Student Statement in Solidarity with Palestinian Liberation
As Israeli colonial violence intensifies across historic Palestine, Palestinians from the river to the sea demand an International Strike in solidarity with their liberation movement as they struggle for life and land against compounded attacks by the Zionist settler project. Today, May 18th, 2021, Palestine solidarity organizationa across occupied Turtle Island reaffirm our unwavering solidarity with the Palestinian people and their pursuit for liberation, self-determination, and decolonization.
In the Jerusalem neighborhood of Sheikh Jarrah, illegal Jewish Israeli settlers continue to attack and torment Palestinian families with death threats, live amunition, and physical violence in an effort to expell them from their homes and settle in their place. Palestinian home-defenders are confronting the violent occupation foces of a settler-colonial project against all odds, as they have done for decades, even as their occupiers and colonizers arrest their youth en masse, lynch them in the streets, assault them with skunk water and tear-gas, and destroy their property. These tactics, however, have utterly failed to stifle the Palestinian spirit and its longing for freedom, as has been magnified in recent days.
This past Saturday marked 73 years since the Nakba--or catastrophe--began, when 750,000 Palestinians were expelled from their homes and over 500 of their villages and towns were destroyed. Since then, 750,000 has become 7 million, and these Palestinian refugees around the world continue to raise their fists with keys clenched and exclaim, “len nerhel w snerja3”; we wilcan l not leave, and we will return. As we witness Palestinians in Sheikh Jarrah defy the daily threat of expulsion by Israel, we are reminded that the Nakba is not a moment in history, but rather, it was the beginning of an ongoing, ever-intensifying process of displacement and colonization.
Palestinians in Gaza – one of the most densely-populated places in the world and home to millions of Palestinian refugees internally displaced since 1948 – celebrated Eid al-Fitr under a cascade of bombs and missiles bankrolled by the US and unleashed by the Israeli war machine. Over the past week, Israel has stolen the lives of over 130 Palestinian parents and children and injured thousands. This devastation, this massacre, is compounded by the pandemic, in addition to Israel’s imposition of a decades-long illegal siege on Gaza, sealing it off from the rest of the world and trapping its two million residents inside this tiny strip of land. Severe shortages of life-saving medicines, food, electricity, and clean water continue to make life unsafe and unbearable— a humanitarian catastrophe deliberately manufactured by a violent colonial project that sees enemies everywhere, whether in orphanages or in schools.
And while students mobilize their campuses in support of Palestinian liberation, our universities remain complicit by subsidizing occupation and the ongoing Nakba with our tuition dollars. Every year, millions are spent purchasing products made on or with stolen Palestinian land and resources. Every year, millions are poured into investments in companies and corporations complicit in the murder, dispossession, and colonization of indigenous people. Every year, millions are spent on death and destruction, whilst students struggle to support themselves under the crushing weight of student loans. Indeed, our universities force us into complicity; therefore, we must proactively and definitively proclaim: we reject the Zionist colonization of historic Palestine.
WE DEMAND an end to university partnerships with institutions, businesses, and investors that perpetuate and profit off the colonization of the Palestinian people.
WE DEMAND an end to the deadly exchange on campus, from University Police Departments relationships with the Israeli National Police, to teach-ins about counterterrorism.
WE DEMAND an end to institutional relationships with the Anti-Defamation League, which continue to repress Palestinian and otherwise marginalized communities in the name of safety.
As students unequivocally dedicated to Justice in Palestine, we will continue to struggle for Palestinian liberation on our campuses through pursuing institutional Boycotts, Divestments, and Sanctions on Israel. We will remain steadfast until liberation is realized; from Jerusalem, to Haifa, to Lydd, to Gaza.
Chapters Signatories:
Rhode Island School of Design Students for Justice in Palestine
Bard Students for Justice in Palestine
Students for Justice in Palestine Rutgers New Brunswick
Students for Justice in Palestine- Florida’s International University
Students for Justice in Palestine at University of Maryland
Students for Justice in Palestine - University of Toledo
Students for Justice in Palestine at Occidental College
Students for Justice in Palestine - University of Texas at Dallas
The Palestine Solidarity Committee - Austin, Tx
Palestine Solidarity Committee - Texas A&M University
Students for Justice in Palestine - University of Houston
Students for Justice in Palestine at Cal State Fullerton
Students for Justice in Palestine- Arizona State University
Students for Justice in Palestine Chapman
Columbia University Students for Justice in Palestine
Student for Justice in Palestine- University of Florida
Seattle University Students for Justice in Palestine
Students for Justice in Palestine at University of Southern California
Students for Justice in Palestine- Butler University
Students for Justice in Palestine - University of Massachusetts Amherst
Students for Justice in Palestine - San Diego State University
Palestine Solidarity Alliance of Hunter College CUNY
Students for Justice - The Ohio State University
Fordham Students for Justice in Palestine
Add your chapter to this student-wide statement in solidarity with Palestinian liberation here