19 Brown University students begin Hunger Strike for Palestine

"The group of strikers consists of four Palestinian students, six Jewish students, and nine students from several allied affinity and organizing student groups across campus."

From a press release:

This Friday afternoon, a Palestinian- and Jewish-led coalition of 19 Brown University students began a hunger strike, under the title Hunger Strike for Palestine, in Brown University’s Campus Center in advance of the February 8 and 9 meeting of the Corporation of Brown University. Building on several student-led actions held last fall, these students are once again calling upon the University to do its part to promote an immediate and permanent ceasefire by completely divesting its endowment from companies enabling and profiting from the genocide in Gaza. 

The group of strikers consists of four Palestinian students, six Jewish students, and nine students from several allied affinity and organizing student groups across campus. They will refuse food until the full body of the Brown University Corporation hears and considers a divestment resolution, introduced by President Christina Paxson and presented by student representatives of the Brown Divest Coalition, in their upcoming meeting on February 8 and 9. The strikers demand that this resolution follow the Brown University Advisory Committee on Corporate Responsibility in Investment Practices (now the Advisory Committee on University Resources Management) 2020 report “To Recommend Divestment from Companies that Facilitate the Israeli Occupation of Palestinian Territory”; the student representatives would present the ACCRIP report with several updates. The full strike demands can be found here.¹ 

As of January 28, Israel’s military assault on Gaza has claimed the lives of over 27,121 Palestinians, including over 10,000 children, since late October 2023. 90% of the Gazan population has been displaced in this ongoing humanitarian crisis. Four in five Gazans face hunger and starvation, and the entire population of Gaza is at risk of famine as Israel limits humanitarian aid, destroys critical life-supporting infrastructure, and blocks shipments of food and water into Gaza. Just last Friday, January 27, the International Court of Justice found that Israel’s actions in Gaza plausibly constitute genocide. 

The Corporation of Brown University, the University’s governing body with ultimate oversight over its financial policies, holds its first meeting of 2024 on February 8 and 9. Given the escalating violence in Gaza, this hunger strike emphasizes the urgency of passing a divestment resolution in this meeting rather than delaying the process any further. 

“In this pivotal moment, I am compelled to take action by the deep-rooted experiences that shape my identity. As a Palestinian, I have witnessed colossal losses in Gaza, the West Bank, and around the world; the ongoing impact of this humanitarian crisis has fueled my commitment to justice,” said Nour Abaherah, a Palestinian 2nd year Master of Public Health student at Brown. “My family history, intertwined with the struggles of my people and occupied people everywhere, motivates me to stand against the investment and profiting of arms and weapons manufacturing and occupation that perpetuates violence in our world.” 

This strike has seen an unprecedented coordination of Brown student organizing groups since October 7, reflecting the growing calls for divestment across Brown’s campus and beyond. In March 2019, undergraduate students voted on a referendum calling upon the administration to “divest…from companies complicit in human rights abuses in Palestine…” which passed with overwhelming support. In 2020, the Advisory Committee on Corporate Responsibility in Investment Practices (ACCRIP, now the Advisory Committee on University Resources Management, or ACURM), Brown’s investment ethics committee, published a report recommending Brown divest from 11 companies facilitating Israel’s human rights violations in Palestine. 

President Paxson refused to bring the report to the Brown Corporation, claiming that “Brown’s endowment is not a political instrument.” This strike echoes several student actions in past months and years in affirming that Brown’s financial support of weapons manufacturers who profit off the violence and destruction in Gaza represents a political position and enables social harm. In the wake of recent protests, Paxson has remained firm on her stance; the university has also noted that Brown does not directly invest in weapons manufacturers. An overwhelming amount of Brown’s endowment is indirectly invested through independent managers. The Investment Office communicates expectations to these managers through investment principles and can adjust these to divest from the companies listed in ACCRIP, as it did to divest from tobacco and the genocide in Darfur. 

On November 8, 2023, 20 Jewish students with Brown U Jews for Ceasefire Now organized a sit-in in University Hall to demand President Paxson bring a divestment resolution to the February Corporation meeting to support a ceasefire, and were subsequently arrested; charges were later dropped by the university. In December, following the hateful shooting of Palestinian Brown University student Hisham Awartani in Burlington, VT, a group of 41 students from the Brown Divest Coalition sat in University Hall demanding divestment in solidarity with Hisham. Providence Police were again called in by the university to arrest the students; their arraignments will be held on February 12 and 14. Thousands of students, faculty, graduate students, and alumni rallied in support of divestment in the wake of these arrests. Brown Students for Justice in Palestine have collected over 2,300 signatures from community members on a petition demanding Brown support a ceasefire, divest, and protect Palestinian and allied students on campus. Momentum on campus continues to grow in support of divestment as a material way of supporting a permanent ceasefire and lasting peace in Gaza. This strike is the student body’s response to Brown’s continued inaction in the face of the mounting crisis in Gaza. 

“I was arrested with a group of 19 other Jewish students last semester while calling on Brown to materially support a ceasefire by divesting the endowment from companies profiting off Israeli human rights abuses in occupied Palestine,” said Ariela Rosenzweig, a Jewish undergraduate student on hunger strike. “My participation in this hunger strike demonstrates the university’s unwillingness to heed my calls as a Jewish student to divest from the ongoing genocide being carried out in my name…I will not allow the university I attend, the people of which I am a part, or the country I live in to claim righteousness while the ‘Jewish state’ actively perpetrates crimes against humanity.”

The hunger strike kicked off with a rally for divestment that drew hundreds of Brown community members. The strike will take place daily in Brown’s Campus Center, where community members will also be invited to reroute their usual routines and class schedules to join in a variety of programming related to justice in Palestine: teach-ins with scholars, readings and performances, vigils, and mourning rituals. This will be accompanied by continual flyer distribution, performances, and rallies which aim to ensure that the entire Brown community cannot help but turn its attention toward the students putting their bodies on the line for divestment and the ongoing struggle for peace in Gaza. 

The hunger strikers call upon the Brown Corporation to act upon their moral obligation to heed the 2020 ACCRIP recommendation and divest immediately from the genocide in Gaza.

1. As we approach week 17 of Israel’s military assault on Gaza, Brown University remains invested in the genocide despite the mounting calls of thousands of Brown students, grad workers, faculty, and alumni for divestment. The Brown Corporation must heed these calls and promote an immediate ceasefire and a lasting peace by divesting its endowment from companies that enable and profit from the genocide in Gaza and broader Israeli occupation. 

We, a Palestinian- and Jewish-led coalition of 19 students, will refuse food until the following demands are met: (1) Brown University President Christina Paxson and Chancellor Sam Mencoff must publicly commit to including a divestment resolution on the agenda of the Brown Corporation’s February 8/9 meeting; this resolution must be based on the Brown University Advisory Committee on Corporate Responsibility in Investment Practices (now the Advisory Committee on University Resources Management) 2020 report “To Recommend Divestment from Companies that Facilitate the Israeli Occupation of Palestinian Territory.” (2) The administration must permit representatives from the Brown Divest Coalition to present the case for divestment to the Corporation. (3) Upon the fulfillment of demands one and two, the Brown Corporation must publicly commit to conduct a formal vote on this resolution as a full body in the presence of the coalition representatives. We will hunger strike until these demands are met in full.