On Saturday, Sept. 13, Orpheus Review, a student-run online music publication at Swarthmore, hosted a benefit show for Palestine in Olde Club, as part of a student push to raise awareness and rally support for the college’s divestment from all companies with ties to Israel. Student bands performed inside the concert venue, with information and fundraising booths operating outside. “[This event] means making sure that Palestine remains in people’s consciousness on campus,” one student working the event, who wished to remain anonymous, shared.
The show featured original music by Swarthmore student bands — Los Swatinos, Seymour, and Shopping Cart — while student organizers from the Orpheus Review shared messages about Palestine in between sets.
Stands surrounding Olde Club offered pamphlets and sold food, miniature Palestinian flags, and keffiyehs. All proceeds from the event — including from merchandise and food sales, as well as direct donations through Venmo — were donated to a mutual aid fund for Palestinians distributed by Palestinian photojournalist Mohammed Salem.
“Recently, it’s been really difficult to get supplies into Palestine, and mutual aid has been harder to engage with,” the same student explained. “[We hope] that people are motivated to donate and wonder, ‘What else can I do after donating?’”
Much of the campus’s recent student activism in support of Palestine has focused on Swarthmore’s reliance on Cisco Systems, a tech company that provides software required to access the college’s online resources. According to the Boycott, Divest, and Sanction Movement, Cisco has long-term agreements to provide equipment and technological support to the Israeli military, which has been deployed during Israel’s occupation. Flyers distributed at the event urged students to “demand divestment” from the genocide, specifically through the discontinuation of the college’s partnership with companies like Cisco.
This event comes as nine protesters — including one Swarthmore student and one student on an extended leave of absence — who were arrested this spring during an encampment in support of Palestine are currently on conditional release and awaiting criminal trial. The now-banned campus group Students for Justice in Palestine began the encampment on Trotter Lawn, where protesters demanded not only the college’s divestment in Cisco, but the protection of international and undocumented students.
“Israeli air raids have left more than 6,000 Palestinians homeless today,” a message passionately announced on the speaker. “The Zionist entity has destroyed over 3,600 buildings and towers in Gaza city since August. We must stand in solidarity with the Palestinian people.”
A few days following the concert, a United Nations inquiry found the violence in Gaza is a genocide, after years of conflict in the region. “Swarthmore is complicit in genocide. Swarthmore represses dissent,” the student speaker said. “Donate. Tell your friends and family to donate. Free Palestine.”
