About

We are a democratic, intergenerational collective of UW-Madison faculty, staff, alumni and donors who fight for liberation for all by fighting for liberation for Palestine through community, advocacy, education, and action. We amplify POC-led and Jewish student organizations committed to Palestinian liberation, connecting pro-Palestinian community groups and unions with the university community.

Free Palestine

We follow the lead of Palestinians and center safety, liberation, and care for all Palestinians everywhere. We heed the Jerusalem Declaration of Antisemitism, which supports critique and protest of imperialism, zionism, and genocide. Through a variety of programming, we improve cultural exchange and understanding about the work toward Palestinian liberation in our communities.

Unite Our Struggles 

We know that all systems of oppression are interlocking. We align our struggle for palestinian liberation with anticolonial and abolitionist movements, Indigenous land rights, Black liberation, demilitarization, gender and sexual freedom, an end to islamophobia and antisemitism, and a liveable and sustainable planet. We provide space for community and open dialogue, especially for arab, black, brown, muslim, and jewish students, faculty, and staff who are critical of zionism, war, and colonialism.

Practice Solidarity to Protect Free Speech

To protect UW community members’ rights to free speech and assembly on campus in the face of institutional or governmental suppression and retribution, we work with allies across the university, the City of Madison, the UW System, Wisconsin communities, and other universities through cross-campus coalitions and the emergent FSJP national network. The most securely employed among us protect more vulnerable members at all times.

Demand Financial Transparency & Institutional Accountability

We want to return the university to the people by fighting for administrative transparency and against austerity, academic censorship, and administrative obscurity. We collaborate with university organizations across all levels to spark and sustain university-wide conversation about ethical investment practices, disclosure, accountability, and divestment.

Abolition! Create A World That Keeps Us Safe

Within this collective and with our collaborators, we use transformative approaches to accountability to reduce and eliminate harm by building something new: invest in relationships through care, acknowledge when harm happens, work toward non-punitive repair, and create a fugitive community here in Madison in which to feel comfortable and safe. Policing does not keep our community safe, and is a source of un-safety for many of us. Because of this, we do not rely on the police force, the carceral state, or systems of surveillance to protect us from harm. 

Build People Power 

We know that our capacity for organizing and enacting change is dependent on the strength of our collective, which in turn depends upon the strength of our commitment and our relationships. We create healthy communities with one another by embracing creativity, intuition, joy, and abundance to sustain our capacity for mass action.

1. We organize abundantly and unapologetically, leading creative direct action and cultural programming to energize and mobilize our community. We are adaptive, responsive, and reflexive. We use our personal and professional relationships to creatively push divestment from Israel. We are iterative in our principles and our advocacy. 

2. We recognize the interdependence of Palestinian and Jewish liberation and safety, and thus combat any form of racism, including anti-Arab and anti-Palestinian racism, Islamophobia, antisemitism, anti-blackness, and white supremacy. We defend the right to teach and talk about these topics as they relate to interlocking systems of oppression underpinned by global white supremacy and racial capitalism. No one is free until we are all free.

3. We protect students’ rights to free speech and assembly on campus from institutional or governmental suppression by creating a robust system of reciprocal support and educating ourselves on our rights and defenses. We provide grace and cover to students with flexibility for deadlines, absences, grades, and exams. We support and empower TAs and graduate students to talk about Palestinian liberation with students and to engage in protest themselves.

4. We resist retribution by acting as whistleblower and watchdog against UWPD, campus administration, and other state agencies, as well as providing training and protection for targets of surveillance or harassment (including online harassment). We protect those targeted by providing ready, proactive programs and responses to police action, administrative retribution, or outside attacks.

5. We decenter elitism and egotism in order to follow leadership from the most impacted and the most vulnerable, taking advantage of radical worker organizing tactics to achieve our goals. 

6. We contribute material resources (including bail fund money) and physical presence to creative direct action and community self-defense.