The Palestine solidarity movement as solidarity ecology: Discourses and strategies of solidarity within the pro-Palestinian student movement

Abstract

Based on analysis of movement texts written and published by pro-Palestinian student organizations in Brazil, South Africa, Sweden, and the United States, this article offers a conceptualization of the recent global wave of Palestinian solidarity activism as a solidarity ecology, featuring a multitude of divergent yet interlocking conceptualizations and practices of solidarity, collectively operating towards a shared goal of anti-imperialism and Palestinian liberation. Such a solidarity ecology is conceptualized in Gramscian terms as linking students up with international actors and Palestinian leadership in a common, global counter-hegemonic bloc. Within such a solidarity ecology, however, students’ concrete practices and discourses of solidarity are constantly being re-articulated in relation to different and evolving contexts on local, national, and global scales.

Introduction

Israel’s massive assault on Gaza after October 2023 – resulting in over 60,000 Palestinian deaths and the systematic destruction of Palestinian infrastructure and institutions – has been described by human rights organizations and scholars as genocidal (Amnesty International, 2024; Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, 2023). While framed by politicians and media figures as retaliation for Hamas’ armed attack on 7th October 2023, Israel’s post-2023 escalation is but the latest chapter in a long history of colonial violence dating back to the 1948 Nakba, which saw massacring and mass displacement of Palestinian civilians by the newly established Israeli state.

In response to the post-2023 escalation, the Palestine Solidarity Movement (PSM) – active in various forms since the early 20th century – re-emerged as a key social movement on civil and political stages. Alongside protests, legal campaigns, and direct action, student organizing became a central and highly visible domain of this resurgence.

Broad groupings of students – often led by Palestinian and Arab diaspora students and joined by leftist, climate justice, Black, Indigenous, and Muslim groups – initiated a range of protest actions on their campuses. Starting with petitions and marches, the student PSM gained global attention in April 2024, when students at Columbia University occupied their institution’s West Butler Lawn and Hamilton building, inspiring growth of student encampments across US and international campuses. Such encampments typically demanded university divestment from Israeli or Israel-tied business, severing of academic ties with Israeli universities, and official declarations of support for Palestine. Although few encampments achieved all such demands, they succeeded in placing Palestinian liberation at the center of public discourse and mounted significant challenges to universities’ institutional complicity in Israeli occupation and apartheid.

This article focuses on the current wave of pro-Palestinian student activism to theorize how transnational movements articulate solidarity across diverging political, historical, and social contexts. I propose the concept of solidarity ecology to illuminate how transnational solidarity movements – consisting of movement actors with varied positionalities, political opportunities, activist histories, and objectives – coalesce around shared struggles. Understanding solidarity as ecological highlights its adaptive and articulatory nature: while concrete approaches to conceptualizing and practicing solidarity might differ from node to node within the global movement, such differences are not signs of internal disunity. Rather, they are situated expressions of a common counter-hegemonic alignment, which is adapted to specific and evolving conditions. Thus, the ecology metaphor highlights the productive tension between diversity and coherence that characterizes transnational solidarity movements. A diversity of tactics and outlooks is not only expected, but necessary for serving the movement’s ultimate goals and reinforcing and adapting the movement’s counter-hegemonic positioning.

This exploration contributes to the relatively sparse treatment of the PSM within social movement studies, where the focus has primarily been on previous phases in the PSM’s history (Bakan and Abu-Laban, 2009; Fischbach, 2018; Haugbølle and Olsen, 2023; Landy, 2014; Morrison, 2022; Mullen, 2021; Thomson et al., 2022). ¹ Updating this field of research is necessary, as the PSM is not only a globally resonant and influential movement, but also historically dynamic. Whereas the PSM was earlier characterized by support for anti-imperialist armed resistance, it has since the 2000s increasingly emphasized human rights and international law. The recent resurgence represents a further evolution of this trajectory, with new actors and organizations placing the movement in a new conjuncture by advancing novel combinations of strategies and analyses drawn from the movement’s legacy.

At the same time, the notion of solidarity ecology contributes to broader debates in social movement theory, political sociology and critical theory. Specifically, this concerns the nature of global or international solidarity: how it operates in movements, how it is articulated and communicated, and the historical conditions on which it depends (Ananth, 2014; Antentas, 2022; Dean, 1995; Featherstone, 2012; García Agustín and Bak Jørgensen, 2016). By advancing the concept of solidarity ecology, I fashion a novel conceptual tool which improves our understanding of how transnational counter-hegemonic blocs are formed and maintained through both shared ideological frameworks and adaptive, localized articulations of solidarity.

To develop this concept, I analyze the discourses and strategies of four prominent student activist organizations whose work reflects diverse adaptations of a shared political commitment to Palestinian liberation: Columbia University Apartheid Divest (CUAD, United States); Göteborg University Students for Palestine (GUSP, Sweden); Wits Palestine Solidarity Committee (WPSC, South Africa); and Comitê de Estudantes em Solidariedade ao Povo Palestino (Committee of Students in Solidarity with the Palestinian People, ESPP, Brazil). Whereas CUAD pioneered the method of campus encampments with its occupations of West Butler Lawn and Hamilton Hall (17 April–1 May 2024), the other cases represent notable adaptations of the encampment method to other contexts. ESPP occupied parts of a university building at the University of São Paulo (7–10 May 2024); WPSC declared the founding of “Wits Liberated Zone” by establishing an encampment at the University of Witwatersrand (13–19 May); and GUSP occupied the lawn outside the University of Gothenburg’s main administrative building from 14 May to 22 November, making it one of the world’s longest-running pro-Palestinian student encampments.

Drawing on over 750 pages of these organizations’ movement texts, I map the ideological discourses and strategic orientations that inform the current student PSM. In this, I address (a) how students articulated their solidarity with Palestine, (b) what shared perspectives, objectives, and identities united students to act in solidarity, and (c) how the current student movement’s articulation of solidarity resembles or differs from previous articulations of solidarity within the PSM. This exploratory mapping emphasizes how solidarity is discursively articulated and made sense of, revealing its adaptability and evolving nature. However, it does not amount to a comprehensive survey of the PSM. A full understanding of the PSM’s affective and cultural ties to Palestine, its material practices, internal debates, or ties to other liberation movements would require ethnographic or interview-based fieldwork – methods beyond the scope of this article. This does not mean, however, that I view the PSM as solely focused on discursive antagonisms. Rather, it is a highly action-oriented movement, focused on tangible solidarity and material struggle. Focusing on movement texts and discourse rather allows for a broad – although not exhaustive – outlook on the movement in a wide variety of contexts, and, in particular, for a view on the different ways solidarity is conceptualized, motivated, and legitimized.

In what follows, I first provide historical background on the PSM and the solidarities that have defined it over time. After that, I outline my theoretical framework and methodological approach, present the analysis, and conclude by reflecting on the article’s key findings and broader theoretical implications.

Palestine solidarity and its legacies

Since the early 20th century, the Palestinian cause has drawn support from a wide array of anti-colonial actors. Before the cause was broadly picked up by the Western left in the 1960s, Palestine became a rallying point within emerging global anti-imperialist frameworks that linked revolutionary movements across the Arab world, Africa, Asia, and Latin America. These early solidarities laid the foundation for the global PSM.

