Statement in Support of The Harvard Crimson and Palestinian Liberation | Opinion – Harvard Crimson
Posted By admin on May 27, 2022
As faculty and officers of Harvard University who oppose racism and colonial violence in all its forms, we stand in solidarity with the Palestinian people in their struggle for freedom and self-determination. Israeli state violence has devastated Palestinian life through a combination of warfare, territorial theft, and violent displacement. Unwavering US financial, military, and political support has fueled the systemic domination and repression of Palestinians. In 2018, Jewish supremacy in Israel was given legal sanction through the Jewish Nation-State Basic Law, which makes the right to national self-determination in Israel unique to the Jewish people and defines Jewish settlement as a national value. Long-standing criticisms of Israeli state violence by Palestinians themselves are now echoed in reports by Human Rights Watch and the Israeli human rights organization BTselem that document widespread human rights violations against Palestinians. Amnesty International has noted that Israel's system of institutionalised segregation and discrimination against Palestinians, as a racial group, in all areas under its control amounts to a system of apartheid. Most recently, Israels former attorney general, Michael Ben-Yair, called his country an apartheid regime and urged the international community to recognise this reality and hold Israel accountable.
It is this larger context of escalating ethnonationalist violence that the Harvard College Palestine Solidarity Committee addressed in its Israeli Apartheid Week of events. It is also the context that prompted The Harvard Crimson to publish its April 29 editorial in support of the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement and Palestinian liberation. And it is this larger context that is systematically distorted in the statement penned by a number of Harvard faculty members in opposition to the Crimson editorial.
In their statement, these faculty members repeatedly call for a more complex understanding of the situation in Israel/Palestine. But this complexity does not include any acknowledgment of the actual conditions of Palestinian life in Israel, the West Bank, the Gaza Strip, or refugee camps in adjacent countries. The statement makes no mention of the dispossession of Palestinian land by ever-expanding settlements, the siting of educational institutions on settlement land as a means of solidifying the Israeli occupation, the routine incarceration and killing of Palestinian protestors, the eviction of Palestinians and destruction of their homes, and the gunning down of Palestinian journalists. It makes no mention of the fact that Palestinian resistance is criminalized by Israel and the US and that every measure of self-defense by a people without a state or an army against a nuclear power backed by the US is subject to immediate censure. On the contrary, the statement completely obscures the relationship between the Jewish national project and Palestinian subjugation. In demonizing BDS, it also severs its family
resemblance to other instances of boycott, divestment, and sanctions, including the movement against South African apartheid and the measures being adopted against the Russian invasion of Ukraine. In short, the statement sidesteps any effort to understand why BDS a nonviolent response to the violence of the Israeli state might have been adopted by Palestinians as a political strategy and why it has increasing support around the world.
Instead, the only violence mentioned is that of antisemitism. The only threat identified is to the Jewish national project. The only vulnerability named is that faced by Jewish and Zionist students. In disregarding the everyday violence exercised by Israel on Palestinians, blaming BDS for rising antisemitism, and equating student opposition to Israels policies with anti-Jewish hate speech, the statement conflates Jewishness with Israel and Zionism and erases the presence of Jewish students and organizations that oppose Zionism and root their support for Palestinian liberation in a moral understanding of Judaism. Antisemitism is indeed real and dire. It is embedded in white supremacy, and many forms of racism have deep ties to antisemitism. However, blaming the movement for Palestinian liberation for rising antisemitism weaponizes a legitimate concern to distract from the racism and violence faced by Palestinians. In effect, the statement reprises a strategy deployed by Israeli and US governments as part of a growing trend to shut down legitimate criticism of an increasingly violent, exclusionary, and discriminatory state.
It is especially troubling that a group of faculty, including former Harvard president Lawrence Summers, has gone to such lengths to criticize the political stances of students in the name of a respectful and inclusive learning environment. The irony of leveraging the stark imbalance of power between faculty and students in order to obscure the gross asymmetries in power between Israel and Palestinians seems to be lost on them. So too is the inherent contradiction of censoring criticism of Israel in the name of intellectual exchange. This abuse of power is compounded by their patronizing attitude to the Crimson editors whom they encourage to access resources at Harvard, including the signatories themselves, to [learn] more deeply about Jewish identity and Israel, the diversity of the Jewish experience, and the multifaceted nature of contemporary antisemitism. Not only do such comments render Palestinian experiences irrelevant, even illegitimate, they substitute institutional power and credentials for knowledge in order to put students in their place. We strongly oppose such tactics of intimidation and applaud the Crimson editors and the Palestine Solidarity Committee for their moral clarity and fortitude in defending Palestinian rights against consistent efforts to deny them. It is students like these who make our university proud. We stand with them and the Palestinian people in their principled opposition to Israeli apartheid.
