Just before 11 a.m. on Thursday, November 9, nearly 100 Skidmore students left classrooms all over campus crowded in front of Case Student Center to take part in a demonstration in support of Palestine. The urgency of the walkout was undoubtedly prompted by Israel’s siege on Gaza following Hamas’ capturing of about 240 Israeli hostages on October 7. Speeches were given at the event by Adrian Antonioli ‘25 and Samira Sangare, Director of Operations for Saratoga BLM, provided an abbreviated historical context of the long-running conflict and spoke to the importance of rejecting antisemitism and anti-colonialism as well. As one of the students who organized the event, Antonioli had initially hoped to obtain more student and faculty speakers for the event. However, Antonioli said that all of the other prospective speakers stepped down due to concerns that speaking at the rally would endanger their safety. The student organizers who worked with Antonioli will remain anonymous throughout the article due to the same concerns.
The walkout was one of dozens that took place both on and off college campuses across the U.S. that same day, all of which unfolded as part of a designated “Shut It Down for Palestine” day co-sponsored by activist groups such as the Palestinian Youth Movement, National Students for Justice in Palestine, and ANSWER Coalition. In fact, it was attending the historic National March on Washington for Palestine a few days prior on November 3 with activist groups like the Party for Socialist Liberation (PSL) that invigorated Antonioli’s sense of urgency insofar as mobilizing on Skidmore’s campus. Even in the weeks before the trip to D.C., Antonioli, who has had past experience organizing throughout the Capital Region, had received numerous messages via social media from students asking whether there were any events in the works, or even calling upon Antonioli themselves to organize an event at Skidmore.
“Campus had been relatively quiet since October 7,” Antonioli said. “And I felt, like other students, that the little public response that had emerged was, quite frankly, one-sided. As far as the walkout was concerned, myself and others sought to fill that gap and show students who stand with Palestine, and who grieve for Palestine, that they are not alone.” They added, “While making concrete demands is extremely important, as it is in any movement, we accepted that the time for that would come in the near future, after the walkout.”
Equipped with a megaphone, Antonioli prefaced a 20-minute speech by establishing precisely that: that the walkout was first and foremost a space for students to come together in support of one another. They also took care to emphasize that people who wanted to pass through the crowd must be allowed to do so, and asked fellow attendees to ignore any counter protesters, should the occasion arise. Antonioli then proceeded with the speech, the central points of which maneuvered from the historical context of the pro-Palestinian phrase “from the river to the sea” to acknowledging that the date of the walkout coincided with the beginning of the anniversary of Kristallnacht, a prolonged series of violent attacks on Jewish people, homes, businesses, and synagogues in 1938. Though it would have perhaps been easier to disregard this overlap, especially given that Antonioli did not choose the date for the walkout themselves, they felt strongly that injustice would have been the price to pay for such a quasi-convenience. Instead, Antonioli – against a backdrop of cardboard signs made by Jewish students which read “Not in Our Names” and “Jews 4 Palestine” – read this temporal overlap as a paradigm of the way in which various structures and modes of oppression, antisemitism and colonialism included, are deeply and even interdependently connected. They pointed to the fact that, for instance, 20th-century Nuremberg Laws were inspired by American Jim Crow legislation, and that the militarization of today’s American police force has been amplified in part by training in Israel.
A final central point in Antonioli’s speech was the fact that many students — Antonioli included — felt that the language used in President Marc Conner’s November 2 email was problematic in its neutral affect. The phrase “tragic violence and immense suffering expands throughout that region” was particularly a point of contention, as many students felt that the passive tone misguidedly erased the perpetrators of and geopolitical context of such violence, instead rendering it as falsely inevitable.
After Antonioli concluded, they conceded the microphone to Sangare, one of the founders of Saratoga BLM. Sangare, who holds a degree in Genocide and Holocaust studies, thanked attendees for their presence and spoke briefly as to why it is most accurate to use the word “genocide” rather than “conflict” to describe what is happening in Gaza, drawing upon the criteria as such is outlined in the 1948 United Nations Genocide Convention. As Sangare’s speech came to an end, Antonioli and others distributed printed QR codes which took students to an online step-by-step tutorial for contacting congressional representatives. Throughout the next three to four hours, the character of the walkout transformed into more of a vigil as organizers read the list of the nearly 8,000 Gazans killed since October 7.
Regardless of what was actually said or done at the walkout, Skidmore alums and parents alike erupted in outrage in online Facebook groups and other forms of social media. One user alleged that the walkout was explicitly pro-Hamas; another user wrote that their student had overhead Antonioli mentioning the Holocaust. When someone else inquired into the context of this comment, the first parent had admitted that they did not know the context, but they couldn’t imagine it was “anything good.” For Antonioli, the majority of such misinterpretations and context-devoid assumptions – which are only exacerbated by the fact that discussions are taking place in a digital space where most participants are somewhat removed from campus – only work to perpetrate more harm.
Additionally, it could be argued that the volatile online climate is at least one among other factors which empowered a group of parents to dox a first-year Skidmore student they believed to be involved with organizing on campus in support of Palestine.
“I completely understand that, at the end of the day, most of these parents are looking out for their children,” Antonioli said. “But to go so far as to dox a student is immoral and illogical.”
A silent protest took place on Case Green one week later on November 14. Since then, chalk and marker drawings have continually emerged on campus from anonymity, many of which read “Free Palestine.”