At THE DAILY PRINCETON, David Chmielewski reports:
In November 2023, I wrote a letter to the editor on the importance of remembering the radical side of Princeton’s activist history and the politics of how we remember campus activism. As I wrote that letter, I could never have imagined the incredible things that current Princeton student activists would achieve just six months later with the Princeton Gaza Solidarity Encampment, also known as the Popular University for Gaza. If my previous letter lamented the lost radicalism of past campus activism we needed to recall, then recall it we have. On a supposedly apolitical, apathetic campus, students occupied space in solidarity with the Palestinian people for three weeks, organized a hunger strike that lasted over a week, held rallies of over 350 people, and, most importantly, put Palestinian liberation at the center of campus discourse in an unprecedented fashion. That is something worth remembering.
The vital question we must now ask ourselves as a campus community is how will we remember this moment? As the great Palestinian literary critic Edward Said ’57 pointed out, there is a vital politics to memory, because how we remember and define our traditions of activism define who we imagine ourselves and our political horizons to be. As Said put it, “the invention of tradition is a method for using collective memory … memory is not necessarily authentic, but rather useful.” One of our moral imperatives now is to make the memory of the encampment useful, to understand what it represented and will represent for future generations of student activists. We must define a tradition that captures the encampment as it really was: rooted in hopeful, expansive visions of liberation, convicted in its radical politics, and full of solidarity.
We have already seen University administrators try to employ the politics of memory for their own ends. They have attempted to present student protesters as unsafe or as disruptive to respectful dialogue on campus. But that isn’t the reality. Faculty — themselves long-time students of traditions of protest and radical change — have made clear that sit-ins and other acts of protest in service of the Palestinian liberation movement should be remembered as part of a long tradition of activism for justice, both on this campus and beyond. These two narratives are actively competing, right now, to be the story of the Gaza Solidarity Encampment. Memory matters. And the choice between these narratives is just one small example of how the meaning of this moment in Princeton’s history is currently being contested and needs to be defined through the active work of remembrance.
As the column notes, we need to be sure the right lessons are remembered and learned from. We don't need a blurring of history. A blurring is the status of the cease-fire. ABC reports:
Israel has accepted US President Joe Biden's Gaza ceasefire proposal but believes the framework deal is "in need of much more work", an aide to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says.
In an interview with Britain's Sunday Times, Ophir Falk, chief foreign policy advisor to Mr Netanyahu, said the framework deal presented by Mr Biden was "a deal we agreed to — it's not a good deal but we dearly want the hostages released, all of them".
"There are a lot of details to be worked out," said Mr Falk, adding that Israeli conditions, including "the release of the hostages and the destruction of Hamas as a genocidal terrorist organisation" had not changed.
It hasn't been accepted. Netanyahu is insisting he has to speak to Israel's National Security Minister -- the far-right wing Itamar Ben-Gvir who is not expected to support the proposal. The editorial board of THE NATIONAL points out:
The conditions for a sustained peace require there to be no room for Israel's vacillations and doublespeak. The proposal to end the conflict is being touted as an Israeli one, yet its government insists on sticking to its goal of destroying Hamas.
Ultimately, it requires the US, Israel's most important ally, to exert pressure it seldom uses on the Netanyahu government for the war to end. It is for this reason that Mr Biden's announcement – after appearing reticent for months – is promising, even if self-serving in the run up to the US presidential election.
Large sections of American voters, disenchanted by the prolonged war, could well respond to the President's persistent unwillingness to rein in Israel at the ballot. A peace deal that evolves into a permanent ceasefire, and eventually a two-state solution, is then in Mr Biden's political interests.
The proposal is popular in Israel. ALJAZEERA notes, "An opinion poll conducted by the Israeli Public Broadcasting Corporation shows that 40 percent of Israelis support the proposal for a ceasefire in Gaza announced by the US president this week. Twenty-seven percent oppose the plan." But, as THE IRISH TIMES notesTHE IRISH TIMES notes, "Mr Netanyahu, long plagued by corruption charges he denies, sees staying in office as his best chance of avoiding prosecution, as well as putting off investigations and hearings into the security failures that contributed to Hamas’s October 7th assault." The BBC insists, "The US has 'every expectation' Israel will accept a ceasefire proposal that would begin with a six-week cessation of hostilities in Gaza if Hamas takes the deal, a senior White House official has said." Those of us who grasp that an unnamed "senior White House official" is really the last person to believe on this topic.
Meanwhile, the assault continues. ALJAZEERA notes, "Earlier, we reported on an Israeli strike on Nuseirat refugee camp in central Gaza, on a residential home. Wafa news agency and Al Jazeera’s correspondent now report that four people were killed in this attack, and several others injured. Additionally, Al Jazeera’s correspondent in the Gaza Strip reports that another Israeli strike has hit Nuseirat camp a short while ago."
Starvation continues in Gaza and the trickle of aid -- the small trickle of aid -- has not changed that. Emma Graham-Harrison (GUARDIAN) reports:
Aid shipments into southern Gaza are being squeezed out by commercial convoys, humanitarian organisations say, at a time when Israel’s military push into Rafah has choked off supply routes critical to feeding hundreds of thousands of people.
Deliveries of food, medicine and other aid into Gaza fell by two-thirds after Israel began its ground operation on 7 May, UN figures show. But overall the number of trucks entering Gaza rose in May compared with April, according to Israeli officials.
Part of the reason for the stark difference in accounts of what supplies reached the strip is a rise in commercial shipments.
In May, the Israeli military lifted a ban on the sale of food to Gaza from Israel and the occupied West Bank, Reuters reported last week. Traders got the green light to resume buying fresh fruit and vegetables, dairy and other goods.
Inside Gaza, residents say there is more food in markets, but prices are many times higher than prewar levels, and after months of fighting and displacement few people can afford to buy much.
A group of aid agencies warned this week that there was a “mirage of improved access”, when efforts to feed Palestinians were on the verge of collapse.
Malnutrition in Gaza is at its "worst levels", Save the Children said, and the suffering will get worse if aid is not increased.
“Children in Gaza are being starved, they are being deprived of clean water and they are being deprived of adequate medical assistance," Save the Children spokeswoman Alexandra Saieh told Al Jazeera.
"And this is all fuelled by the systematic obstruction of humanitarian aid and the ongoing hostility.”
The situation is entirely man-made, Ms Saieh said, adding that a medical station to treat malnutrition in Tal Al Sultan was forced to close by Israeli aggression last week.
The levels of famine are "just the tip of the iceberg", she said.
“We actually fear that the situation is much worse."
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