This story was originally produced by the Keene Sentinel. NHPR is republishing it in partnership with the Granite State News Collaborative.
Approximately 30 Keene State College students gathered on the lawn of the Young Student Center Monday afternoon to stand in solidarity with Palestinians and voice concerns that the college has not done enough to recognize the Israel-Hamas war.
Attendees said they were frustrated with what they described as a lack of public acknowledgement from leaders at Keene State’s Cohen Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies of the deaths of many thousands of Palestinians in the war, and demanded transparency from the school about any financial ties or investments with Israeli companies.
The local demonstration, while on a significantly smaller scale, mirrors dozens organized by college students across the country seeking more information from their institutions about economic connections to Israel and asking for amnesty for students who have been arrested while protesting Israel’s actions in Gaza.
About 1,200 people were killed in Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack on Israeli communities, and another nearly 200 were taken hostage, according to the Associated Press. The United States declared Hamas a terrorist organization in October 1997, and the European Union did so in 2003.
About 130 of the hostages remain unaccounted for, with at least 34 of them presumed dead, the BBC reported April 6.
In response to the Oct. 7 attack, Israel launched a war against Hamas in Gaza that had killed at least 32,000 Palestinians and injured at least 74,000 as of March 28, according to Gaza health ministry statistics.
Dexter Keegan, a Keene State student affiliated with the Monadnock Autonomous Student Union, was one of the main organizers of Monday’s demonstration on campus. The student-led organization seeks to foster community through social justice advocacy.
“We’re alive right now with an active genocide happening right before our eyes on social media, and it feels like people aren’t doing anything about it,” he said.
“Columbia, Emerson, they got the ball rolling, and now we’re here to continue this movement in our own community and stand in solidarity with their efforts.”
Vincent, a senior studying history at Keene State, recently took a course through the school’s Holocaust and Genocide Studies Department. He declined to share his last name due to concerns about retaliation from the institution leading up to Saturday’s commencement ceremony.
“We had talked about how those speaking out against the Holocaust during that time were originally ridiculed, and how it’s so important to be talking about this event that killed millions of innocent people,” he said.
“Now that there’s another genocide actively happening in my lifetime, and [the Cohen Center] hasn’t said a single thing about it in the past seven months.”
In response to an email The Sentinel sent to Keene State spokesperson Paul Miller and Kate DeConinck, director of the Cohen Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies, Miller said the Cohen Center is a nonpartisan resource center focused on remembering and teaching.
As a matter of policy, he said the center does not release public statements, deferring instead to the office of the college’s president. This policy, he said, marks a change from when the center issued statements on events such as the death of Congressman and civil rights leader John Lewis in 2020; the murder of George Floyd, also in 2020; and the killing of 11 people at a synagogue in Pittsburgh in 2018.
Keene State President Melinda Treadwell issued a public statement early in the conflict, on Oct. 9, two days after the Hamas attack.
“It is indiscriminate violence on a jarring and unprecedented level for this part of the world, and it is yet another window into terrorism’s brutal inhumanity,” she said. “We pray that the tenets of international law are applied and adhered to as this crisis unfolds, and we hold in our hearts the innocent people placed in harm’s way by these brutal acts.”
“Amid everything, the college has recommitted itself to conversations across differences to help others seek understanding, process grief, make meaningful connections, and highlight important resources,” Miller said via email Monday. “The work we are doing on campus aims to confront all forms of oppression, including anti-Jewish or anti-Muslim sentiment.”
Hundreds of students at demonstrations at colleges and universities throughout the U.S. have been arrested over the past week on trespassing allegations. On April 18, Columbia University President Minouche Shafik authorized the New York Police Department to enter the campus and sweep an encampment, and more than 100 people were arrested, according to reporting from the university’s independent student newspaper, the Columbia Daily Spectator.
Students at the University of Vermont, who established encampments on Sunday, are also protesting this year’s commencement speaker Linda Thomas-Greenfield, U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, according to reporting from Seven Days. Students said they were protesting Thomas-Greenfield because she vetoed a UN Security Council resolution for a humanitarian pause to deliver aid to Palestinians in February.
Elm City resident Katie Carbonara, 31, visited the Keene State campus Monday to join the students and stand in solidarity with Palestinians.
“I’m happy to see more visibility about this in town,” she said. “It has been demoralizing to see there hasn’t been a lot of action around this issue in Keene and the Monadnock Region.”
Liam Slattery, a first-year student at Keene State, said it was strange how young people in the community haven’t been more involved with speaking up about the Israel-Hamas war.
“I think it’s important to get involved with what you believe in and make your voice heard,” he said.
“And I really hope, when it comes to our government and the U.S. president, hopefully [Biden] calls for a ceasefire.”
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