Gaza war sparks unprecedented, sustained campus protests

Hundreds of Japanese students have been liaising via social media across the country’s leading universities in a campaign on their campuses for a halt to Israel’s escalating war in Gaza and the liberation of Palestine from Israeli occupation.

The student protests in Japan, now in their second month since they began in April, are motivated by a desire for peace, but they also represent an important shift in a country where campuses are mostly devoid of sustained demonstrations, according to experts.

Smaller in number than the tens of thousands protesting in the United States and internationally, Japanese student demands for universities and Japanese companies to cut ties with organisations in Israel are seen as unprecedented.

A ‘Palestinian solidarity camp’ was set up by students in front of the library at Japan’s prestigious University of Tokyo on 26 April, with students working in solidarity with students at US universities, and at other Japanese universities including Sophia University, Waseda University, Tama Art University, Hiroshima University, the International Christian University and Kyoto University. Others held shorter solidarity sit-ins.

On 6 May students at the University of Tokyo submitted a document to the university that echoed the demands of those in the United States. It called on the university to disclose information on links with Israeli companies and related firms and for divestment of funds, while condemning Israel’s invasion of the Gaza Strip. The university has not so far responded.

Takashi Hata, professor emeritus at Tohoku University and an expert on university management, noted the Japanese protests underline the importance of peace for Japanese youth, as universities are not heavily supported by private funding as is the case in the US, where the call for divestments is much stronger.

“There is little influence of outsiders in university management, which is dependent on government subsidies and tuition fees,” he told University World News.

Call to sever links with Israeli universities

But there have also been calls for universities to sever links with Israeli universities. In mid-May, Kyoto University Association in Solidarity with the Palestinian People, a group active since 2019, urged its university administration to rescind its memorandum of understanding (MOU) with Israel’s Tel Aviv University, where it said “military research is conducted”.

“We call on Kyoto University to refrain from any form of collaboration, partnership or support that directly or indirectly aids the Israeli military in its actions against Palestinian civilians,” the Kyoto students’ statement said.

They urged the university to withhold “research funding, technology transfers or any other form of assistance that could be used to perpetuate violence or human rights abuses”.

Students also called on the university to facilitate more academic fora, seminars and discussions on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, noting that encouraging open discourse and allowing diverse perspectives can contribute to “peacebuilding efforts”.

“While the ongoing student protests in Japan are small in scale, they are still a significant showcase of the solidarity felt by youth in Japan for the oppressed. I am also hopeful the activism will bring much needed reforms in Japanese higher education,” Saul Takahashi, professor of human rights and peace studies at Osaka Jogakuin University, told University World News.

Takahashi pointed out that while ties between Japanese universities and Israel counterparts in terms of funding are negligible, although there are no official statistics available, former conservative Japanese prime minister Shinzo Abe pursued a controversial policy to encourage university research departments to contribute to military technology development.

“Students are not stupid. They are aware of the negative aspects of Japanese higher education in a neoliberal economy. They face [an] expensive and increasing burden of debt. There is now a growing frustration at a cold and unfeeling society where stability and progress for youth is challenged,” explained Takahashi, a former deputy head of the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights in the occupied Palestinian Territory.

In 2014, then prime minister Abe signed a historic agreement with his Israeli counterpart Benjamin Netanyahu to beef-up defence cooperation between the two countries, marking a new step in Japan’s Middle East diplomacy. It paved the way for Abe to openly push for trade and defence agreements with Israel, according to Takahashi, and marked a departure from Japan’s post World War II pacifist policies.

Watermelon Alliance

Sho Toda, a fourth-year history student at Waseda University’s school of humanities and social sciences, is a member of the Watermelon Alliance, a pro-Palestine group. He organised a standing protest or walkaround at the campus on 1 May. The watermelon emoji used by social media protesters across the world has the colours of the Palestinian flag.

More than 500 students attended the protest, including from the University of Tokyo and Sophia University. They said Japanese students must use their privilege of being able to study safely in their own country to save others. Similar protests are being held at universities across the country.

Toda told University World News that sorrow and pain was shared deeply among protesters who are shocked at the ongoing destruction in Palestine. “We are against the bloody violence that is destroying civilians,” he said.

Japanese university management has not clamped down on student activism, and the encampments continue. The public is also sympathetic, with Japanese media reporting individual donations to the students.

Toda was also among many student participants in protests led by Japanese human rights groups last October against Japanese conglomerate Itochu Corp, calling on it to end its strategic cooperation with Israel Defense company, Elbit Systems. They pointed out the MOU between the two companies was about military activities in Japan, a country that supports peace.

Itochu’s surprise announcement by a spokesman for the company on 5 February that it will end the MOU, according to a spokesperson for the company, and which shocked Japanese industry, was a result of the ruling by the International Court of Justice in the Hague, Netherlands, which on 26 January ordered Israel on to take steps to prevent genocide in Gaza.

Takahashi noted at the time that the decision by the giant Japanese company sent a very clear message about the acceptability of doing business with Israel, at a time when Western governments were still sending arms to Israel.

It was also a landmark victory for Japanese activists who began protesting against the war in Gaza last year. The protests escalated after the court ruling, and as Takahashi noted: “clearly pushed the company over the line”.

Toda also explained that the ongoing Japanese student protests are different from the violent student demonstrations that rocked Japan in the late 1960s, when universities erupted against a new Japan-US Security Agreement permitting American military bases in the country.

“Personally, I am also demanding Japan open up to more foreign student exchanges and address our racial and discriminative policies that don’t open the door to equality,” he said.

He added that Japanese students need to play a more active role by taking on the responsibility to change society.