Steven Caton is the Khalid Bin Abdullah Bin Abdulrahman Al Saud Professor of Contemporary Arab Studies. Sara Roy is a senior research scholar at Harvards Center for Middle Eastern Studies. Ajantha Subramanian is the Mehra Family Professor of South Asian Studies and Chair of the Anthropology Department.
A full list of the 49 signatories to this letter can be found here.
Original post:
Statement in Support of The Harvard Crimson and Palestinian Liberation | Opinion - Harvard Crimson
- Zionism - ADL - December 29th, 2022
- Split of Religious Zionism, Otzma Yehudit, Noam parties approved ... - December 29th, 2022
- Netanyahu government reconnects with "revisionist Zionism" - December 29th, 2022
- Bezalel Smotrich, the Leader of the Nationalist Religious Zionism Party, is Poised to ... - Latest Tweet by - LatestLY - December 29th, 2022
- Book review: Zionism During the Holocaust: The Weaponisation of ... - Middle East Monitor - December 25th, 2022
- Hundreds of US rabbis pledge to block extremists in Israeli government from speaking in their communities - JTA News - Jewish Telegraphic Agency - December 25th, 2022
- Why well fight Israels new extremist political agenda with the determination of the Maccabees - JTA News - Jewish Telegraphic Agency - December 25th, 2022
- Israels Election Empowers a More Muscular Religious Zionism - December 18th, 2022
- The Noahide Laws :: Zionism Exposed - December 15th, 2022
- Georgia Guidestones - Wikipedia - October 27th, 2022
- Ephesians, CHAPTER 2 | USCCB - October 27th, 2022
- Knesset - Wikipedia - October 27th, 2022
- Changing Attitudes towards Zionism among American JewsAn Interview with Zachary Lockman - MERIP - October 17th, 2022
- Berkeley Law Faculty Condemn Refusing Zionist Speakers - Inside Higher Ed - October 17th, 2022
- Kanye West's Twitter account locked for anti-Semitic tweet - KCRA Sacramento - October 10th, 2022
- Lead role in play about antisemitism for leading light of anti-Zionism - The Times of Israel - October 10th, 2022
- Why the US congress and Canadian Parliament ordered Twitter to erase Laith Marouf from Virtual existence - Al Mayadeen English - October 10th, 2022
- Zionism During the Holocaust: The Weaponization of Memory in the Service of State and Nation - Book Review - Palestine Chronicle - October 6th, 2022
- What is a Zionist? Liz Truss calls herself a 'huge Zionist' as she pledges support to Israel - The Scotsman - October 6th, 2022
- The worst college story you'll read all year - Religion News Service - September 16th, 2022
- Jewish teen advocacy: What is it and how does it lead to the new American Jew? - eJewish Philanthropy - September 13th, 2022
- Your Daily Phil: GatherDC expands to West Coast + Nourishment for the Jewish soul - eJewish Philanthropy - September 13th, 2022
- 'The New York Times,' Zionism and Israel - JNS.org - September 13th, 2022
- DOE opens investigation into antisemitic incidents at the University of Vermont - Jewish Insider - September 13th, 2022
- Lebanese Expert: U.S. and Zionism Are Behind Hitler, ISIS - Middle East Media Research Institute - September 13th, 2022
- An anti-Semitism expert says that progressives 'have the right to exclude Zionists' - Middle East Monitor - September 11th, 2022
- Biden Said it Best: You Don't Have to Be Jewish to Be a Zionist - Jewish Journal - August 6th, 2022
- ED launches Title VI investigation into USC - Inside Higher Ed - August 1st, 2022
- 'I Solemnly Demand That Anti-Zionism Be Banned in France,' Parliamentary Deputy Declares - Algemeiner - August 1st, 2022
- Editor Who Pushed Anti-Zionism Gets a Promotion at New York Times - Algemeiner - August 1st, 2022
- Zionism And The Power To Rule Over Others - The Jewish Press - JewishPress.com - August 1st, 2022
- In The Zionist Megiddo Prison - Countercurrents.org - August 1st, 2022
- An idea of inclusive India - Business Standard - July 10th, 2022
- Roadmap from critics of Israel sends chill through Jewish community - The Boston Globe - June 26th, 2022
- I am a Jewish Crimson Editor, and I See the Writing on the Wallof Resistance | Opinion - Harvard Crimson - June 26th, 2022
- Review of Judaism 3.0: Judaism's Transformation To Zionism - The Jewish Press - JewishPress.com - June 26th, 2022
- BDS-promoted mapping project is antisemitic and must be condemned - The Boston Globe - June 14th, 2022
- A Journey to June 1967 and Back: On the Fabricated Narratives of Zionism - Palestine Chronicle - June 14th, 2022
