment of university funds from companies complicit in apartheid and human rights abuses,” SJP co-presidents said.
Karim Safieddine, a third-year PhD student studying sociology, said “one cannot say a just resolution was put forth” because it follows a period of heavy violence enacted with full U.S. support and a “very clear Israeli initiative.”
“At the same time, it’s also very clear that Trump had pushed in that direction because he had to adhere to certain promises, particularly to the constituency that said ‘We need to put an end to the war,’” Safieddine said. “So he also went in that direction, which I think was useful at the moment, but there are no guarantees that people in Gaza will be seeing any form of security in the next few years. That’s very troublesome and will require a lot of our direct intervention and mobilization outside the scope of the current war.”
While Safieddine said organizing on the same level as previously will be difficult, pro-Palestine organizing will continue through cultural initiatives and “community building procedures” like petitions.
“On-campus organizing has to continue in a way that is productive, in a way that is able to regenerate hope and agency among students who feel that they can truly transform the landscape on the level of the University, but also on the level of the country as a whole by using universities as a stage to engage in political contestation,” Safieddine said.
Chabad at Pitt Rabbi Shmuli Rothstein said he sees both good and bad in the ceasefire, and that with it, there are both happy and sad emotions.
“It’s a very hard pull on my heartstrings, like [I’m] so happy for the families,” Rothstein said. “My friends lost their lives. They did it with a mission to cripple Hamas. Has that been accomplished? Were their lives lost in vain?”
Rothstein expressed dissatisfaction with the number of hostages that won’t be released as part of the ceasefire and criticized “mental gymnastics” that go into “creating this villain of a country whose one job is to protect its people.”
“A country’s main mission is to protect and feed the people who live in the country, so the villainization of them to try to protect their people is like, what, you forget about [the hostages?]” Rothstein said. “There’s numerous stories where they’ve kidnapped people and held them in Gaza for years. They should forget about the other 60, 70 people now? What’s gonna happen in two months?”
Rothstein said one of his concerns with this perception of Israel is that he believes it has led to people on campus being attacked.
“I’m not personally fearing for my safety. I do fear for my wife’s safety when she walks with the kids Friday night by herself,” Rothstein said. “I walk with her now.”
Yoni Preuss, a senior political science major and president of the Student Coalition for Israel at Pitt, also said that he’s “just glad the hostages are finally coming home.”
“I’m glad that families are being reunited on both sides,” Preuss said. “I’m hopeful that this will last for the entirety of the ceasefire into the next few stages, where all the hostages will be able to return back to their families and hopefully into a long-term peace, the conflict and the region as a whole.”
As a result of the ceasefire, Preuss said he’s hopeful that the climate on campus will improve.
“I think a ceasefire hostage deal will improve things over in the Middle East in that region for the Palestinians and Israelis, but also for people across the country, for students on campuses, here as well,” Preuss said. “I’m hopeful that things will improve everywhere.”
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