Following the Balfour Declaration (1917), Zionism came to be viewed by Arab nationalist actors as linked to Western imperialism and a threat to Arab unity, enabling a nascent framework for support and solidarity (Khalidi, 2020: Chapters 1 and 2; Takriti, 2019: 61–80). After the 1948 establishment of Israel, this regional support for Palestine expanded, as revolutionary actors like the Algerian FLN and the Chinese Communist Party and international forums including the 1955 Bandung Conference and the 1958 Afro-Asian Peoples’ Solidarity Conference joined newly independent Arab states (Egypt, Syria, Iraq) in responding to Palestinian appeals. Offering rhetorical, diplomatic, organizational or material support, as well as boycott efforts, these actors framed Palestine not only as a regional issue, but as part of a broader Third Worldist consciousness shaped by mid-century decolonization.

In the 1960s, such solidarity networks became more advanced and tangible, as the decade saw the transformation of the PLO into a militant national liberation movement led by groups like al-Fatah and the Arab Nationalist Movement (precursor to the PFLP and the DFLP) (Cobban, 1984: 36–57, 246–250; Haugbølle and Olsen, 2023: 129–133). The PLO increasingly distanced itself from the Arab League, launched independent guerrilla campaigns, and undertook a deliberate project of building international contacts – solidifying its presence within a broader context of global decolonization and Third World internationalism (Chamberlin, 2011, 2012; Haugbølle and Olsen, 2023; Thomson et al., 2022). Through conferences, diplomacy, and multilingual publications, the PLO forged alliances with the Communist Party of Cuba, the National Liberation Front of Vietnam, the African National Congress, the Black Panthers, and other guerrillas across Africa, Latin America, and Asia (Fischbach, 2018; Henry, 2019; Lai et al., 2024; Pontarelli, 2024; Thomson and Olsen, 2024). As a result, relations of mutual solidarity between the PLO and global anti-imperialist actors were multiplied and deepened throughout the 1960s and 1970s, extending beyond ideological alignment to joint programs of aid, refuge, military assistance, training, and diplomacy.

During this period, the Palestinian cause also gained traction within Western New Left and student movements, alongside solidarity with, for example, Cuba and Vietnam. Especially the consequences of the 1967 war and the PLO’s rising profile facilitated the extension of Palestinian organizations’ networks into Western leftist circles. Driven in part by exiled Palestinian intellectuals, this growth saw solidarity organizations emerge in Europe and North America and links between the PLO and Western guerrillas, and the rise of Palestine as an “iconic signifier of solidarity” in the established Western left (Haugbølle and Olsen, 2023).

In this period, Palestine solidarity was animated by anti-imperialist politics and Third World decolonial consciousness, with Palestinian liberation understood as a key front in the global struggle against capitalism and US-imperialism. Here, solidarity was actively supportive of Palestinian armed factions: solidarity actors not only opposed Israel, but collaborated with Palestinian resistance, building international networks and support structures through conferences, publications, and economic transfers. In this sense, Palestine solidarity in this era was deeply politicized and embodied the “generative world-making possibilities of subaltern political activity” (Featherstone, 2012: 9), forging transnational solidarities through shared struggle.

However, another turning point came with the 1990s, marked by the end of the Cold War and the institutionalization of the Palestinian national movement through the Oslo Accords. Under Oslo, the PLO abandoned its role as a strident anti-imperialist actor and instead chose a path of bilateral negotiations, disarmament, and security coordination with Israel. Further, the collapse of the Cold War order weakened the internationalist, anti-imperialist frameworks that had previously sustained the PLO’s global alliances. In this context, many nations which had earlier been supporters of Palestine – such as Jordan, Vietnam, and Angola – utilized the transformation of world politics to normalize relations with Israel. In other words, the broader context of Third Worldist solidarity that had underpinned and been reinforced by the Palestinian liberation struggle began to erode.

Solidarity action were to spring up again, however, especially in conjunction with the Second Intifada (2000–2005) and the Gaza Wars (2006, 2008–2009, 2012, 2014). In the absence of a stable national leadership in the form of the PLO, and the emergence of many new actors with the Intifadas, this phase saw a new generation of Palestinian activists rise to the occasion to articulate continued Palestinian national aspirations and frustration with post-Oslo conditions, operating through leaderless resistance, NGOs, transnational networks, and civil society campaigns (Bakan and Abu-Laban, 2009; Barghouti, 2021; Khalidi, 2020: Chapters 5–7; Mullen, 2021; Takriti, 2019). Notably, much such activism sought to reclaim the internationalist momentum of earlier decades, but in new terms, utilizing international civil society spaces to this end. For instance, such initiatives played a major part in the NGO forum at the World Conference Against Racism (WCAR) in Durban in 2001, which issued a statement declaring Israel an apartheid state. Most notable, however, was the 2005 publication by 170 Palestinian civil society organizations of a call to the international public, urging boycott, divestments, and sanctions against Israeli economic, state, cultural and academic sectors until Israel complies with international human rights norms and law, and, in particular, cedes to three demands: end of occupation and colonization of Arab lands, recognition of Arab-Palestinian citizens of Israel’s full rights and equality, and promotion of Palestinian refugees’ right to return (BDS Movement, 2005; cf. Bakan and Abu-Laban, 2009; Barghouti, 2021; Maira, 2018; Mullen, 2021).

The call, and international outrage over Israel’s violence in conjunction with the Intifada and the Gaza Wars, propelled a renewed phase of international Palestine solidarity. New organizations and networks formed across the Global North-South divide, often drawing momentum from the concurrent growth in global civil society activism, including global justice, Indigenous, peasant, and anti-War activism (Maira, 2018; Morrison, 2022). Many of these networks responded directly to the BDS Committee’s appeal, organizing around its rights-based demands, advocating non-violent protest methods and boycotts, and drawing from the call’s analogy of Palestine solidarity with the international movement against South African Apartheid. Especially in the Global South, boycotts became popular and far reaching, with movements and trade unions in South Africa, Malaysia, and Brazil drawing from shared histories of anti-colonial resistance and racial justice struggle to build support for the boycott. Further, newly formed leftist governments also doubled down in their support of Palestine, with states like Venezuela and Bolivia urging Israel’s international isolation.

With these developments, the international solidarity of the PSM thus partially transformed. Mainly, this concerns three aspects. First, a greater emphasis within the PSM on international law and human rights, with Israel’s main fault being articulated as its human rights abuses and unlawful occupation rather than its position in an imperialist world-system. Second, a more “neutral” stance on internal Palestinian politics (Landy, 2014), with organizations primarily rallying around common opposition to Israel rather than explicit support of any particular Palestinian faction. Third, a de-emphasizing of support for armed struggle in favor of civil disobedience, boycotts, and communication with Palestinian civil society (Barghouti, 2021; Mullen, 2021; Vally, 2008). This rearticulated basis for solidarity can be viewed as broader than earlier, with a key part of its objective being pursuit of international appeal.

