The college announced that it will phase out business ties with Israeli companies by March 2025.
Pro-Palestinian activists gather outside Trinity College Dublin in solidarity with student protests inside, on May 4, 2024, in Dublin, Ireland.Right after Dublin native Ben turned 16, he spent his summer vacations working at event companies that organized concerts and comedy shows. Little did he know that three years later, that experience would help him organize — with nearly a hundred of his peers — a major protest of Trinity College Dublin’s ties with Israel.
Despite the harsh penalty — and the fact that it was exams week — Trinity students continued their protest, fueled on by the news trickling in from universities in the United States. Political Science student Elisa Zito, who was among the organizers of the direct action, said that a series of meetings from April 29 onwards garnered enough traction to proceed with an encampment. The date was decided for the morning of Saturday, May 4.
During the meetings prior to the encampment, students underwent drills, in the event of arrests. According to Ben, they created a three-tier risk assessment: Those identifying as “green” would risk arrest, “yellow” was for those ready to form human barricades and “red” meant not wanting to risk arrest whatsoever. These were not strict markers, as a student could switch their code anytime based on their comfort level.
By Wednesday, the divestment agreement had been finalized and the students ended the encampment that evening. “It was an out-of-body experience, with elation. It is a great victory, but it is only the first step towards putting the wheels in motion for similar changes in different universities across Ireland,” Ben explained while in the midst of running between various charities to donate the surplus food and hygiene items.
Jagoe echoed a similar sentiment, noting that “When business as usual was disrupted by radical action, the university made a choice to engage constructively and not aggressively.” A native of South Africa, Jagoe knows about radical action all too well: She was nine-years-old when Nelson Mandela was released from prison. “As a child, I was aware that South Africa was under sanctions. I was aware that the apartheid government was doing despicable things and that the world disapproved.
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