- Were Early Zionists Terrorists? - The Jewish Press - JewishPress.com - June 14th, 2022
- 100 years ago this month: When Congress embraced Zionismunanimously - JNS.org - June 10th, 2022
- The Soviet origins of left-wing anti-Zionism - JNS.org - June 10th, 2022
- Israel's Destruction Is Championed at the University of Chicago - Algemeiner - June 10th, 2022
- Anti-Zionism is a genocidal ideology | Eyal Bitton | The Blogs - June 4th, 2022
- The Silver Platter - (Silver Salver) Nathan Alterman - Poem - June 4th, 2022
- Zionism, Policing and Empire: A dispatch from the Mapping Project - Mondoweiss - June 4th, 2022
- Review of Legacy of Empire: Britain, Zionism and the Creation of Israel - Middle East Forum - June 2nd, 2022
- Zionism of Strength and Humility | Andy Blumenthal | The Blogs - The Times of Israel - June 2nd, 2022
- First Zionist Congress - Wikipedia - May 27th, 2022
- New book: A 'Queer, Disabled' early Zionist illustrates 'roads not taken' J. - The Jewish News of Northern California - May 25th, 2022
- Group reports record tally of antisemitic incidents in 2021 - ABC News - April 29th, 2022
- Why Did an Antisemitic Christian Zionist Have the Chutzpah to Declare That He'd Be Leading a Holocaust March? - Religion Dispatches - April 29th, 2022
- The Babylonian Talmud - Zionism Exposed - April 20th, 2022
- LIVE EVENT - War, Conflict, and Academic Freedom (21 April) - Jadaliyya - April 20th, 2022
- The cause, and the goal, of Israeli violence - Al Jazeera English - April 20th, 2022
- 67 years after his death, Albert Einstein's true relationship to Judaism and Zionism - St. Louis Jewish Light - April 20th, 2022
- Antisemitism and Anti-Zionism on the College Campus - jewishboston.com - April 20th, 2022
- Why is this night and this year different than all other nights? - Wisconsin Examiner - April 16th, 2022
- Temple Israel series to focus on antisemitism, anti-Zionism - Cleveland Jewish News - April 16th, 2022
- Controversy Over Israel Studies At University Of Washington Did Not Have To Happen - Forbes - April 13th, 2022
- Wine-washing the Israeli occupation - Al Jazeera English - April 13th, 2022
- My Zionist Hagadah | Jeffrey Levine | The Blogs - The Times of Israel - April 13th, 2022
- Canary Mission Report Highlights Antisemitism Among Supporters of USC Student Senator Who Tweeted I Want to Kill Every Motherf---ing Zionist - Jewish... - March 29th, 2022
- Yet another 'apartheid' report builds pressure on liberal Zionists to recognize 'lived reality' of Palestinians - Mondoweiss - March 26th, 2022
- Students For Justice In Palestine: J Street Is The Gateway For Jewish Anti-Zionists - The Jewish Press - JewishPress.com - March 26th, 2022
- How Owen Jones learned to stop worrying and love Zionism - The Electronic Intifada - March 24th, 2022
- Judaic Studies begins Zionism lecture series with guest ... - March 8th, 2022
- Foreign Fighters and Fellow Travelers: Right-Wing Extremism in Australia and the United States - Lawfare - March 8th, 2022
- The crisis in Ukraine exposes the hypocrisy of Israel and its Zionist allies - Middle East Monitor - February 26th, 2022
- Iran: Believers To Begin Prison Sentences For spreading ... - February 24th, 2022
- New Historians - Wikipedia - February 24th, 2022
- 'We Can't Shut Off One of Our Identities': Jewish SUNY Students Decry 'Exclusion' From Sexual Assault Awareness Group Over Zionism - Algemeiner - February 24th, 2022
- Inside the Unraveling of American Zionism - The New York Times - February 11th, 2022
- How Judaism and Zionism Helped Me Find Myself - The Times of Israel - February 11th, 2022
- A view from the ground in Ukraine | Paul Anticoni | The Blogs - Jewish News - February 11th, 2022
- 'I am exhausted by Israel' hear Sylvain Cypel on the risk to Jews of supporting the 'thug nation' - Mondoweiss - February 11th, 2022
- Opinion: Dont be fooled. Zionism is an Indigenous rights movement and being anti-Zionist is antisemitic. - The San Diego Union-Tribune - December 14th, 2021
- 'Toxic atmosphere of hatred.' USC faculty outraged over response to student's tweets - Los Angeles Times - December 14th, 2021
- Product of Zionism is 'Apartheid, plain and simple', says Israeli publisher - Middle East Monitor - December 14th, 2021
- Can a new word 'Zionophobia' clarify the debate over Israel? J. - The Jewish News of Northern California - December 14th, 2021
- When battling 'progressive madness' is more important than saving lives - Haaretz - December 14th, 2021
Comments