Rally as Cambridge pro-Palestine protesters set up camp on Trinity College lawn
A pro-Palestine encampment has been set up on Trinity College’s lawn on Trinity Street to protest the University of Cambridge college’s apparent continued investments in the Israeli war machine.
Half a dozen tents along with associated gazebos were installed on the land by the side of the college’s Trinity Street entrance on Friday (30 May).
At 1pm on Saturday (31 May) a rally took place on the street beside the site. Around 200 people from a variety of groups including Cambridge4Palestine attended, listening to the speakers with chants including ‘Disclose, divest, we will not stop, we will not rest’ and the now-ubiquitous ‘Free free Palestine’.
The first speaker immediately addressed the question of why the occupation had taken place.
“We will not stop, we will not rest, we will never be silent, we will not let genocide normalised,” he said. “We are here to protect Cambridge students and ultimately students across the world, we need support from all of you. Your solidarity means everything.
“There are now 66 thousand killed in Gaza, and thousands more unrecorded. We have watched children being blown apart limb by limb, burned in camps, targeted by drones, and Trinity supports this, even through investment in bombs and the AI technology they continue to use to identify schools and hospitals. They are using AI to look for civilian targets and then they bomb them.
“Every single doctor in Gaza records the same thing, that the majority of people coming to hospitals every day are children and pregnant women with shrapnel and other wounds, and they are supported by this institution. And there are AI companies that know the most brutal methods to kill people - and still they refuse to divest.
“Last year Trinity said it would divest and they went back on their word when the donors withdrew.”
[In 2021 Trinity Colllege first addressed the divestment issue, then, in May 2024 Trinity College’s college council voted to divest from arms companies supplying Israel, but in November the Master stated that Trinity had “no interest in divesting from arms companies”.]
“It’s important to ask if this university, which owns land from here to Oxford, will wash their hands of the blood of Palestinian people,” the speaker continued. “The university has no right to lecture us about human rights or international law while 2 million people are literally starving to death. That’s why we continue with our activism and we ask you to keep this message alive so that this university divests and the Palestinian people are allowed to exist.”
The crowd of around 200 chanted: “Disclose, divest, we will not stop, we will not rest.”
The following speaker was Yaser, a Palestinian from Gaza.
“My family live there,” he said. “Some of them have been lost from drone attacks, using drones made by Elbit [Elbit Systems, which makes 85 per cent of Israel’s drones, is an Israel-based international military technology company and defence contractor with multiple UK subsidiaries across 16 sites in the country - the largest, in Bristol, was opened last year - with more than 680 employees].
“Elbit is one of the companies which this university invests in. [A Freedom of Information request by the International Centre of Justice for Palestinians released in February 2024 showed that Trinity College holds millions of pounds of investments in American, British, Japanese, and Israeli companies which are directly involved, and actively supplying, Israel’s military offensive against Gaza. This includes £61,735 invested in Elbit, Israel’s largest arms company].
“They completely destroyed my home city. Trinity’s investments are directly involved in the holocaust in Gaza. We are here peacefully calling for the college to divest, the ball is in Trinity’s court. Enough is enough, divestment now!”
After the rally I asked Yaser about the challenges he and his family are facing.
“It’s Hunger Games Level 100,” he replied. “We used to watch Black Mirror and go ‘whatever’. Now we see it happening in front of us.”
I noticed a gentleman in academic attire walking around outside the college on Trinity Street and asked him about the situation. The gentleman turned out to be the Senior Proctor at the University of Cambridge, Dr Markus Gehring, who said he was “exam walking”.
“My concern is that the integrity of the University exams might be undermined by the very noisy protests,” said Dr Gehring. “Peaceful protest is always encouraged although not if it’s disruptive to quite frankly very important exams - this is the main exam period and there are students living all around where these protests are happening.”
Trinity College was approached to contribute to this article.
