'Everything We Wanted': SUNY Purchase Students Cheer After Administration Agrees to Israel Demands

SUNY Purchase College students cheered as the activist platform Raise the Consciousness (RTC) announced that the school’s administration had agreed to “every single demand” on Monday, following five days of protests urging divestment from Israel.

Footage captured by John Dietrich Lindell shows a student, part of RTC, announcing to the crowd that Purchase College President Milagros Pena had agreed to meet their demands as they cheer.

“After five-and-a-half hours of negotiating, after five days of working in an encampment at SUNY Purchase for the freedom of Palestine, we were able to get Mili Pena to agree to all of our demands in some capacity and we were able to get everything we wanted,” the speaker says.

In a later Instagram story, RTC clarified that Purchase had “not divested from Israel,” but had met the group’s demands “to disclose and cut ties with war crimes and genocide.”

“We are very sorry for the confusion. NY has very strict anti-BDS [boycott, divestment, and sanctions] laws unfortunately, and we are a public college so our resolution had to be worded very specifically,” the organization wrote.

At least 70 students were arrested for protesting at the campus on Thursday, reports said. Credit: John Dietrich Lindell via Storyful

Video transcript

One, one night, Mike Jack everybody, Mike Jack, everybody.We got every single demand.No.What hours of negotiating after days of working on an encampment at Sony Park says for the freedom of Palestine, we were able to get Mia to agree to demands in some capacity and, and we were able to get everything we wanted.Judith United.Yeah, Palestine will be free within our lifetime.You do that of students across the country and the power of activists all over the world will eventually have an effect.We will get what we want.We will save the people of Palestine.They will pay themselves.We very solidarity.