Such shifts should, however, not be interpreted as de-politicizing or de-radicalizing the Palestinian struggle or solidarity therewith, but as deliberate tactics (Erakat, 2019: 228–241; Sultany, 2013; Takriti, 2019: 58–59, 85–86). Crucially, while BDS gained notable prominence in Western civil society by using a language of human rights and international law – contributing to a partial shift in international discourse on Israel/Palestine – it is and remains a Palestinian-led initiative rooted in a broader Southern, anti-colonial imaginary. The 2005 call was published by 170 Palestinian organizations operating under occupation or in exile, and explicitly articulated the struggle in terms of opposition to settler colonialism and imperial domination. The campaign tactically engages human rights discourse and international law to anchor legitimacy for the Palestinian cause in established international norms, especially by likening the Palestinian struggle to the struggle against South African apartheid (Awad, 2021; Erakat, 2019; Qutami, 2014; Sultany, 2013).

With such tactical moves, a viable framework for a post-Cold War form of international solidarity could be (re-)established, enabling international actors to work as auxiliary actors to Palestinian anti-imperialism and provide the struggle with international discursive and economic support. Although some actors – especially in liberal and progressive spaces in the West – have downplayed the political and revolutionary dimensions of the Palestinian struggle in favor of ethical opposition to Israel, the tactic does not replace or fundamentally transform the fundamental objectives of Palestinian nationalism and anti-colonialism, but rather complements it by providing a framework for international support.

With the expansion of PSM activism after 2023 it is highly likely that the nature of the movement’s solidarity has transformed further. As noted, one objective of this article is to explore the nature of this transformation. What type of solidarity is fostered now – the anti-imperialist solidarity of the sixties or the broader, more humanitarian-oriented, solidarity of the 2000s, or some combination?

Social movements, global civil society, and (international) solidarity

I conceptualize social movements not as a distinct empirical category, but rather as collective processes that articulate social conflict and strive towards social transformation (L. Cox and Nilsen, 2015; Thörn, 1997; Touraine, 1980). This definition extends beyond movements’ open actions to encompass their broader articulations of conflict within given historical contexts. Building from this, I define the PSM as the totality of collective action that has emerged internationally in response to Israel’s colonization of Palestine and its humanitarian, geopolitical, and economic consequences – related to, but not synonymous with, Palestinian resistance.

Further, with this understanding of social movements, it becomes important to contextualize social movements in relation to the complex spatial and political configurations of the social systems in which they operate. In the current era, this entails analyzing social movements as operating in increasingly globalized social contexts (Cassegård et al., 2017; Chase-Dunn and Almeida, 2020). Notably, the PSM is particularly shaped by globalized discourses and alliances. Many of its actors are linked in international networks and collaborate across borders, building from mutual ties to Palestinian civil society, political actors, and diaspora communities. Furthermore, the activism of the PSM often addresses international or globalized actors, such as the UN, ICC, ICJ or multinational corporations. Thus, the PSM is fundamentally shaped by the dynamics of globalization. It does not only oppose the Israeli state but also interrogates how Israeli occupation is embedded in global institutions and systems of power.

In this sense, the PSM develops its struggle throughout global civil society spaces: globalized communication spaces, institutions, and networks in which struggles over the “the values, norms, and rules that govern global social space(s)” are waged (Sunnemark and Thörn, 2023: 58; cf. Cox, 1999; Thörn, 2009). With this in mind, I conceptualize the student PSM as a globalized formation, made up of various nodes which are differently situated in varying local and national contexts. Such nodes are influenced by local histories of activism, disparities between national university systems, and differing governmental stances on Israel/Palestine, but remain situated within a globally articulated field of struggle, relatively unified by a common orientation around the Palestinian cause, as disseminated through international networks, discourses, and solidarities.

Further, to analyze how different actors within this global movement cohere and collaborate, I draw on Antentas (2022), Featherstone (2012), and García Agustín and Bak Jørgensen (2016) to construct a Gramscian conception of solidarity. Whilst Gramsci does not theorize solidarity in his Prison Notebooks (Gramsci, 1971), it can still be understood as integral to his theory of hegemony. For Gramsci (1971), (counter-)hegemonic blocs are constructed from solidaristic alliances between differently positioned groups. Such groups become unified in solidarity and common political struggle through elaboration of a shared “collective will”, that is, a unifying ideological consciousness constructed from existing practices and struggles (Gramsci, 1971: 125–133, 330–331).

Drawing on Gramsci’s framework, I thus define solidarity as a discursive and political practice that enables differently positioned actors to identify with one another and view their respective interests as interconnected through a shared political objective or struggle. Functioning as such, solidarity binds various groups together by operating at the intersection of ideology and praxis: on the one hand, providing a shared political analysis that identifies common social ills, enemies, friends, and desirable futures (Gramsci, 1971: 270, 377); on the other, elaborating such mutuality in concrete, practical acts of cooperation, such as protest, mutual aid, economic transfers, and transnational coordination. In this sense, solidarity constructs links between different groups, allowing their struggles to operate conjointly and situating solidarity in specific spatial and historical contexts, as emphasized by Featherstone (2012).

This conception highlights solidarity’s multivalent and open-ended character. It can take different forms – mutual or one-sided, inclusive or exclusive, rigid or flexible – and must constantly be reconfigured through ongoing political struggle. As discussed by Dean (1995), solidarity can be constructed as an inwardly-oriented “traditional solidarity” or as a “reflective solidarity”, which continually orients itself towards external groups. As put by Antentas (2022), it can be constructed as one group’s solidarity with another group or as a mutual solidarity between different groups. In all its forms, solidarity is a generative and transformative process: it constructs connections between and within groups and demands continual renewal through political praxis and discursive signification.

Lastly, to analyze how solidarity is built in practice, I also build from Hall’s (2018; Grossberg and Hall, 1986) understanding of articulation: a practice which constructs and expresses a field of action by linking together previously disparate elements under some overarching discursive principle. From this perspective, analyzing solidarity involves examining: (a) how the different subjects engaged in solidarity are ideologically conceptualized and how connections between them are drawn, (b) the political struggles in which solidarities are constructed and made necessary, impactful, or beneficial. In Gramscian terms, this means attending to the ideological principles through which solidarity becomes constructed and enacted, as well as the concrete terrain(s) of struggle, conflict, and hegemony which the solidarity formation engage(s).

Method and material

To study the cases, I adopt discourse analysis of movement texts, such as manifestoes, calls to action, lists of demands, et cetera, authored, and/or published by the organizations. Drawing from Thörn (1997), Laclau and Mouffe (2001), and Hall (2018; Grossberg and Hall, 1986), movement texts can here be viewed as articulations which construct and disseminate a movement’s leading ideology and collective identity and orient participants towards common frameworks and points of identification. While movement text analysis offers no first-hand data on movements’ practices, internal debates or movement participants’ motivations or reflections, it enables a view of leading articulations of solidarity within a movement and insight into how the movement interacts with its context(s). As noted earlier, this choice of methodology does not amount to a view of the movement in question as solely defined by their discursive practices; rather, the aim is to offer insight into how concrete movement practices, debates, and positionings are discursively transcoded and legitimized when presented to an external public. This enables an exploratory – although not exhaustive – view of how solidarity formations vary and develop across space and time.

