Why Don’t Columbia’s Pro-Palestinian Advocates Care About the Ceasefire?

Israel and Hamas agreed to a peace plan. Here’s why CUAD and other student groups won’t get behind it.

The Gaza Solidarity Encampment in spring 2024 (Columbia Sundial)

The building occupations, class disruptions, encampments, and continuous protests at Columbia over the past two years supposedly shared a single goal: to stop the violence in Gaza. We were told that the student body was desperate for an end to the war and longed for justice and peace.

Now, the war in Gaza appears to be coming to an end. The Trump-brokered ceasefire deal and 20-point peace plan have brought long-awaited relief to the region. Israelis are rejoicing at the return of the hostages. Palestinians everywhere are breathing a sigh of relief that the violence might finally cease and that nearly 2,000 prisoners held by Israel are returning. And yet, despite the monumentally positive news, the prevailing sentiment from many Palestinian activists ranges from shrugging indifference to outright opposition.

A glance at Columbia University Apartheid Divest’s (CUAD) X and Substack accounts reveals they’re operating business as usual. On October 12, just four days after the ceasefire, CUAD posted to its X account, advertising an afternoon at “Hind’s House” (876 Riverside Drive), where “comrades” would speak on “discipline collective defense” and “demilitariz[ing] Brooklyn Navy Yard.” On October 15, CUAD reposted on X a “VIGIL FOR THE MARTYR YAHYA SINWAR & All Martyrs Against Zionism & US-led imperialism” that took place in the Bronx the next day (the post has since been removed). Sinwar was the former military leader of Hamas and chief architect of the October 7 attack that launched the war.

You could imagine a world where CUAD celebrates this ceasefire as a historic victory for their movement. After all, their purported goal—ending the bloodshed in Gaza—appears to be within reach. The peace plan even calls for a “credible pathway to Palestinian self-determination and statehood.” If ever there were a time to begin building a successful Palestinian state, it would be now.

And yet, CUAD has barely expressed any positive sentiments about the deal. Their first public comment about the ceasefire was an X post declaring, “Now send them to The Hague.” Such snide comments reflect immaturity. It ignores how this ceasefire is the first step to producing lasting peace. To dismiss a momentous peace deal with a subtweet is to reveal an astonishing indifference to what is actually happening in Gaza.

Unfortunately, this mentality extends beyond Columbia’s gates. Cynicism about the decades-long Israeli-Palestinian conflict is not unwarranted. But to defer to this attitude at every turn is deeply unproductive. As Palestinian journalist and Atlantic Council fellow Ahmed Fouad Alkhatib—who has lost 33 family members in Gaza due to Israeli airstrikes—opined in the pages of The Free Press on October 8: “activists and organizations formerly insistent on an immediate ceasefire suddenly appear quite opposed to ending the war in Gaza if it is based on the U.S. proposal, which they have denounced as a colonial attempt to continue the genocide, even though the plan literally stops the actual war.”

So, why don’t pro-Palestinian advocates within and outside Columbia seem to support the ceasefire? Why do the majority appear indifferent while watching the end of a war that they believed was a genocide?

This recent behavior reveals a disturbing truth: For many, protecting Palestinian lives was never the primary objective. Instead, as Compact editor Matthew Schmitz theorizes, their movement filled the chasm of “revolutionary” ambition and societal discontent left by the decline of the Black Lives Matter movement. For American activists, supporting Palestine became the central dogma of an amorphous omnicause that cares little about actual Palestinian lives.

CUAD’s Substack reveals this broader revolutionary scope, making it explicit that their movement is about far more than just Gaza. For them, to be pro-Palestinian is to critique Western civilization itself, which they aspire to “totally eradicate.”

Emboldened by these broader revolutionary ambitions, the focus of the protests centered around all sorts of Western institutions, including the University itself. At some point, the spotlight shifted from Palestinians to the students. Just as Gazans endured Israel barricading their border and preventing humanitarian aid from entering, Columbians rallied against the gate-closures and similarly demanded the University supply “humanitarian aid” to protesters occupying Hamilton Hall.

Ironically, the ideology of these protesting factions mirrors the dehumanization they accuse Western capitalist systems of creating. Many CUAD protesters would rather have the Palestinians fight a bloody, endless rebellion (on their behalf) against the Western-backed Jewish State than seek a lasting peace that benefits both sides. The logical conclusion of this egocentrism is a rejection of any plan that will end the war.

Of course, many hurdles still stand in the way of attaining a true, lasting peace. In their 60 Minutes interview with Lesley Stahl, negotiators Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner were cautiously optimistic about their new diplomatic approach centered on mutual trust, investment in Gaza from Middle Eastern states, and the eventual disarmament of Hamas. But even they acknowledged that nothing is set in stone, and that they are managing an incredibly volatile situation.

CUAD and other pro-Palestinian advocates, by contrast, seem to think these hurdles are insurmountable. They think coming together to find a diplomatic solution is a waste of time. We think these hurdles are precisely why we must come together. If we want the truce to last and not devolve into more tit-for-tat violence or even all-out escalation, it’s critical that it receives widespread support from both sides.

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Mr. Hartstein is a sophomore at Columbia College studying physics. He is a senior editor for Sundial.

Mr. Mohammadi is a sophomore at Columbia College majoring in American studies. He is a staff editor for Sundial.

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The opinions expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Sundial editorial board as a whole or any other members of the staff.