A pro-Palestine protest held today — the anniversary of the Oct. 7 Hamas attacks on Israel — drew several dozen attendees, who chanted slogans and marched from Cal Poly’s campus down to the Arcata Plaza. 

The event was organized by the YDSA, the campus-focused arm of the Democratic Socialists of America. The protesters were mostly students, though they joined two or three already-present community members when they reached the plaza. Several of them told the Outpost they were marching to draw attention to the ongoing conflict between Israel and Hamas, and especially to Israel’s cavalier attitude towards minimizing civilian casualties — more than 70,000, according to the territory’s Health Ministry. Almost 1,500 civilians have been killed since the ceasefire took effect in October last year. 

“I’m out here today because it’s been three years on top of 75 years of genocide for the Palestinian people,” Jay Whitlow, 26, an interdisciplinary studies major, told the Outpost, referencing the 1948 Palestine War and subsequent establishment of Israel. “You have Israel, which has worked to level the place and butcher the inhabitants of Gaza for the last three years with reckless abandonment in front of the world, still whinging on about this attack from a colonized people that they are actively subjugating and have been for three-quarters of a century. We’re drawing attention to that.”

The marchers accused Israel of genocide, and included in that charge was Michael Fisher, the university’s interim Vice President for Administration and Finance, and Richard Carvajal, its president. (The person leading the crowd’s chants — with the assistance of a sheet of paper with the chants written on it — helpfully shared their titles after asking the crowd to condemn the administrators. They also equated the university’s police department with the Ku Klux Klan and Israel’s army.) The university’s investments, some of which include mutual funds composed partly of defense contractors who sell arms to Israel, have been a frequent sticking point during past demonstrations. Jacob, one protestor who brought along an Iranian flag, said he hoped to increase the public’s knowledge of divestment and the “influence and ties” many organizations have to Israel. The university has, in the past, attested to the difficulty of yanking out all of its investments tied to defense contractors, but the activists said they were unswayed.

“I’m pretty certain if it were Michael Fisher’s children, or anybody’s children in admin, that were being sniped in the streets like animals, or buried by the thousands under the rubble of their homes, or like Hind Rajab, who had 355 bullets shot at her, and then the medical team that came to rescue her murdered by the IDF — they would find a way to make it work,” Whitlow said. “…It doesn’t matter what their excuses are, or what the specifics of it are. Every moment they are wrapped up in this stuff, they are actively facilitating the murder of children. The specifics do not matter.”

This is the third pro-Palestine Oct. 7 march in Arcata in as many years, though the ones in 2024 and 2025 drew close to three times as many participants. There was no police presence.

Despite Arcata’s vast geographic removal from Gaza, several speakers said demonstrating was important nevertheless. Several of them encouraged attendees to attend today’s Arcata City Council meeting to implore the councilmembers to make Arcata a sister city with Gaza.

“The struggle for Palestine is not an international issue; it is a local one,” one speaker said. “Politicians here in Humboldt, in California, are criminalizing speech for Palestine…We need to build something new, so Palestine and the rest of the nations can be free.”