Concretely, I employ a method of analysis inspired by Laclau and Mouffe’s discourse theory which can be described as follows. Manifestoes, calls to action, lists of demands, news reports, and ideological texts published by the organizations from 7 October 2023 to 1 January 2025 were gathered from homepages, social media feeds, and third-party sites, amounting to 750 pages in total. These were organized chronologically, translated when necessary, and read synoptically to identify overarching themes. The corpus then underwent detailed coding to locate the texts’ articulations of solidarity, analyses of the Israel-Palestine conflict, and constructions of inter-organizational relationships. Using Laclau and Mouffe’s (2001: 112) terms, this can be viewed as a process of locating the nodal points of the texts – that is, the “privileged discursive points” around which meaning is organized. Finally, the discursive formations uncovered were interpreted in relation to contextual factors, such as university history, national and international policies on Israel/Palestine, and links between activists and actors in Israel or Palestine. With this analysis, I arrive at an exploratory, multi-contextual account of the various forms of solidarity articulated in the student PSM.

Analysis

The “core” political objective – Liberation of Palestine

The central point of convergence within the student PSM’s solidarity ecology is the objective of Palestinian liberation. This unifying principle can be observed in movement texts or speeches where organizations’ overarching motives and demands are outlined:

The aim is to get the students to see their similarities in the struggle for Palestinian liberation, articulated around three programmatic points: For an end to the occupation of Palestinian lands! For the right of refugees to return! For the release of political prisoners! (ESPP-USP, 2023)

We want a one-state solution. One Palestine from the river to sea. The struggle for a free Palestine is a struggle against all forms of oppression. It is a struggle against racism, capitalism, colonialism, misogyny, queerphobia, and all other forms of oppression. An injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere (Wits PSC, 2023).

1. The current siege of Gaza and the unfolding massacre are a continuation of the Nakba and 76 years of Israeli occupation and apartheid. Palestinians are being denied their right to their land, shelter, and safety. 2. The ongoing genocide and scholasticide in Palestine unite the struggle against imperialism, colonialism and displacement globally. [. . .] 4. We recognise the right of Palestinians to resist the Israeli occupation and settler colonization, which is funded financially and militarily by Western imperial actors. [. . .] 5. An immediate ceasefire is necessary to stop the genocide and ethnic cleansing. It is the minimal first step towards durable peace and reconciliation that must include the end of apartheid and occupation. [. . .] 6. By pushing Israeli academic boycott, public condemnation of Israel’s apartheid, occupation of and genocide in Palestine, and offering support of Palestinian students we are contributing to the Palestinian liberation movement. (GU Students for Palestine, 2024b)

CUAD is a coalition of student organizations working toward achieving a liberated Palestine and the end of Israeli apartheid by urging Columbia to divest all economic and academic stakes in Israel. We seek an end to all interlocking systems of oppression through collective action and solidarity with oppressed people worldwide. [. . .] We envision a free Palestine. We necessarily envision an entire world free from colonialism and imperialism, and from all the interrelated systems of oppression that uphold them. (Columbia University Apartheid Divest, 2023)

Across these quotes, an anti-colonial analysis of the Israel/Palestine-conflict is outlined, establishing an ideological foundation shared by the organizations. By framing the post-October 7th assault on Gaza in relation to the 1948 Nakba, the movement views it as an effect or continuation of long-term Israeli apartheid and settler-colonialism. By therefore regarding the Palestinian people’s current struggle as legitimate resistance against imperialism and oppression, Palestinian liberation becomes articulated as emblematic for broader liberation struggles, for whom it serves as a model and symbol of solidarity.

Consequently, demands for a ceasefire and an end to ethnic cleansing become regarded as necessary but “minimal first step[s]”. To build a “durable peace and reconciliation”, it rather becomes necessary to realize the Palestinian people’s demands for “liberation”. Such liberation entails dismantling Israeli settler-colonialism, occupation, and Apartheid, and, ultimately, achieving a sustainable “one-state solution”. As in the quote by ESPP above, this objective is often concretized using references to the demands of the Palestinian Thawabit, such as an end to Israeli military occupation, Palestinians’ right to self-determination and nationhood, and the right of refugees to return. Moreover, organizations situate Palestinian liberation in relation to broader anti-colonial and anti-imperialist struggles, viewing its realization as a potential blow to the systemic forces that sustain colonial oppression elsewhere. Collectively, this ideological foundation enables resonance with diverse student groups; the demands of the Thawabit flow directly from Palestinian organizations and resonate with Palestinian diaspora students’ personal interests whereas the situation of Palestine in relation to broader struggles enables ties between engagement for Palestine and engagement, for example, Black liberation, Indigenous, and anti-capitalist movements.

These ideological principles should be noted for two main reasons. First, because they differentiate the movement’s solidarity from more generalist notions of sympathy or empathy with victims of war and violence. While the student PSM calls for an end to war and suffering, it views these demands as only a minimal first step. Its actual objective is rather a political one, namely to position university students on the side of Palestinian liberation and utilize their positionality to leverage political support and material assistance for the struggle. Second, because they provide the diverse movement with a set of unifying principles which can be said to signal the overarching collective will of their attempted counter-hegemonic bloc. The stances contained herein can be viewed as flowing from analyses cultivated by Palestinian organizations, communicated across global fora and through the activism of Palestinians in diaspora. Functioning as such, this ideology provides a link between solidarity actors and actors in Palestine, and thereby offers a unifying vision that directs and sustains focus and collective action within a diverse solidarity ecology, binding actors together as part of a common bloc.

Solidarity practice, boycott, and anti-imperialism

While the students’ overarching analysis of Palestinian liberation thus signals influence from the long tradition of Palestinian nationalism and anti-colonialism – discussing the 1948 Nakba, supporting armed struggle and a one-state solution, and drawing on historical PLO principles such as the Thawabit – their concrete demands and praxes flow more directly from the post-Oslo Accords wave of international solidarity activism, spearheaded by Palestinian civil society’s call for global BDS activism. This can be seen in the lists of demands published by the organizations in conjunction with their encampments:

Our demands: 1) Full disclosure regarding Wits relations with Israeli and Israeli-aligned institutions and companies, 2) A public position in solidarity with Palestine, 3) The adoption of a BDS position regarding procurement, investment and collaborations (Wits Liberated Zone, 2024).

Our demands [. . .]: 1) That GU formally declare all financial, educational and other collaborations/exchanges/contacts/investments in or with Israeli universities and immediately revoke such. 2) The leadership of GU to officially and publicly condemn Israel’s genocide agains Palestinians (GU Students for Palestine, 2024a).

The Columbia University Apartheid Divest demands Columbia University immediately divest all economic and academic stakes in Israeli apartheid in accordance with the results of the 2020 student body referendum (Columbia University Apartheid Divest, 2023)

Our demand is clear: we demand the immediate cancellation of USP’s agreements with Israel, an important part of the Palestinian people’s demand for an academic boycott! (ESPP-USP, 2024b)

Here, it is clear that the student encampments’ demands flow more or less directly from the principles of the BDS call. Their demands, first, recognize a certain power differential between the subject and the object of solidarity, urging those acting in solidarity to leverage their relative privilege to support those under oppression, thus taking up the BDS call’s (BDS Movement, 2005) urging that “people of conscience in the international community” should shoulder “a moral responsibility to fight injustice” in solidarity with the Palestinian people. Second, they suggest that the immediate goal of this solidarity should be to pressure powerful institutions to remove their ongoing support of or complicity in Israeli oppression. As such, solidarity action is here concretely construed as a pursuit of negative relations, as the initiation of dis-engagement and the replacement of existing relations with non-relations, to exert pressure on Israel on the international arena. This flows from the BDS committee’s suggested tactic.

