University of Illinois Jewish Community Letter in Support of Our Professor Steven Salaita

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Sep 4, 2014 United States
[Image via Support Salatia Facebook Page] [Image via Support Salatia Facebook Page]

University of Illinois Jewish Community Letter in Support of Our Professor Steven Salaita

By : Jadaliyya Reports

[The below open letter was issued to Chancellor Wise and the University of Illinois- Uraban Champaign (UIUC) Board of Trustees from Jewish faculty, staff, students, alumni and parents at the university in support of Steven Salaita. The letter was drafted by Samantha Brotman, alumna of Georgetown University’s Master of Arts in Arab Studies and current faculty member in the UIUC’s Intensive English Institute, and Rico Kleinstein Chenyek, a graduate student in the Institute of Communications Research, Latino/Latina Studies, and the College of Medicine. If you would like to sign this letter, please click here.]

University of Illinois Jewish Community Letter in Support of Our Professor Steven Salaita

September 3rd, 2014

Dear Chancellor Wise & Members of The Board of Trustees,

We, Jewish students, faculty, staff, alumni, and parents of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, are writing to object in the strongest possible terms to the firing of Professor Steven Salaita. As Jewish members of this campus community, we insist that you do not speak for us in your unjust actions. In no way do Professor Salaita’s words, tweets, or presence on campus make us feel unsafe, disrespected, or threatened, as your public letter indicated.

Your decision to fire Professor Salaita is in fact what threatens us as Jews. By pointing to anti-Semitism and anti-Judaism in an attempt to obscure politically and financially-motivated University actions, you minimize the Jewish voices of those who have resisted real and violent anti-Semitism. By conflating pointed and justified critique of the Israeli state with anti-Semitism, your administration is effectively disregarding a large and growing number of Jewish perspectives that oppose Israeli military occupation, settler expansion, and the assault on Palestine. We did not survive ethnic cleansing and carry on the legacy of our people to have our existence used to justify the genocide and ethnic cleansing of Palestinians, or their unethical treatment when they speak out against the murder, violence, and displacement of their own people.

Furthermore, we insist that you not minimize the context within which Professor Salaita’s firing has taken place. It is within Palestinian right and that of us all to express opposition to the brutality to which we are and have been bearing witness in Gaza and all of Palestine, and to do so with sharp interrogation and anger. To brand this opposition as uncivil or unsafe enough to warrant the dismissal of a faculty member is not only a violation of academic freedom, it is a clear devaluation of Palestinian existence and personhood, with implications for others whose lives similarly have been and continue to be systematically attacked through state-sanctioned violence.

It is unfortunate that Professor Salaita’s critique, anger, dissent, and very existence on this campus have made some, donors or otherwise, within the UIUC community uncomfortable. However, there is nothing comfortable (or civil, for that matter) about Israeli war or occupation. While you pontificated over whether or not some comments made on social media were anti-Semitic, the U.S. sponsored Israeli military systematically murdered thousands of Palestinians. Now our campus has been denied an invaluable scholarly voice to help lead this community in a conversation about why as well as how to stop this from ever happening again.

The firing of Professor Salaita is the Israeli attack on Palestine coming to our campus. Just as we work tirelessly to oppose Israeli ethnic cleansing and displacement of Palestinians taking place in our name, we will ensure that the silencing of Professor Salaita and others like him does not take place in our name either. For all of these reasons, we insist that you reverse your decision and reinstate Professor Salaita immediately. The undersigned Jewish students, faculty, staff and alumni will not allow for anything less.

 

[**Addendum Added 9/20/2014, After the 102nd Signature** Given the recent decision on September 11th of the Board of Trustees not to approve Professor Salaita’s hire, and given the continued effort to control the conversation over Israel and Palestine by wielding accusations of anti-Semitism, we are now expanding the original message of this letter. We are also adding President Robert Easter to our list of recipients (see the recent news of his direct involvement in the firing of Professor Salaita: http://electronicintifada.net/blogs/ali-abunimah/email-contradicts-univ-illinois-presidents-statement-salaita-firing). The implications of the board’s decision reach far beyond the UIUC campus into a larger context of corrupt U.S. academic institutional support for Israel. Therefore, we invite all Jews who agree with the original spirit of this letter to sign below. We invite all Jews to stand with us in our continued opposition to the administration’s claim that it’s actions protect us. We invite all Jews to join us  in our continued pledge to ensure that others do not conflate Judaism and Zionism or anti-Semitism with critique of the Israeli state. We invite all Jews to organize with us in support of our Professor Steven Salaita.]

