Midday Friday, an art student set up a table in the Arevalo Student Mall and played audio recordings of Palestinian journalists for all to hear. Despite being one of the hottest days of the year so far, a small crowd braved the beating sun and gathered to observe the demonstration, and a smaller crowd sporting an Israeli flag faced them. Though the day itself was peaceful, the readings from the journalists hung in the air.

“I want to humanize Palestinians,” said the student organizer, who said their name was Dairy Milk. “A lot of propaganda for the opposite side is dehumanizing your enemy, dehumanizing the people you want to hurt and kill, and so I wanted to force people to hear them, to see them as people.”

Milk was wearing a keffiyeh, which has been adopted as a symbol of support for Palestine by many activists. With the surge in pro-Palestinian protests on college campuses across the U.S., EWU students have begun advocating for their own beliefs on the conflict this week.

Milk’s demonstration was the third one of the week on EWU’s campus. The previous Friday, five students showed up to a protest in front of the president’s house, however no organizer was present and the group fizzled out within an hour. 

Diana Stouse was one of the students that did show up though, intending to persuade EWU to disinvest in companies profiting off of the Israel-Hamas war and stand in solidarity with students arrested in campus protests across the U.S..

“Do we actually stand for education, or do we just stand for the American idea of education? Because if we stood for education we would be devastated at the amount of educated scholars and educational institutions and prospective students that are just being murdered,” Stouse said.

On Wednesday, the Spokane branch of the Party for Socialism and Liberation (PSL) promoted a rally, “All out for Gaza,” in the campus mall, which dozens of people attended. Here, students specifically called on Eastern to disinvest from the Fairchild Airforce base. EWU Spokesman David Meany clarified that EWU has only an educational partnership with Fairchild, and that no finances are involved.

Ka’din Rahman, the student who organized the rally, spoke to The Easterner on the impact that the Israeli-Palestine conflict has on EWU students.

“We all have smartphones, you know, we’re on the internet connected to social media constantly. We’re seeing people dying, literally a genocide orchestrated in front of our eyes. So it affects us mentally and spiritually,” Rahman said.

Alumni Sam Lee also attended the Wednesday protest, stating that there needs to be solidarity among EWU graduates as well as current students.

“We all have a responsibility to advocate for people— here and globally,” Lee said. “That means collective liberation. We all have a stake in that.”

Staff and faculty members present during the demonstrations expressed that they were glad to see students standing up for their beliefs. Judy Rohrer, director of Gender, Women’s, and Sexuality studies at EWU, attended Milk’s demonstration. She said that Milk’s project, the broadcasting of Palestinian reporter’s actual voices, was a creative way to garner support for pro-palestinian fundraisers.

“[I’m] happy to see students figure out ways to express their compassion and their outrage for what’s happening right now,” Rohrer said. “I’m not on social media, so I otherwise wouldn’t know about these [Palestinian people’s stories]. And so I really appreciate that they put the effort in to bring it out here to us.”

Dean of Students Sam Armstrong-Ash observed Wednesday’s protest, stating that staff should be supporters of peaceful demonstrations. Armstrong-Ash has been vocal on social media about free speech rights and conflict management since Oct. 2023, when the campus saw a petitioner arrested for threatening students in front of the Pence Union Building.

“I would hope that staff are playing a role of creating spaces where students can exercise their free speech rights and push some dialogue forward, and challenge some ideas and thought processes,” she said.

Her statements closely resemble the official ones of the university. Emails were sent out to the campus community notifying people of the upcoming protests and providing resources detailing freedom of speech and rights on campus.

Not all reactions have been positive ones though. Protestor Juliana Walls said that she was scoffed at walking across campus with a “free palestine” sign, and Milk said that passersby covered their ears.

Other students took to forming a small counter protest, in the case of Milk’s audio demonstration.

“I don’t think anything’s being accomplished right now on any scale, so I guess [I’m] just showing that there is another side, and that people that they would usually agree with on pretty much everything are on the other side,” student Meir Gavon said. “It’s not a black and white issue — it’s very in depth, and spans even before the modern state of Israel.”

Aubrey Marquis, a student with Gavon, said that calm, open dialogue between the two sides is “absolutely crucial,” however he has not felt safe enough to initiate this.

“I have not really felt the courage to go up to a large group of people that all have very different ideas than me and are, I mean, somewhat aggressive with their ideas. [They’re] not necessarily open to discussion,” Marquis said. 

This article uses quotes from reporter C.J. Luce’s “Easterner Asks” segment, which can be viewed on The Easterner’s Instagram.

This article has been edited to reflect that Fairchild Air Force Base is not an arms supplier for Israel.