Talk:General Union of Palestinian Students

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Founded in 1920s??

The article says that GUPS was unofficially started in Palestine in the 1920s. The only source for this is an archive of a dead link to the old SFSU GUPS page, which gives no historical context or detail about how a union of Arab Palestinian college students could have started decades before there were universities in Arab Palestine. I have searched for any sources in English or Arabic that confirm this, and thus far have found none. In my opinion, the SFSU GUPS chapter made an error years ago and we should remove it from this article. Oakling (talk) 02:14, 28 October 2024 (UTC)

@Oakling you still haven't refuted the claim. the claim is still on their web page. Michardav (talk) 18:24, 30 October 2024 (UTC)

No, it isn't. Their web page no longer exists. The link is to an archived version from 2010. The claim is ALWAYS going to be there, because it's just a snapshot of what the page said 14 years ago. Oakling (talk) 05:55, 2 November 2024 (UTC)

http://www.alhourriah.ps/article/78984 says it officially started on November 29, 1959. It talks about the lead-up to that, butcribes it as being since 1948, not since the 1920s.

https://www.badil.org/ar/publications/haq-al-awda/issues/items/2813.html gives a detailed list of examples of Palestinian youth organizing from 1912 on. Most of them are examples of involvement in groups started in Egypt and Syria, like the Green Flag Society and the Brotherhood. The only organization it gives that is specifically students (not youth in general) and specifically in Palestine is the Society for Resisting Zionism it says was formed at Al-Azhar University in 1913.

It does mention the Youth Conference of 1935, which could be evidence that Palestinian students were working together as a group in the mid-30s, if not the 20s. But if the Conference continued its work for 25 years and eventually became GUPS, this piece doesn't mention it.

The piece does go on to explain that Yasser Arafat became president of the Cairo Palestinian Students' League in 1952, and founded GUPS in 1956. It says this was the "League of Leagues" era, when there were Palestinian student groups forming all over the place, and that the one in Cairo was the oldest.

This one: https://www.novinite.com/articles/41404/Yasser+Arafat%27s+Life%3A+Key+Events explains that Arafat had actually founded the League in Cairo in 1949.

It would be accurate to say that Palestinian student activism in general began in the 1910s, not the 1920s.

But it looks like the group which became GUPS goes back to 1949, not to the 1920s. Oakling (talk) 06:41, 2 November 2024 (UTC)

@Oakling the article does not say that the GUPS was unofficially started in Palestine, only that it was created in the 1920's. A union of Arab Palestinian students started decades before there were universities in Palestine because it was not founded in Palestine at all. The sources provided were all journal/news articles with no further citations.

The GUPS was established officially November 29, 1959, as mentioned, but directly from the Palestinian Student Union (PSU) in Cairo University. The PSU was founded in 1940 in another university, Al-Azhar University in Egypt, then re-activated later in Cairo University. And then, in relation to the Society mentioned in 1913 (actually 1914 as per my sources), the 'Society for Resisting the Zionists' (Jamiat Muqawamat Sahiyuniyin), it was founded in Al-Azhar University, which was the same university that would later on form the original PSU. This is likely what the SFSU page is referencing.

The PSU itself was based on a foundation of ideologies related to Pan-Arabism, and Arab nationalism -- these being Socialist Ba’ath Party (founded 1947) and the Arab Nationalist Movement (founded 1951), and the Muslim Brotherhood (founded 1928). Additionally, al-Urwa al-Wuthqa (founded 1918) -- a literary club at the American University of Beirut -- was the head of protests against a Western military alliance, to which Cairo University took in 50 students, majority Palestinian. Of these students, 15 were part of the Arab Nationalist Movement. 80 Palestinian students were expelled from Baghdad University in 1959, and were taken in by Cairo University. By 1954, the Muslim Brotherhood's position in the PSU had weakened as it was banned in Egypt.

Not directly in relation to this, the rise of Palestinian trade unions for workers had already started in 1920 -- reflecting this rise in political consciousness in the Palestinian population (Palestine Arab Workers' Society in 1925, Palestinian Communist Party in 1924, Islamic Youth Society in early 1930). In terms of more specifically Palestinian student movements in that era, the Palestinian nationalist student society in Beirut (al-Shabiba al-Nabulsiyya) as founded in 1908.

As for why the GUPS, and the PSU in relation, were not founded in Arab Palestine is due to few possible reasons, some being that there were already functional unions and communities functioning within Palestine, that the GUPS was aligned more with the diasporic Palestinian community, and so forth.

TLDR: The GUPS can be directly traced to the Palestinian Student Union (started in 1940) which can be traced further back to 'Society for Resisting the Zionists' (started in 1914, in the same university). The ideologies and movements that led to the founding of PSU can also be traced to at least 1920.

Sources:

Researching the General Union of Palestine Students from the Diaspora

THE PALESTINIAN STUDENT MOVEMENT 1948-1982

Palestine: A Modern History

Palestinian Trade Unionism, 1920-1948

Palestinian Civil Society Babyccino (talk) 23:05, 2 November 2024 (UTC)