At a first glance, the relationship between the student organizations’ ideological orientations and their primary demands and praxes can be viewed as somewhat contradictory; the former legitimizes armed struggle and proposes anti-imperialist aspirations whereas the latter urges non-violent protest and a rhetoric of international law and human rights. However, such apparent incommensurability is actually an effect of the BDS campaign’s tactical function in the overall strategy of the Palestinian liberation movement. As recognized by several Palestinian authors (Awad, 2021; Erakat, 2012, 2019; Qutami, 2014; Sultany, 2013), the call’s emphasis on non-violent action, human rights, and international law should not be viewed as reflective of the Palestinian movement’s fundamental principles, overall strategy, or ultimate goals, but rather as tactical choices done to enable solidarity actors’ effective action for de-legitimization and isolation of Israel. In fact, the BDS National Committee explicitly refrains from the task of setting up strategic principles or goals. Its task is not to “represent the collective will of the Palestinian national body, but instead to establish a trustworthy reference for international solidarity” (Erakat, 2012). As stated by Omar Barghouti (quoted in Erakat, 2012) “[t]he BNC is not, and does not, aspire to become an alternative political body. The political leadership of the Palestinian people must remain within the structures of the PLO”.

Palestinian proponents of BDS thus have no illusion that boycott action, international legal channels or human rights discourse constitute a definitive pathway towards Palestinian liberation. ² Instead, it is viewed as a tactical program for international solidarity which decimates the Israeli state and lays fruitful groundwork for an eventual, comprehensive national liberation strategy – even though such a strategy might be currently absent, given the disarming of the PLO and its absorption into the Palestinian Authority and its bilateral negotiation structures.

For this reason, it is best to conceive of the student organizations’ duality – their programmatic anti-imperialism versus their tactical non-violence and boycott focus – as resulting from their position in an overarching solidarity ecology, orchestrated from Palestinian actors’ hegemonic leadership. As solidarity actors, the student PSM serve specific roles in a composite strategy dictated and communicated by Palestinian leadership, adjusting their actions and rhetoric as they strive to reconcile guidance from Palestinian actors with their specific positioning as solidarity actors in various social and political contexts. Rather than casting non-violent boycott action as a singular strategy towards liberation, the students thus frame it as one mode of active, situated participation within a broader, Palestinian-led, anti-imperialist project. Their understanding of their role in this overall strategic complex guided by Palestinian leadership is evident from their general ideological analyses of the Israel-Palestine conflict and their articulation of long-term goals. Further, such an understanding of the complex positioning of solidarity practice in a wider ecology of action is more directly evident in two discursive patterns.

First, this is seen in the student PSM’s delineation between short-term and long-term demands and goals. Just as ceasefire demands appear in movement texts as a “minimal first step” towards Palestinian liberation, the pursuit of BDS-style non-violent action is articulated as a choice to “dig where you stand”, that is, focusing on what can be done immediately in one’s concrete, local circumstances as a short- to medium-term tactic which can eventually be escalated once the long-term goal is more within sight. This demonstrates the influence of the BDS call’s priorities, but also a willingness to focus on materially achievable goals within one’s immediate context, even while keeping revolutionary horizons in view.

Second, this is seen in student organizations’ longer ideological and strategic reflections on the role of the BDS movement vis-á-vis the ultimate imperative of anti-imperialist change. This can be seen, for instance, in an article published by CUAD, where they argue that the pursuit of the BDS tactic constitutes the most suitable task for students acting as “auxiliary actors” in anti-imperialist struggle:

As the US uses sanctions as a form of warfare, BDS, at its most radical, is a form of economic war against Israel, and therefore against imperialism. Just as divestment from South Africa followed the failings of the apartheid economy, the major ‘BDS wins’ we see in our contemporary moment are a direct result of the economic costs the Palestinian resistance has imposed on the Zionist entity. [. . .] We do not only want an end to this genocide; we want the premise of Israel’s settler statehood challenged. BDS reimagines economic warfare waged from the bottom-up. Our movement is fundamentally anti-imperialist, and we learn from our history and the current struggles around us to unite the struggle of Palestinians with the international struggle against imperialism, strengthening our common causes against our common enemy. We do not view imperial violence as extra-economic activity, but instead as integral to US-led accumulation. The international working class and the oppressed of the world share common antagonism with the imperialist class, and today this manifests most sharply in Palestine (Dasha et al., 2024: 493).

Here, by suggesting a radical version of BDS, which views students’ part in the struggle as one of utilizing an outside positionality to wage “economic war” in concert with the more direct warfare of Palestinian resistance, CUAD articulates the central principles of BDS with a strident anti-imperialist position, resembling many Palestinian actors’ view of BDS as a tactical repertoire subsumed under an overall anti-imperialist strategy. When reflected upon strategically and ideologically, the BDS call’s references to international law and human rights discourse become under-emphasized in favor of the tactic’s relationship to a global antagonistic dividing line between the “international working class and the oppressed of the world” and the “imperialist class”, for which the fight for Palestinian liberation represents a “vanguard struggle” which needs to be assisted. As university students in the imperial “core”, this means pressuring institutions in one’s proximity to boycott Israel, inflicting economic damage upon Israel’s imperialist accumulation.

A similar fusion of BDS rhetoric and anti-imperialism is done by Wits PSC. In a joint statement published by Wits PSC and Healthcare Workers 4 Palestine, they reconnect to the anti-apartheid movement’s militant struggle, viewing this as comparable to Palestinian resistance:

South Africa’s own history provides a powerful lens through which to understand this impasse. If the internet had existed 50 years ago, what would have been the response to a prominent scholar posting similar messages after the killings of Solomon Mahlangu, Duma Nokwe, Basil February, Looksmart Ngudle, Washington Bongco and many others involved in armed resistance against apartheid? These icons of resistance were vilified by the apartheid regime and its allies, branded as terrorists and threats to national security. Yet today, they are celebrated for their courage, and their deaths symbolise a global rejection of oppression and the universal struggle for justice (Wits PSC and Healthcare Workers 4 Palestine South Africa, 2024).

Whilst not directly addressing the BDS campaign, this can be read as advancing an image of boycott action and the anti-apartheid movement which implicitly refutes the tendency to treat BDS as a self-sufficient strategy, rather than recognizing it as one tactic within a multifaceted liberation strategy. Here, the anti-apartheid movement’s struggle is rephrased as defined by an organic combination of both militant anti-imperialist action and international boycott efforts. Wits PSC and HCW4P therefore utilize historical experiences of the anti-apartheid movement to stress an analogy between these two strategies, implicitly suggesting that the erasure of the militant component of anti-apartheid struggle in favor of the non-violent, international component risks removing boycott efforts from their relationship to anti-imperialist political strategy.

