The genocide in Gaza has been livestreamed on our phones and media for over a year now, and students are still finding ways to capture the attention of universities and larger audiences. 

Students United for Palestinian Equality & Return, or SUPER UW, is a pro-Palestinian student organization based in Seattle. On May 5, their Instagram account announced that University of Washington (UW) students were occupying the newly built Interdisciplinary Engineering Building (IEB) on the UW campus. The occupation was in protest of the university’s partnership with Boeing, which is a company that has sent, and is still sending, armed weapons to the Israeli Defense Forces. Over 20 students were arrested by the Seattle Police Department and have now been released, but are facing suspensions by the university. 

Noah Weight is a fourth-year at UW and spokesperson for SUPER UW.  

“The main demands were to get Boeing out of the IEB and get Boeing off of campus because of Boeing’s role in manufacturing the GBU 39s, the Apache helicopters and Hellfire missiles, the Joint Direct Attack Munition, weaponry that the Zionist state Israel uses in their genocidal onslaught in Palestine,” Weight said. 

Weight acknowledged that UW has deep ties to Boeing and divestment isn’t something that will immediately be achieved, but SUPER intended May 5’s action to re-energize the student movement. 

Already a year ago, students took part in an encampment on the UW campus in protest of the war on Gaza and demanded that the university divest from all complicit indentures—specifically from Boeing, which, at the time, had just donated $10 million to the construction of what is now the IEB. 

After almost three weeks, the organizers of the encampment, which was led by the UW United Front for Palestinian Liberation, did come to an agreement with the UW administration. While no progress was made on the front of getting the university to divest from Boeing, the university committed to funding a minimum of 20 scholarships for students displaced in Gaza as well as working on building committees to look at divestment proposals and work on tackling Islamophobia and hate against Palestinians, Arabs and Muslim identifying students. 

In return, the students and organizers of the encampment had to remove themselves from campus and not re-establish another encampment. 

Weight spoke for SUPER on how they viewed the deal that was made. 

“For us, the deal that was signed—it didn’t actually do anything to address any of the demands that people had as part of the Liberated Zone. The demands that the Liberated Zone was set up under and that people thought they were there to uphold were divest materially and academically from Israel, cut ties with Boeing and stop their repression of pro-Palestinian students, faculty and staff. The deal that was signed did none of that. Divestment has not happened,” Weight said. 

Part of the deal was for UW’s Board of Regents to decide whether an Advisory Committee on Socially Responsible Investing (ACSRI) was eligible to convene and work on addressing the divestment proposals students were coming to the administration with. The Board of Regents met this past March and voted overwhelmingly against the committee. This reflects SUPER’s frustration at the UW admin for not taking the students seriously. 

A Palestinian student at UW who wished to stay anonymous spoke about their thoughts on the May 5 IEB occupation, specifically referencing the deal made with the UW admin. They acknowledged that SUPER’s intentions were to bring awareness back to the Palestinian cause and that anyone’s anger towards the complicity of UW is justified; however, in this instance, it needed to be directed in a different direction.  

“It wasn’t a strategic action either when you consider the context, that many students are supposed to come here on scholarships given by the university. Although the university has been disappointing in taking a strong stand, going against them in this way only gives them an excuse to further jeopardize the terms of the agreement that they came to following last year’s encampment,” the student said.

Weight did recognize that there is a chance the administration uses this as a way to divide the student movement and go after the student scholarships, but hopes that, because no encampment has re-established, UW has no grounds to go back on their word. 

Associate Professor of History and International Studies Nova Robinson is a modern Middle Eastern historian at Seattle University. She discussed how movements in the past have used property destruction to bring awareness to a cause, but the actual damage ends up overshadowing the cause itself.

“In this instance, I think that the students felt that their actions were necessary, but I also think that choosing to target that building might’ve had some negative consequences for their larger cause because I don’t hear people talking about Palestinians. I don’t hear them talking about starvation. I don’t hear them talking about genocide. I hear them talking about the dumpster fires,” Robinson said.  

Reign Riley is a fourth-year sociology major and the co-president of the Direct Action Coalition (DAC) at Seattle U, a club dedicated to mobilizing students to bring about change. Riley reflected that the DAC stands with the statement made by Seattle University Students for Justice in Palestine, who supported the actions of SUPER and condemned both UW and the Seattle Police Department. 

Riley talked to us further about the role of the media in portraying actions like that of the May 5 building occupation.

“Media plays a huge role in shaping how people see these protests,” Riley said. “Most coverage focuses on the spectacle—students occupying buildings, breaking university code, disrupting campus life.”

But Riley emphasized that there’s more beneath the surface.

“What doesn’t get enough coverage is why students are taking those actions. These universities are deeply entangled in unethical investments and institutional partnerships, and students want them out of it. If you’re not someone who’s already sympathetic, or a student yourself, it’s easy to just see a group of 20-year-olds causing trouble,” Riley said. 

The IEB occupation by students brings about a conversation focused on intention, follow-through and ultimately questioning the role of students, faculty and everyone else in breaking the silence on genocide. 

The actions and ripple effects of the May 5 occupation aren’t over. SUPER shared that the 33 students and community members who occupied the IEB building are still facing suspension and other charges by UW. With a toolkit to “Defend UW33” and a GoFundMe, SUPER is calling on the community to show up for the students facing retaliatory charges. 

Students have proven throughout the country that they are willing to risk arrest to disrupt the complicity of universities and companies to the genocide in Gaza, but how do we sift through the noise of protest to find the heart of the cause? 

It starts by choosing to really listen, because behind the noise, lives are being lost.