Emma Clancy
As second semester begins on university campuses around the country, students are organising against Israel's wars on Lebanon and Gaza, and making plans to hold on-campus demonstrations and public forums to express their outrage at the US-backed Israeli aggression.
In a public statement released on July 27, the socialist youth organisation Resistance condemned Israel's attacks on Lebanon and Gaza and called for students to organise on-campus protests, saying "The time to act is now!"
The statement said: "We cannot sit back while these atrocities are being committed — with the stated support of the Australian government. The ability to organise the broadest possible emergency actions against the bloodshed in Lebanon and Palestine now will be crucial to rebuilding the anti-war movement more generally.
"As well as seeking to organise the greatest numbers of students to participate in off-campus actions against Israel's war, Resistance also calls for all students who are opposed to Israel's war to organise emergency on-campus protests in the immediate future. Now is the time to reactivate student anti-war groups."
Simon Cunich, Sydney Resistance organiser and a global solidarity officer at Sydney University, told Green Left Weekly that student anti-war activists need to organise protest actions immediately in order to build the broadest and most effective movement to stop the war.
"There is an urgency to this issue that we cannot ignore", he said. "Already there have been protests around the world, including mass protests in Australia, and we need to make sure that this movement continues to grow to put the maximum pressure on Israel to stop its attacks."
He said that anti-war activists should revive Students Against War groups and should work closely with Islamic and Arab students' associations. Sydney University Students Against War has called a campus protest for August 3.
Student representative councils (SRCs) at Wollongong University and La Trobe University in Melbourne have passed motions condemning the Israeli attacks and calling for student protests.
The Wollongong Undergraduate Students Association (WUSA) council stated that the Israeli attack is "an outright act of state terrorism", adding: "WUSA council calls on the Howard government and the Australian Labor Party to take a real stand against terrorism, and for peace and justice, by publicly condemning Israel's actions and putting pressure on the Israeli government to immediately cease its attacks on Lebanon and commit to the withdraw of all military personnel from both Lebanon" and the Israeli-occupied Palestinian territories of Gaza and the West Bank.
The WUSA motion endorsed the "No Peace Without Justice" open-air forum that Wollongong University Students Against War is organising for August 2. It also stated that "WUSA council calls on other campuses and student associations across Australia to initiate protests, mass forums and actions around this issue".
The Students Against War group at the Australian National University is also organising an anti-war protest for August 2.
The La Trobe University SRC passed a motion expressing its "solidarity with people across the Middle East and the world who want to fight US domination and condemns Israel for their murderous actions". The SRC also said that it "wholeheartedly endorses the work of Students Against War and Racism (SAWAR) in opposing this war — and encourages students to take a stand by joining any future protests against the US/Israeli war".
Cunich told GLW that Resistance is working on campuses around the country to set up or revive student anti-war groups that can quickly organise protest actions against Israel's brutal attacks. "These student anti-war groups can not only organise students to get involved in on- and off-campus actions against the current Israeli offensive in Lebanon and Gaza. They can also organise students against the US-led occupation of Iraq and any future US imperialist wars for oil and political control in the Middle East."
[For details of student anti-war actions, public forums and debates, visit <http://www.resistance.org.au>.]