In these quotes, then, the disjuncture between, on the one hand, militant anti-imperialist orientation and, on the other, non-violent tactics and emphasis on human rights and international law is not a contradiction but articulated as an effect of situated solidarity – where actors across global civil society operationalize resistance according to the affordances and constraints of their positionality, under the strategic guidance of Palestinian leadership. Still, in the discursive material of the organizations, there remain certain tensions between these two “poles”. While reconcilable on an overall strategic level, the two poles remain difficult to fully harmonize within one and the same text due to their different rationales for ideological legitimization (anti-imperialist materialism vs. adherence to international law). As a result, one of the two poles tends to predominate depending on what organization wrote the text and what the context of the text is. Such factors are discussed in the following section.

The ambivalence of international law and human rights

Across the analyzed movement texts, contrasting positions appear mainly in relation to the topic of international law, flowing from whether the organization primarily emphasizes long-term revolutionary anti-imperialist goals or current BDS-aligned non-violent tactics. Most clearly, advocacy for international law and human rights, and for their principality within the struggle for Palestinian liberation, can be identified in the discourse of GUSP:

The University of Gothenburg has earlier taken firm stances in other conflicts, for instance regarding collaborations with Russian universities after the invasion of Ukraine. Why aren’t the same principles applied, even as the UN, the ICJ, Amnesty, and countless human rights organizations have documented international law and human rights violations in Palestine and Lebanon? (GU Students for Palestine, 2024c)

Here, international institutions such as the United Nations and the International Court of Justice, as well as human rights NGOs, are invoked as sources of legitimacy, utilized to scorn the perceived hypocrisy of the university in supporting some nations under occupation and not others. Notably, this means downplaying a positional anti-imperialist analysis of the Israel/Palestine-question and the potential antagonism between an imperialist and an oppressed class in favor of perceiving the conflict through a universalist lens. In this statement, Israel’s fault lies not – primarily – in its position as an imperialist actor, but rather in its violations of ostensibly universal principles and laws. As noted, this articulation flows from the BDS call, which too refers to international law and UN resolutions to legitimize opposition to Israel (BDS Movement, 2005).

In contrast to this, CUAD wholly rejects international law and institutions, viewing them as working in the interests of US-imperialism:

In late June, students from Columbia and UCLA were invited to the UN in Geneva to speak on violations of human rights on university campuses. What we witnessed were performances of empathy without any tangible action against or acknowledgement of the Zionist entity’s genocide of Palestinians. Because the UN is a colonial institution developed for and by the West. [. . .] We know our demands and refuse to let bureaucrats hide behind diplomacy. We must continue to hold a mirror up to every suit that claims to work in the name of human rights and let them feel shame. Only the people will liberate Palestine. The institution will never love you back (Columbia University Apartheid Divest, 2024a).

Here, such institutions and discourses are criticized as part of the structural conflict that the movement engages. Against such institutions, and the structures they represent, revolutionary anti-imperialist and anti-capitalist people’s struggle is advocated.

In relation to these two “extremes”, Wits PSC and ESPP take middle-positions. Continually, they emphasize Palestinian solidarity as part of a common project of anti-imperialist struggle, in large part by referencing their own domestic histories of anti-imperialism. Thereby, the universalist legitimacy of international law or human rights discourse is rarely evoked by Wits PSC and ESPP. However, such principles and institutions are not fully rejected by them either. Especially when it comes to justifying Palestinians’ armed struggle, Wits PSC and ESPP repeatedly refer to the legitimization of such struggle in UN resolutions.

Again, these discursive differences should not be interpreted as signs of inconsistency or internal divides, causing the pursuit of largely different projects of solidarity. Rather it is necessary to consider, first, the strong resonance that appeals to international law and human rights discourse have in many political contexts. By forging some discourses which resonate with dominant political hegemonies whilst simultaneously refuting Israel’s (geo)political legitimacy, the student organizations engage in a multi-fronted war of position, where boycott action becomes aimed at a discursive delegitimization of Israeli hegemony on the international stage, in addition to concrete material effects on the Israeli economy (Maira, 2018: 38; Takriti, 2019: 83–84). Thus, rather than viewing the differences recounted above as the result of ideological schisms, they can be viewed as the outcome of concrete tactical decisions done in such a war of position.

Second, it should also be noted that human rights discourse is a highly ambivalent and contradictory formation, where an invocation of a certain subject’s human rights can, in the same stroke as it is invoked, become configured as a critique of human rights discourse itself. As noted by Rancière (2004: 305), “the strength of [human rights] lies in the back-and-forth movement between the first inscription of the right and the dissensual stage on which it is put to test”. Human rights discourse is characterized by instability, insofar as it is never guaranteed to exactly whom rights are extended, what characterizes them as rights-holders, and who will uphold the rights, which then can become the source of struggle. By putting these things into question, such as is done by parts of the student PSM, human rights discourse can become de-stabilized in the same stroke as it is utilized as a specific tactic for legitimization, thereby re-signifying its hegemonic configuration and opening it up for questioning in a war of positions. This is yet another reason why the PSM’s differing positions on international law and human rights discourse need not necessarily be interpreted as signs of ideological splits. Rather, they can be viewed as representing two different discursive tactics for articulating a largely similar critique of the contradictoriness of human rights discourse – one critiquing it “from the outside”, pointing out its ties to imperialism and Western universalism, one “from the inside”, by using human rights discourse’s own rhetorical resources to pry open its internal contradictions.

Reasons such as these are why I conceptualize the student PSM as a solidarity ecology rather than as an internally divided movement. Given the multiple positionalities of its constituent actors, combined with the central articulatory principle of solidarity, the diversity of the PSM should be viewed as reflecting a multitude of decisions and articulations done in relation to partially similar, partially different contexts, yet converging over a common political objective and ideological outlook.

Bearing this in mind, however, the differences between the organizations need to be understood in relation to their differing national contexts, and, in particular, these contexts’ relationships to previous waves of struggle.

From a certain angle, the radical position of CUAD seems counter-intuitive. Out of the four contexts studied, the US undoubtedly has the most entrenched pro-Israel foreign policy. Why would Palestinian solidarity be articulated in such a radical manner there? To understand this, it becomes necessary to view CUAD’s connections to previous waves and current traditions of anti-imperialist, anti-colonial, and anti-racist activism on US campuses and in US society more broadly. In particular, CUAD’s radicalism can be understood in relation to both recent and historical radical social movements at Columbia, ranging from students’ Black Power initiatives and protests against the Vietnam War in the 1960s and 1970s (Bradley, 2009; Grant, 1969) to more recent examples of Black Lives Matter, Land Back, and initiatives for the decolonization of higher education, which have all been highly prominent on US campuses. The radical, anti-systemic outlooks of such movements – anti-imperialism, anti-capitalism, decoloniality – are highly influential on the current student PSM’s understanding of the Palestinian struggle in both ideological and practical terms.

More broadly, however, this relation of influence should be viewed as related to the US’s position as hegemon in the current imperialist world-system. Due to this position, anti-imperialist movements inside and outside of the US have consistently targeted the United States as a main adversary. Further, the US’s pro-Israel actions in its capacity as hegemon can be regarded as a main reason for Israel’s continued regional power. With this matrix in mind, it is difficult to see how a US-American pro-Palestinian movement could be fostered without directly critiquing the US government’s obvious imperialist interests.

