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Op-ed: Admin’s actions toward pro-Palestine protesters proves UCLA wants us dead

By Dylan Kupsh

Oct. 3, 2024 5:51 p.m.

This post was updated Oct. 13 at 8:41 p.m.

Editor’s note: This article describes instances of violence that may be disturbing to some readers.

On the fourth day of the UCLA Palestine solidarity encampment, a community member asked me, “What should we do if there’s a bomb?”

I replied incredulously, “Bombs aren’t allowed at UCLA.”

The next night, a Zionist flashed encampment participants with their holstered pistol. Each night, Zionists brandished knives and would fiercely hack at the cobbled-together scrap wood barricades. Zionists unleashed cockroaches and mice with injection marks.

Zionists would throw bananas inside the encampment, knowing a student had a potentially deadly banana allergy. We slept through racist tirades, bullhorns, broadcasted baby screams and songs used by Israeli forces during the torture of captives. And the day prior to the mob attack, we had the aforementioned – albeit false – bomb threat.

UCLA watched each successive attack. We would yell, “They have a gun,” or, “That Zionist has a knife,” only to receive confused, blank stares back from UCLA’s contracted private security. At one point, I physically handed a bewildered UCLA administrator the fart bomb packaging thrown into the encampment to no response.

After witnessing the growing attacks, UCLA ignored our outcry to protect students’ physical safety and instead granted permits – which were instantly violated – and cultivated the conditions leading to the April 30 Zionist mob attack.

When the mob attacked, UCPD and private security almost instantly retreated, telling me their job wasn’t to “defend students.” UCLA blocked ambulances from attending to injured protesters, forcing us to seek emergency hospital treatment in private vehicles.

The following day, militarized police – with UCLA’s blessing – indiscriminately fired nearly 60 less-than-lethal projectiles and a nearly endless barrage of 40mm aerial flash-bang devices. Medical students actively caring for protesters injured by rubber bullets were arrested alongside attendees. As observers aptly summarized, it’s a miracle the encampment ended with no obituaries.

In the following weeks, Zionists, private security and the police became more physically aggressive, emboldened by the UCLA administration’s actions and inaction. Members of APEX Security Group launched heavy metal tables upon groups of protesters and aimlessly threw punches into crowds of students, and CSC security contractors dressed in bulletproof-like vests cheered on trucks attempting to run us over.

Near the end of the quarter, I became increasingly depressed, traveling to picket lines and protests only to get assaulted by UCLA-sanctioned security on a near-daily basis.

During our June 10 protest, police aimlessly fired less-than-lethal weapons – hospitalizing one student and injuring several others with the rubber bullets that ricocheted through the crowd of trapped protesters. They continued firing countless pepper balls, hitting several students and causing them to limp to finals over the next few days. Several students became concussed from violent police takedowns, with one student violently yanked into the police line for speaking into a megaphone.

Once police seemingly finished their job clearing each successive protest, UCLA abandoned us to defend ourselves against the ensuing counter-protesters – including many repeaters from the Zionist mob attack. Zionist counter-protesters would target and encircle individual protesters, barraging them with a combination of racist slurs, sexually-explicit harassment if perceived female and incendiary threats to provoke a recorded reaction.

Some students were doxxed and followed, having the attacks following them home. My parents received several calls from Zionists – one impersonating myself from inside prison – and my academic advisor received hate mail attacking my academic job as my work inbox became flooded with spam and threatening mail. Following a Dodd Hall dispersal in late May, I was stalked, surrounded, harassed and threatened by a group of counter-protesters, one of whom claimed to have my address and told me I wouldn’t be safe at home.

My friend had a Zionist slash their leg with a knife, which caused them to limp around campus. Others were stalked home and subjected to hateful vitriol at their doorstep. Our mutual aid and food distributions received passing cars launching tomatoes, eggs, milkshakes and other food items at us. All these incidents are known – and not uncommon – with UCLA continually failing to take action.

