Photo by Mauricio Murillo
University of Central Florida students and other organizations gathered Friday, April 26 to rally in protest of Israel's occupation of Gaza near the UCF Reflecting Pond.
University students say they're calling on their institutions to divest from defense companies and weapons manufacturers that they say are driving violence against Palestinians in Israel-occupied Gaza overseas.
Student organizers at the University of Central Florida, organized as the UCF Divestment Coalition, have also called on the university to disclose its financial contributions to companies fueling those war efforts. They want the administration to publicly call for a permanent ceasefire, and for the university to protect students’ First Amendment rights to peacefully assemble and protest the ongoing violence in the Middle East.
While conflict between Palestinians and Israel has been ongoing for decades, the most recent wave of protest activity comes in response to the Israel-Hamas War that began Oct. 7, 2023, when the militant Palestinian group Hamas launched a surprise attack in southern Israel, killing around 1,200 people.
Subsequent attacks by Israel have since killed over 34,000 Palestinians, according to reports from the Ministry of Health in Gaza, including thousands of women, children, and babies.
"It's been seven months of genocide, it's been 76 years of occupation, and the students are tired," said Tamara, 25, a Palestinian graduate student at UCF, in explanation of the impetus behind the UCF encampment. "We are here to be steadfast and we are here to stand strong until UCF listens to its student body," she told Orlando Weekly in a phone interview Monday afternoon.
According to the Associated Press, the group Hamas agreed to a cease-fire proposal on Monday to halt its seven-month war with Israel. However, Israel has stated it is currently only examining the proposal, the details of which have not yet been publicly released.
The new encampment at UCF, organized by the divestment coalition, has been set up on the corner of Alafaya and University Boulevard, in front of the university's Garage A. Local pro-Palestinian organizers plan to launch a second encampment on the university campus Tuesday, according to social media posts and local activists familiar with the action.
Video footage shared with Orlando Weekly by Lamia Moukaddam, one of the pro-Palestinian protesters involved with the divestment coalition's encampment, shows UCF campus police officers circling the small encampment around noon Monday in a golf cart.
UCF student Tamara, who declined to share her surname with Orlando Weekly, told us that campus cops haven't directly interfered with their encampment of roughly 30 people as of Monday afternoon. She said, however, that they had deployed "intimidation tactics" such as bringing in undercover cops and using loud amplification devices to remind protesters of campus rules on peaceful assembly.
(Video on the UCF Divest Coalition Instagram account shows this happening; one amplified voice reading a recorded message is so nonconfrontational as to seem almost soothing, while the police telling students they'll be trespassed after 10 p.m. loudspeakers is more threatening-sounding.)
"Right now, we are surrounded by cops both on golf carts in the forest and in cop cars across the street," said Tamara. UCF's public safety department did not respond to Orlando Weekly's request for comment or confirmation of their response to the encampment.
Law enforcement also made their presence known last month when students organized a peaceful protest on-campus in late April, and over this past weekend when protesters gathered outside of UCF's commencement ceremony on Saturday. Young protesters held handmade signs featuring phrases such as “UCF divest" and "You want us to think critically until it comes to genocide."
Tamara, the UCF student, said she and her fellow students recognize the privilege they have, and want to use that privilege to leverage demands in support of the Palestinian people. "While we are studying, while we are graduating, while we are taking classes, going to frat parties and playing, those in Gaza have no universities left,” said Tamara.
For Tamara, her connection to the divestment movement is personal. "The only difference between me here and my family back home is a plane ride," she shared, candidly. "No one is more deserving of certain conditions than the other."
Still, she believes students who lack that personal connection, who aren't Palestinian themselves or don't have loved ones in the Middle East, are still seeing news reports of developments in Gaza and find that as motivation enough to get involved in organizing against the war.
While many student protests have been peaceful, this hasn't been the case with the response by some universities. Over the last few weeks alone, campus protests at public universities in Florida have resulted in more than three dozen arrests across the state, with more than 2,400 arrests at universities nationwide since April 18, according to the Associated Press.
Most state leaders here in Florida haven’t exactly been sympathetic. Florida Gov. DeSantis said last week during a bill-signing event that students who participate in pro-Palestinian encampments should be expelled.
“We do not allow the inmates to run the asylum in the state of Florida, and if you can’t abide by the rules that we have in place for conduct, then we will show you the door, and you will be expelled,” the Republican governor declared, after signing an industry-backed bill banning the sale of lab-grown meat. “It is that simple.”
At the Florida Democratic Party’s annual Leadership Blue conference this weekend, held in Orlando, security threw out a pro-Palestinian protestor who attempted to confront keynote speaker Sen. John Fetterman (D-Pennsylvania). Fetterman has been outspoken on his support for Israel in the Israel-Hamas conflict and said he feels campus protests are “working against peace in [the] Middle East.”
As pro-Palestinian protester Rasha Mubarak stood up to publicly shame Fetterman Saturday night, chanting “Free, free Palestine,” members of the Democrat-organized Leadership Blue audience began their own chant in support of President Joe Biden to drown Mubarak out, shouting “Four more years!” in reference to the upcoming November election.
State Rep. Anna Eskamani of Orlando — one of just two Florida lawmakers to voice support for a state ceasefire resolution earlier this year — expressed disappointment with the arrest on social media. “[The] First Amendment is fundamental to our nation’s foundation and arresting anyone for peacefully protesting is both excessive and unnecessary,” Eskamani shared on X.
The Florida Democratic Party also issued a statement on the incident, following backlash, voicing support for the right to peaceful protest — with an emphasis on “peaceful.”
“If we are going to call for peace, let’s do it peacefully,” said FDP chair Nikki Fried in a statement released Saturday. “If we are going to disagree, let’s do it respectfully. If we are going to use our voices, let’s make sure we’re also listening — that’s what it means to be a Democrat and that is what this moment demands.”
Elsewhere in the country, some universities have reached agreements with student groups and allies in support of divestment, while police surveillance, and in some cases, violence against pro-Palestinian protesters has been a near-constant, according to news nonprofit website The Appeal. Indiana State Police confirmed they'd placed snipers on the roof of Indiana University to surveil protesters last month, while an officer with the New York Police Department reportedly fired a gun inside a Columbia University building to break up a pro-Palestinian demonstration.
At the University of South Florida in Tampa, law enforcement tear-gassed protesters last week in an effort to get them to disperse. Some universities, bending to pressure, have reached agreements with pro-Palestinian protesters, although the details of such agreements vary in terms of what they actually promise or manage to accomplish for the divestment movement.
UCF's Public Safety department did not immediately respond to Orlando Weekly's requests for comment via phone or email Monday regarding their response to the student encampment.
The university's police department, however, does have a protest policy publicly posted on its website, stating that UCFPD is “committed to protecting individuals’ rights to peacefully assemble and protest.”
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