A comparably less radical anti-imperialist emphasis instead becomes more advantageous in a context such as Sweden, which has historically balanced between tacit political support for anti-imperialist or anti-apartheid movements abroad and a concurrent erasure of its own imperialist history, which includes complicity in, material support for, and own projects of, imperial conquest – from West Africa and the Caribbean to Sápmi. This balancing act has contributed to Sweden’s self-image as a neutral, humanitarian nation and has led portions of the Swedish populace and leading sections of the Swedish political class to, at least during specific periods, support anti-imperialist struggle. Strong social movements, as well as the Social Democratic governments of the 1960s and 1970s, acted in support of the Vietnamese people and in favor of the anti-Apartheid movement (Scott, 2017; Thörn, 2009: 76–80). Such broad engagement, however, meant the re-coding of such issues in terms of human rights and international law, with Sweden re-dressing itself as a proponent of independence and pro-democracy struggles in international arenas. It was also under the auspice of this foreign policy that Sweden recognized the Palestinian state in 2014 (Eriksson, 2018). This ubiquity of human rights discourse in Swedish understandings of international conflicts provide crucial context when it comes to understanding GUSP’s emphasis on discourses of international law and human rights in their articulation of solidarity. The legacy of Social Democratic support for anti-apartheid and (some) anti-imperialism provides a continuity which the students can latch on to and utilize to afford their struggle with legitimacy.

Further, in South Africa and Brazil, there are strong legacies of anti-imperialist struggle. Discourses of anti-colonialism, anti-capitalism, et cetera, form part of these nations’ collective consciousnesses. Moreover, anti-imperialist movements in these countries have seen their struggle alternately aided and hindered by international law and institutions. This makes it advantageous for these student organizations to articulate the interests of the general population as in line with those of the Palestinian people’s anti-imperialist struggle whilst simultaneously adopting a more agnostic stance towards institutions such as the UN.

Solidarity with, solidarity between, diasporic links, and coalitional politics

In the student organizations’ main programmatic statements, solidarity is generally not articulated on the basis of any particular subject position which can be construed as having a specific interest in advancing the Palestinian cause. Rather, broad unity around Palestinian liberation as a political objective is emphasized. As a solidarity ecology, the movement can be viewed as assembling a multitude of different subjects, united in the political objective of liberating Palestine but each with various links to, and specific political motivations for standing in solidarity with, Palestine.

Beyond these general justifications, however, some movement texts highlight two additional motives for solidarity: (a) structural and historical links between the Palestinian struggle and other struggles and (b) the Palestinian diaspora’s familial and social links. When these linkages are foregrounded, the movement’s general “solidarity with” becomes complemented with a sense of “solidarity between” oppressed subjects. In particular, such linkages are highlighted when organizations intervene in, or comment on, political debates relatively specific to their local or national contexts. This accentuates the articulatory nature of solidarity and the student PSM’s existence as a solidarity ecology: the movement alternates between different constructions of, and motivations for, solidarity depending on concrete political context.

The first of these links can be seen across a wide range of movement texts. It can be seen in CUAD’s envisioning of the Palestinian struggle as a “vanguard struggle” in a broad, global fight against US imperialism, capitalism, and racism. This is concretized in several ways. First, the CUAD incorporated as one of their key demands the end to gentrification in Harlem, demanding a “stop [to] displacement”:

No land grabs, whether in Harlem, Lenapehoking, or Palestine. Cease expansion, provide reparations, and support housing for low-income Harlem residents. No development by Columbia without real community control (Columbia University Apartheid Divest, 2024c).

In the posing of this demand, CUAD frames Columbia’s perpetuation of gentrification and displacement – owing to their expansion efforts and investments in real estate projects – as directly linked to the university’s complicity in Israel’s displacement and genocide of Palestinians, viewing both ills as stemming from Columbia’s role as an imperialist, capitalist actor, guided by the class interests of its Board of Trustees. This allows students residing in Harlem to see their material interests as tied to those of Palestinians, connecting their struggles and motivating solidarity between them.

In addition to this, CUAD built from historical connections between Palestinian resistance, the Black Power movement, the anti-Vietnam War movement, and global anti-imperialist movements. In doing so, they aimed to promote similar linkages between, for example, Palestine solidarity, Black liberation, anti-colonialism, feminism and class struggle, articulating all such movements as standing in common opposition to US-led imperialism:

As students committed to fighting against imperialism, one of our tasks is to reveal the interconnectedness of our struggles and, consequently, the strength we derive from that unity through our active participation in them [. . .] Understanding our friends and enemies is the first question of a revolution. Our cause is with the oppressed and exploited people across continents and nations, while Zionists, colonizers, and the big capitalists that back them are our enemies everywhere (Columbia University Apartheid Divest, 2024b)

With this reasoning, Palestinian liberation is viewed as essential for the global struggle of the world’s oppressed classes and peoples, articulating Palestine solidarity as emblematic to a more general solidarity between oppressed subjects. In particular, this drew linkages between the interests of the Palestinians and working class, Black, Native American, women, and queer students, positioning each of their struggles as part of a common bloc.

Similar connections emerge in the case of Wits PSC, who drew parallels between Palestine solidarity and their own struggles in post-Apartheid South Africa. Mainly, they drew parallels to contemporary student movements like #RhodesMustFall and #FeesMustFall to legitimize support for Palestine:

Revelations regarding the use of Israeli-made water cannons against students in South Africa during #FeesMustFall underscores the global interconnectedness of struggles for justice [. . .] The parallels drawn between Israeli actions and the former apartheid regime by many South Africans reflect a profound understanding of oppression and solidarity (Wits PSC, 2024)

Wits PSC articulates the student movements and Palestine solidarity struggle as confronting shared or interconnected adversaries by pointing to South African authorities’ usage of Israeli-manufactured law enforcement technology. Further, this entanglement becomes contextualized in relation to the historical relationship between Israel and apartheid-era South Africa. In total, this positions South African students and Palestinians on the same side of a conflict between oppressed people and (neo-)colonial forces.

Such connections were elaborated and contextualized further in movement texts drawing more explicit parallels between Palestine’s struggle for liberation and South Africa’s historical memory of anti-Apartheid and anti-colonial struggle:

As South Africans, we know all too well the struggle against apartheid and colonialism and thus it is our revolutionary duty that, as South Africans, we take a clear stance in condemning the brutal apartheid colonial settler state of Israel. It must also be noted, comrades, that just as South Africa had the right to resist apartheid and colonialism, with groups like uMkhonto We Sizwe, so do the Palestinian people. (Wits PSC, 2023)

By invoking uMkhonto We Sizwe, Wits PSC situates Palestine solidarity within the context of South Africa’s anti-Apartheid and anti-colonial historical legacy, reinforcing its political urgency and drawing strong linkages between (Black) South Africans and Palestinians. Here, they are thus viewed as similarly positioned subjects engaged in a similar, interconnected struggle against imperialist-colonial forces.

