As core members of Scholars for Social Justice we stand in solidarity with the Palestinian people, their seventy-five year struggle for self-determination, and the right of return. Scholars for Social Justice condemns Israel’s ruthless bombings, blockade, and imminent ground invasion of Gaza. As scholars of imperialism and racism, as Black feminists, and as teachers, we stand with progressive forces around the country and the world calling for an immediate ceasefire and the resumption of services including water and electricity to Gaza where half of the 2.3 million residents are children. And we insist on the right of all people to express their opposition to the Israeli government without fear of retaliation and repression or baseless charges of antisemitism.  

Let’s be clear. The October 7 attack by Hamas, targeting Israeli civilians, was a brutal act, and we in no way condone it. We affirm the right of oppressed people to engage in armed defense and resistance, but we strongly distinguish this from indiscriminate killing and kidnapping and we recognize that Hamas does not represent all Palestinian people. 

This war, like all previous wars on Gaza, is an unconscionable act of collective punishment.  We refuse the moral obfuscation that equates the violence of Hamas with that of the Israeli state. The October 7 attack occurred in the context of a decades-long military occupation and consistent nonviolent calls within Palestine and around the world for a political solution and for peace. Thousands of Palestinians, not engaged in any form of military hostility, have been killed by Israeli forces over the last seventy years. More than two thousand children have been killed by Israel’s bombs between  October 7, 2023 and this writing. Palestinians have been stripped of self-determination and the basic dignity that is due all people. Thousands of Palestinians have been expelled from their homes by various means including the demolition of more than 5,000 homes in the Occupied Territories between 2006 and 2022. 

One current resident of Gaza commented that it is being transformed from an open-air prison to an open-air grave. The current war represents a disproportionate escalation by Israel of this ongoing catastrophe, unjustified by its own losses. Israel’s leadership appears set to use this moment, instrumentalizing both the deep pain and trauma caused by the genocide of the Jews of Europe and Hamas’s attacks, to achieve what has been a long range goal in both policy and practice: political dominance and the violent clearance of land for Jewish settlement. We are especially disturbed to see major figures in Israeli politics begin to call openly for a program of total Palestinian removal—that is to say, genocide. Here genocide follows apartheid; genocide rationalizes apartheid and the decades of normalized Palestinian pain, exclusion, repression, murder, extraction, dispossession, and misrepresentation.  

Around the world, states and private actors are engaged in the repression of opposition to the illegal and genocidal assault on Gaza: prohibiting protest in the streets, firing those who speak out from their jobs, and attempting to proscribe and censure any expression of solidarity with the Palestinian cause in public life. Anti-Muslim harassment and violence is increasing dangerously, including the recent murder of a Palestinian child in Illinois. As scholars and teachers we condemn the pervasive misinformation, censorship, and marginalization of students supporting Palestine. We oppose what Palestine Legal has called “distorted definition,” the labeling of all who support Palestinian freedom as antisemitic, which has successfully chilled political speech and academic freedom, rendering Palestinian students vulnerable to attack.  We reject antisemitism and we simultaneously reject the Israeli government’s unjust repression of the Palestinian people, as well as attempts to censor that legitimate critique.

Instead of attempting to stop the violence, the U.S. administration—on which Israel depends for massive military aid—has offered unequivocal support for the attack on Gaza, including prohibiting administration officials from speaking of a ceasefire. Yet no one in world history has been as empowered to prevent a horrific occurrence of genocidal violence as President Joe Biden and the leaders of the U.S. government. Their failure to acknowledge the flagrant violation of human rights and international law does permanent damage to the safety of all people—including Americans and Israelis. It will go down in history as a great moral and political failing. 

Thus we are living under disastrous times while, to paraphrase Audre Lorde, being expected to extend our understanding to those who enact violence and censorship.  We know, from histories of Black freedom struggle and from George W. Bush era political discourse, about the dangers of associating  the resistance of Black and Brown people with  terror; we know about the conflation of protest and self defense with crime and aggression.  We refuse such conflations and instead forge ahead in organizing for peace, anticarceral infrastructures of safety, and Palestinian self determination. We hope that you will join us in taking actions that demonstrate concern for the emotional wellbeing and the freedom of expression of Jewish and Palestinian students, faculty, and staff on our campuses and demand that Palestine be free.

