Hunger strikes are typically the third act of political protest, the point at which the conventional provocations, having failed to yield the desired result, push the most impassioned closer toward martyrdom. “What the university is making abundantly clear is that they would rather let students starve than enter a dialogue,” David Chmielewski, one of the strikers, a soft-spoken senior, told me. Princeton has been less responsive to student demands around the war in Gaza than some of its peers. The discussion had followed a sit-in that began on April 25 and then the occupation of an administrative building four days later, where 13 students were arrested. The hunger strikers have said that they will continue to limit themselves to water until the conversations around disentangling from Israel become substantive and the university allows students who have been arrested back on campus, dismissing the disciplinary charges against them.

---

Persons: Cannon Green, ” David Chmielewski, Scott Fitzgerald, Philippe, Christopher Eisgruber Organizations: Princeton University, Princeton, Palm Beach . Princeton Locations: Nassau, Palm Beach ., Gaza, Israel, disentangling