During the June 10 protest, I asked Administrative Vice Chancellor Michael Beck on his plans following our dispersal, with several Zionist onlookers – whom I recognized from the encampment attack – screaming epithets in the background. Beck halfheartedly responded, “UCPD is watching them and will deal with it.” Hours later, as we waited outside for our friends to be released, UCPD and campus security faded into nearby buildings, leaving us to the Zionist onslaught.

Indeed, UCLA has exclusively – with one minor exception – sought criminal and student conduct charges against pro-Palestinian protesters, with those violently assaulting us left nearly scot-free. Furthermore, the current student conduct hearings have violated FERPA rights and blame students for the police violently disrupting final examinations, aiming less-than-lethal weapons at test takers and forcing them to leave the classroom.

These attacks on the encampment have held lasting effects. I, alongside many of my colleagues, spent Independence Day cowering inside, reliving the traumatic experiences of being pepper-sprayed as fireworks launched by Zionists exploded overhead or being bombarded with aerial flash bangs and rubber bullets. Some hospitalized protesters embrace lasting scars – one, for instance, from a finger-reattachment surgery.

For everyone within the encampment, passing Dickson Plaza will forever invoke traumatic experiences, with broken zip ties and discarded encampment supplies still littering the Dickson Plaza grass and surrounding bushes.

In all its statements and actions, UCLA almost wholeheartedly refused to acknowledge the violence faced by student protesters, especially when the violence resulted from the administration’s actions. At a UCLA alumni gathering, former Chancellor Gene Block said violence at the encampment led to the police encampment clearing, despite the numerous hospitalizations and militarized violence deployed against students. UCLA’s official statements further equate minor pathing inconveniences with physical, and potentially deadly, violence.

Despite our spending an entire week within the encampment, the UCLA administration only sought to meet mere hours prior to the violent police clearing, egregiously disregarding the mutually-established precondition to end external police surveillance and presence on campus. In the following months, the UCLA administration repeatedly refused further meetings, failing to meet the good-faith precondition requiring payment of student medical bills caused by its negligence.

Over the last few summer months, UC signaled intentions to double down on repressive and violent policies, hosting secretive meetings surgically focused on preventing further pro-Palestine protests on UC campuses.

A Donald Trump-appointed federal judge mandated further repression by outlawing institutional “de-escalation” tactics, essentially rubber stamping future violent attacks. The proposed time, place and manner policies allow campus administration to essentially declare martial law.

The administration sneakily changed organization policies without bothering to even update the Student Organizations, Leadership & Engagement website, making political viewpoints a protected class – for example, potentially prohibiting college Democrats from excluding Republicans or Afrikan Student Union from excluding white supremacists.

These new repressive policies are razor focused, increasing militarized police and Zionist violence against marginalized students on UC campuses. Indeed, we can expect these policies to be exclusively applied to pro-Palestine organizations and individuals.

Despite summer momentarily halting on-campus organizing, the genocide in Gaza has continued, fueled by the UC’s extensive investment portfolio. Since the end of spring quarter, we’ve witnessed Israel murder over 4,000 Palestinians, continue bombing schools during prayer time and erupt into pro-rape riots.

A letter published by the Lancet, a peer-reviewed medical journal, predicted the death toll may reach 186,000 – nearly 8% of Gaza’s population. Several neighborhoods in Gaza died as we returned home for summer.

In just the past two weeks as we returned to campus, Israel murdered over 1,000 Lebanese people – already nearing death tolls similar to Israel’s 2006 invasion of Lebanon – with the Lebanese government estimating a fifth of the population has fled their homes.

During this fall quarter, our movement for Palestinian liberation, at UCLA and elsewhere, will continue. Despite UCLA’s actions becoming carelessly indifferent to student well-being, safety and physical health, our spring quarter protests showed safety coming from the community, not the institution.

No repressive policy, mob attacks or Zionist violence will stop the student movement for Palestinian liberation. We aren’t afraid, and we will resist.

Dylan Kupsh is a fourth-year doctoral student studying computer science at UCLA and member of Graduate Students for Justice in Palestine. During spring quarter, Kupsh participated in the UCLA Palestine solidarity encampment and other actions.

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