Western Community Protest: Demanding Divestment, Accountability, and Policy Changes

This Tuesday, March 18th, Western University students and faculty members gathered on concrete beach to protest the preceding night’s deadly raid in the Gaza Strip — a raid in which over 400 Palestinians were killed by Israeli strikes. This attack sparked global outrage as many — including local health officials in the Strip — recognize it as a violation of the current ceasefire (effective January 19th, this year). The rally was composed of students from the Western Divestment Coalition, members of Independent Jewish Voices, amongst students and faculty.

The protestors had two demands. Fourth year Psych student and Palestine activist Mohammed Al-Saleh told Antler River Media Co-op that “Western University has money invested in companies like Lockheed Martin. Lockheed Martin is an arm manufacturing company, they send weapons to Israel. So the students demand for Western University to first of all divest all their money that is tied to Israel and not put restrictive policies.” 

The Western Divestment Coalition issued a statement outlining their demand for the revocation of Western’s MAPP policy 1.1. This policy, issued in September 2024, requires students to obtain permission prior to holding any form of protest. The Coalition stated that they believe this policy to be a “direct attempt to suppress student activism and political expression.” 

Al-Saleh shared that “the new policy is restricting not only Palestinian students, it’s restricting any students from speaking up against the university, by saying that anything discrediting the university is going against our policy.” 

Professor David Heap, researcher in French studies and linguistics at Western, and long-time activist for Palestine and other human-rights causes, shared in an interview with Antler River Media Co-op that “it’s always important to stand with people who are the targets of imperial violence.”

He went further to say that “Canada is directly complicit in these crimes against humanity and against the Palestinian civilians in Gaza and in the West Bank in particular.

So we have to demand better of Canadian institutions.” 

Heap emphasized that there has been a shift in Canadian public opinion towards the global support of Palestinian self-determination,“towards what most of the world has figured out a long time ago,” he stated.  “And that happens not just because we demonstrate but it happens because of the people who demonstrate [and] have all those one-on-one or one-on-a-few conversations with people around them.”

He firmly believes that one-on-one conversations are what lead to a change in mind and heart, what lead to more people putting pressure on our governments and on our institutions, and what will lead to more of his colleagues realizing that the university has to take a position for humanity and for human rights.

Also present at the protest was Sara Rands, representative of London’s chapter of Independent Jewish Voices. 

“We are here to protest the horrifying acts of violence that Israel has perpetrated on the Palestinian people over the last night,” shared Rands in an interview with Antler River Media Co-op prior to the protest. 

The protest opened with a heartfelt speech by a Palestinian student at Western, 

“We push because innocent children, brothers, sisters, mothers, fathers, are being slaughtered in Gaza, we push because they are still resisting.”  

The opening speech emphasized to the students that “this is our campus.”  He highlighted that our undergraduate student council, graduate student council, and thousands of students have vocally expressed their desire for Western to divest from companies perpetuating the genocide in Palestine — yet Western “continues to drag by their feet,” the student shared.

Passion roused as more students began to show up. Guy, a commercial aviation management student at Western and regular attendee of Palestine solidarity protests on campus, shared with Antler River Media Co-op that “there is insurmountable evidence that there’s an ongoing genocide and it has to be stopped.” 

The opening speech was followed by a prayer, or duaa, recited by another Western student. Shortly after, the march and chants began. The protestors marched from concrete beach, to Alumni Hall, to Ivey Business School, and back; chanting slogans such as “disclose, divest, we will not stop we will not rest,” “from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free,” and “there is only one solution, it’s the student revolution.”

As tensions are on the rise again, the Coalition has expressed that despite the dismantling of the encampment last May, the students’ demands for a university that values the human rights of Palestinians and Arabs have not wavered. In the last few weeks, the Coalition has called out Western’s Board of Directors for their investments in companies perpetuating Palestinian oppression and Ivey Business School. The latter has recently ceased its summer exchange to Ben-Gurion University in Israel due to criticism for its inherently discriminatory nature as students of Palestinian descent with a Palestinian ID are not allowed to enter.

The students of Western University remain steadfast in their demands. They will protest once again this Saturday, March 22nd, at 2pm on Concrete Beach.