STUDENTS at the University of Edinburgh formed a hard picket line outside the finance building to urge the university to divest in Israel-supporting companies. In a protest organised by the Edinburgh University Justice for Palestine Society (EUJPS) yesterday, students blocked entrances to the building on Chambers Street. Their aim was to urge the university to “divest from companies complicit in the illegal Israeli occupation of Palestine” and to cut research ties with arms companies. The protest was in solidarity with the Glasgow University Justice for Palestine Society, who held a simultaneous protest on the Rankine building for engineering and finance on Oakfield Avenue. The groups shared videos of protestors holding signs reading, “Globalise the Student Intifida” – intifida being an Arabic word for rebellion or uprising used specifically for Palestinian action against Israeli occupation in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. Palestine Campaign’s university complicity database states that the University of Edinburgh has over £4m in investments with companies complicit in Israeli violations of international law. Following significant student action last year, with Old College occupied for over a month, the university reiterated their Responsible Investment Policy and considered a review of their investments. A spokesperson for the EUJPS said at the picket line yesterday: “We have once again decided to block entrances to the University of Edinburgh’s Charles Stewart House, in response to the failure of the University Court to divest from companies complicit in the illegal Israeli occupation of Palestine. “It has been 76 years since the beginning of the Israeli colonial settler project and we have now witnessed 15 months of intensified genocide of the Palestinian people. “Yet the university continues to aid and abet genocide through financial complicity and research ties with companies creating apartheid technologies. “Despite the news of the ceasefire which has been repeatedly broken by Israel, the conditions of occupation, apartheid, and ethnic cleansing remain. “As history has shown us, the university will do nothing to combat its complicity. In the past year, any progress in support of Palestine has only been achieved through the campaigning and direct action of students “Students all over Scotland continue to escalate for divestment in solidarity with Palestine and each other. We stand united in the struggle and send our full support to them. “Yesterday we received news that the arms companies; BAE Systems, Airbus, and Leonardo UK will no longer be participating in the UOE careers fairs due to unrelenting student protesting. “Yet when the time comes and the international order tries to rewrite history in order to cover up its own inaction in the face of genocide, the university will attempt to rectify the narrative. “They will cover up how it policed its students, their refusal to divest, and will make a spectacle of decolonsing their curriculum, and will host events to remember the genocide that they funded. “The university has always been a colonial institution and we will never forget its complicity. “We will not stop holding the university accountable. We will not stop demanding divestment. “We will not rest or deescalate until every pound is divested from genocide and every research tie is severed. Free Palestine.” Protestors at the University of Glasgow held a coordinated picket line outside the Rankine building for engineering and finance. In a post shared to social media yesterday, they demanded the following: “Immediate and unconditional divestment of the £6.8 million Glasgow uni (sic) has invested in arms companies. “Cut off research ties worth £60m with arms companies again. “Complete academic boycott of Israel along with any of their institutions. Ban Zionists and arms companies off our campus.”