On Wednesday, Students for Justice for Palestine (SJP) led their second march in 10 days across campus to protest Israel’s war in Gaza. After leading about 200 people from the flagpoles at Alumni Mall to University Hall, SJP leaders pushed a list of demands under the door of LMU President Timothy Law Snyder’s office suite.
“The goal [of this protest] was to deliver our demands for the 2024-25 school year,” said Meera Macki, a senior film and television production major and co-president of SJP. “They include ending ties with the Israeli occupation through monetary partnerships.”
Both current and former LMU students joined the protest.
“Where one is hurting we are all hurting,” said 1984 LMU sociology grad Susan Dietrich, who added that she supported the call for divestment. “There is no question that what is going on in Palestine is wrong.”
Several onlookers who did not participate in the protest cheered it on. Annabelle Torres, a sophomore political science major, and Anisa Rivas, a sophomore psychology major, stood in front of Rains Hall clapping as the protesters marched past.
“It is very crucial for students and institutions to be voices for people that don’t have it,” Torres said. Rivas said she disagreed with people she’d seen post on social media that the Palestinians’ struggle should not be the concern of LMU students. “Silence is violence,” she said.
Art History Senior Lecturer Aliaa El Sandouby, who is from Egypt, looked on at the protest with what she described as pride in her students.
“I have been in the United States for many years and have never seen support for the people of Palestine here,” she said. “Seeing people understanding what is happening to the people of Palestine is really important to me. I don’t think any educational institution should be investing students’ tuition dollars in arms sales to countries that would commit genocide against civilians. It’s just deplorable.”
When the march reached University Hall, participants made their way to Snyder’s 4th-floor office. Once there, students placed effigies of infant corpses in front of the door.
“Every time T-Law hides,” the protestors chanted, “another child in Gaza dies.”
“This time we added the baby martyrs to symbolize all the children that have been killed, over 14,000 now in Gaza,” Macki said.
Since Oct. 7, there have been an estimated 34,740 people killed in Gaza and 1,139 people killed in Israel.
SJP is a student-led organization in their first year at LMU after a 10-year hiatus. According to their Leo page, SJP seeks to “raise awareness about the Palestinian struggle, work towards ending the illegal Israeli occupation, and promote Palestinian self-determination through non-violent resistance.”
The group’s April 15 march came in the wake of a veto of ASLMU legislation that would have directed the body to stop spending any of their $750,000 budget with companies believed to be supporting Israel’s war in Gaza.
“As students at university it is our job to teach the world what is going on,” said Sammer Tarazi, a senior journalism major and fundraising chair for SJP. (Tarazi was a Lion staffer in Fall 2023.) “We take history classes, we take faith and justice classes, we take ethics classes. All of these things apply to what is going on in Palestine right now.”
As of Thursday afternoon, Snyder had not publicly commented on SPJ’s demands.
“By the university itself I do not feel supported at all,” Tarazi said. “I do feel supported by the student body as a Palestinian.”