Signed

Bayan Abusneineh, Assistant Professor, Ohio State University

Jaime A. Alves, Associate Professor, University of California, Santa Barbara

Jafari Sinclaire Allen, Professor, Columbia University

Davarian Baldwin, Professor, Trinity College

Holly Smith, College Archivist, Spelman College 

Elsa Barkley Brown, Associate Professor, University of Maryland

Jordan T. Camp, Associate Professor, Trinity College

Cathy J. Cohen, Professor, University of Chicago

Lisa Duggan, Professor, New York University

Erica Edwards, Professor, Yale University

Aisha Finch, Associate Professor, Emory University

Tanisha Ford, Professor, CUNY Graduate Center

Regina Freer, Professor, Occidental College

Adom Getachew, Professor, University of Chicago

Paula J. Giddings, E.A. Woodson Professor Emerita, Smith College

Dayo F. Gore, Associate Professor, Georgetown University

Cecilia Green, Associate Professor Emerita, Syracuse University

Joshua B. Guild, Associate Professor, Princeton University

Eva Hageman, Assistant Professor, University of Maryland, College Park

Sarah Haley, Associate Professor, Columbia University

Christina Hanhardt, Associate Professor, University of Maryland

Christina Heatherton, Elting Associate Professor, Trinity College

Grace Kyungwon Hong, Professor, UCLA

Alvaro M. Huerta, Professor, Cal Poly Pomona

Chaumtoli Huq, Associate Professor, CUNY School of Law

Zenzele Isoke, Associate Professor, University of Maryland, College Park

Lynette Aria Jackson, Associate Professor, University of Illinois at Chicago

Joseph F. Jordan, Teaching Associate Professor and Independent Scholar

Robin D.G. Kelley, Professor, UCLA

Karen J. Leong, Associate Professor, Department of History, UNM

L’Heureux Lewis-McCoy, Associate Professor, New York University

Lisa Levenstein, Professor, University of North Carolina, Greensboro

Lisa Lowe, Samuel Knight Professor, Yale University

Kris Manjapra, Professor, Northeastern University

Mohamed Mehdi, Professor, Oakton College

Quincy Mills, Associate Professor, University of Maryland, College Park

Nancy Mirabal, Associate Professor, University of Maryland, College Park

Chandra Talpade Mohanty, Distinguished Professor, Syracuse University

Premilla Nadasen, Professor, Barnard College

Nadine Naber, Professor, University of Illinois at Chicago

Mezna Qato, Fellow, Newnham College, University of Cambridge

Romarilyn Ralston, Coordinating Committee,  California Coalition for Women Prisoners

Barbara Ransby, Professor, University of Illinois at Chicago

Chandan Reddy, Associate Professor, University of Washington

Shana L. Redmond, Professor, Columbia University

Ashanté Reese, Associate Professor, University of Texas,  Austin

Beth Richie, Professor, University of Illinois Chicago

Dylan Rodriguez, Professor, University of California, Riverside

Ananya Roy, Professor, UCLA

W.F. Santiago-Valles, Professor Emeritus, Western Michigan University

Beverly Guy Sheftall, Professor, Spelman College

Holly Smith, College Archivist, Spelman College

C. Riley Snorton, Professor, University of Chicago

Robyn Spencer-Antoine, Associate Professor, Columbia University

Stacey Sutton, Associate Professor, University of Illinois, Chicago

Neferti Tadiar, Professor, Barnard College, Columbia University

Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor, Hughes-Rogers Professor, Princeton University

Emily Thuma, Associate Professor, University of Washington

Gina Athena Ulysse, Professor, University of California, Santa Cruz

João Costa Vargas, Professor, University of California, Riverside

Bianca C. Williams, Matthew D. Branche Associate Professor, Bowdoin College

Johnny Eric Williams, Professor, Trinity College