The ESPP also linked struggles in Brazil and Palestine, articulating students, Black Brazilians, and the Palestinian people as having mutual interests in fighting imperialist interests, which are articulated as associated with the aggressive Brazilian right. Mainly, this was done by pointing out concrete linkages between Israeli law enforcement, weapons industries, and repressive and authoritarian political forces in Brazil. ESPP argues that these adversaries collaborate to suppress liberation struggles and displaced or discriminated populations in Brazil and Palestine alike, and must therefore be resisted conjointly:

I think that first of all, apart from the importance of having international solidarity with the Palestinian people, because they are suffering there because it is a colonial project, right? Zionism and the project implemented by Israel is a colonial project that is basically the same project that has oppressed Brazil and still oppresses all these years and all the countries of the global South. In addition, it is very important for us to understand that being in the state of São Paulo, especially where our governor recently held meetings, including various partnerships with the Israeli state, it is very important for us to combat this project. [. . .] Israel’s weapons kill people in Brazil and Palestine. The São Paulo Military Police and several other states in Brazil import military weapons from Israel and we know what these weapons are used for on Brazilian soil, right? [. . .] I think it’s very important that we understand this, including how this is interconnected with the demands of the Brazilian black movement, because deep down we know that these weapons from Israel that are being imported into Brazil to kill and participate in the genocide of black Brazilian youth (ESPP-USP, 2024a).

Here, the two aspects of solidarity are explicitly addressed: in addition to having “solidarity with” the Palestinian people, it is accentuated that there is also a commonality of interest between Brazilians and Palestinians, making a project of “solidarity between” necessary. As Israel’s settler-colonialism is part of “the same project that has oppressed Brazil” and as Israeli weapons manufacturers provide the São Paulo police with “military weapons” to “participate in the genocide of black Brazilian youth”, Palestine solidarity becomes articulated as a matter of furthering anti-racist, anti-colonial struggle in Brazil and “all countries of the Global South”. In particular, this reflects pro-Palestinian solidarity’s broader anchoring in internal Brazilian politics, shaped by the country’s postcolonial status and history of military dictatorship, where struggle against police repression, racialized violence and carcerality goes hand-in-hand with opposition to the Brazilian Bolsonarist right’s fervent support of Israel.

In addition to these linkages between Palestinian subjects and subordinated subjects in the US, Brazil, and South Africa, one also needs to note diasporic links between Palestinians in the Middle East and activists of Palestinian origin in non-Palestinian universities.

Across the four contexts, important members of the student PSM are of Palestinian heritage, many with remaining family members in Palestine or surrounding countries. For these Palestinian students, solidarity is a tangible matter of survival, making it a question of advancing one’s own group interests. Notably, however, these personal, familial, and social links across the Palestinian diaspora inform non-Palestinian students’ solidarity as well: for non-Palestinian students, solidarity becomes a matter of supporting colleagues or friends with Palestinian background. The importance of this line of motivation can be viewed in many student encampments’ imperatives for “centering Palestinian voices”. In part, this meant listening to the guidance for solidarity provided by organizations such as the BDS committee. It also meant, however, that students with Palestinian connections were to be placed in the vanguard of the movement: their knowledge, their connections, and their priorities were to guide solidarity action.

Such personal connections should not, as amply emphasized by Haugbølle and Olsen (2023), be underestimated. As they show, the wave of pro-Palestinian activism in 1970s Scandinavia was to a large degree the result of activists building personal bonds with Palestinians. Similarly, Thörn (2009) accentuates how relationships and bonds between exiled South African activists and local actors acted as important motivators for the formation of the international anti-Apartheid movement. The prevalence of Palestinian students in the student solidarity movement therefore likely provides a central impetus for the building and strengthening of solidarity between various subjects.

Concluding remarks

As the analysis shows, the student PSM is best viewed as a multifaceted, yet coherent, solidarity formation. Here, student organizations converge over the shared political objective of Palestinian liberation, principally by advocating for a one-state solution. Beyond this convergence, however, the precise articulation and justification of solidarity vary across organizations and moments in time. Mainly, difference emerges along three interlinked axes: (1) emphasis on anti-imperialism or anti-apartheid style boycott and divestment action, (2) level and form of critique against international law and human rights discourse, (3) form of subjective identification with the Palestinian people.

Notably, the analysis also highlights how the interplay between the student PSM’s commonalities and divergences reflects contemporary social movements’ globalized nature. The movement is shaped by interlocking factors on global and national scales. The movement’s unity and commonality of purpose builds from the international leadership of actors such as the BDS committee and the Palestinian resistance, who utilize digital communication spaces and global civil society to disseminate information, provide guidance and education, and connect with solidarity actors. The reception and re-articulation of such information, guidance, and communication, however, depends on solidarity actors’ situatedness in international and national power structures and contexts. Previous trajectories of student activism on campus, for instance, affect student organizations’ ideological orientations. Further, the organization of a country’s university system affects the concrete demands which students pose. Lastly, countries’ differing geopolitical positions and foreign policies shape the discursive resonance and context of students’ solidarity action.

Throughout the analysis, I have conceptualized this diverse yet cohesive network of global solidarity as a solidarity ecology. This concept captures how the student PSM balances strategic and discursive flexibility with a steadfast commitment to the struggle for Palestinian liberation. Above all, it showcases how the “new” PSM should not be construed as exclusively adhering to either the anti-imperialist solidarity model of the 1970s or the more humanitarian-oriented solidarity of the BDS movement. Rather, it synthesizes elements from both approaches, eclectically adapting solidarity discourses and practices to specific contexts and conditions.

With this conceptualization, I draw from several related concepts which highlight how discursive, strategic, or tactical variety within a movement need not be understood as signs of internal disunity, but rather that a complementary interplay of different strategies, methods, and discourses can constitute a potential strength for a movement. These include the notion of social movement ecologies (Case, 2017), Staggenborg’s (1998) social movement communities, Haines’ (2022) notion of a radical flank effect, as well as the Marxist and Anarchist notions of dual power (Parson, 2019: 38–41). These sources assert that a movement’s ability to flexibly adapt its strategies to surrounding circumstances, accommodate diverse viewpoints, and to balance radical action with negotiation, can enhance its appeal and effectiveness, provided that the movement is unified when it comes to its ultimate objectives.

The notion of a solidarity ecology thus explores how discursive and tactical diversity manifests specifically in solidarity movements. Solidarity movements can, in general, be described as the convergent efforts of various actors to connect with and build political support for some external, struggling actor, for ideological reasons or out of perceived commonalities or mutual interests. The external actor provides a point of unity around which diverse tactics, strategies, and discourses are mobilized. However, insofar as the movement is internationally diffused, and thus acts in a variety of national and local contexts, its concrete approaches to solidarity inevitably diversify and shift over time. Furthermore, solidarity is, as previously discussed, a multivalent and articulatory phenomenon, allowing for a multiplicity of action forms and requiring constant re-articulation in relation to evolving contexts. Therefore, when studying and theorizing solidarity movements, it is essential to consider how different forms of solidarity interact and transform within a single movement. For these reasons, the “ecology” metaphor is particularly apt for understanding solidarity movements.

To properly balance contingency and necessity, however, it is essential to view the notion of solidarity ecology from a Gramscian standpoint. In the analysis, I utilize Gramsci’s concepts to understand the student PSM’s shifting stances and discursive emphases, such as those related to human rights and international institutions. Such differences and shifts can be understood as the outcome of the movement’s ongoing re-adaptation and re-articulation of its foundational solidarity. Given continued relations between the solidarity movement and the struggle and leadership of the Palestinian people, however, such diverse tactics, actions, and discourses can all be considered housed under a common counter-hegemonic project to dismantle Israeli settler-colonialism and achieve Palestinian liberation.