 

In solidarity with Professor Salaita,
[Any Jewish person interested in signing the letter should click here.]

1. Samantha Brotman (Faculty)
2. Rico Kleinstein Chenyek (Student)
3. Jade Bettine (Student)
4. Zachary Poppel (Student)
5. Stephanie Brown (Student)
6. Jessica Landau (Student)
7. Ashley Price (Alumna)
8. Jonah Weisskopf (Alum)
9. Richard Grusin (Alumnus)
10. Michael Jinks (Alum)
11. Michael Levin, Ph.D. (Alumnus)
12. Mia Warshofsky (Student)
13. David Hamilton (Student)
14. Lennard J Davis (Faculty)
15. Anna Kornbluh (Faculty)
16. Ane Johnson (Faculty)
17. Rebecca Schumann (Student)
18. Robert Naiman (Alumnus `86, `89, `05)
19. Gabriel Solis (Faculty)
20. Molly Doane (Faculty)
21. Deborah Tomaras (Alumna)
22. Fabian Prieto (Student)
23. Stuart Levy (Staff)
24. Laura Nussbaum-Barberena (Student)
25. David Green (Academic Professional)
26. Sarah Sahn (Student)
27. Brian Dolber (Alum)
28. Michael Silvers (Faculty)
29. Jordan Litwin (Alum)
30. Stephen J Kaufman (Professor Emeritus)
31. Barbara Goodman (Alumna)
32. Marina Levina (Alum)
33. Belden Fields (Alumnus `60 & Professor Emeritus)
34. Bruce Levine (Faculty)
35. Jay Rosenstein (Faculty and Alum)
36. Lauren Goodlad (Faculty)
37. Kathy Lombardo (Community)
38. Kareem Aboor (Donor)
39. Walter Feinberg (Emeritus Faculty)
40. Lillie Gordon (Faculty)
41. Lisa Chason (Student, TA)
42. Jennifer Lieberman (Alumna)
43. Mónica G. García (Alum)
44. Brian Bell (Community)
45. Alfred Lerner (Alumnus `78)
46. Linda Remaker (Alum)
47. Heather Grossman (Visiting Faculty)
48. Ivan Ruiz (Alum)
49. Lally Gartel (Alum)
50. Jonathan Weissman (Alum)
51. Tamara Chaplin (Faculty)
52. Al Kagan (Professor Emeritus)
53. Jonathan Feinberg (Alum)
54. Alan Labb (Alum)
55. Nadine Dolby (Alum)
56. Eileen Thalenberg (Alum)
57. Ann Schubert (Parent)
58. Deborah Chassler (Alum)
59. Nina Barnett (Alum)
60. Amanda N. Harris, Ph.D. (Alum)
61. Abe Singer (Alum)
62. Lola Chenyek (Student Sibling)
63. Hamza Kishta (Alum)
64. Patricia Noll (Community)
65. Catherine Prendergast (Faculty)
66. Carol Martin (Faculty)
67. Alan Blitz (Alum)
68. Gildas Hamel (Student Family & UCSC Faculty)
69. Amanda Lewis (Faculty)
70. Deborah Cohen (Alum)
71. Martin Miller (Student)
72. Shara Jean (Community)
73. Professor Roger Bromley (Alum)
74. Sahar Mustafah (Community)
75. Sarah West (Student, TA)
76. Melinda Miller (Alum)
77. Lauren Kaminsky, PhD (Alum)
78. Fabio Akcelrud Durao (Faculty)
79. Richard S. Esbenshade, Ph.D. (Former Faculty)
80. Hedy Epstein (Community)
81. Susan Kleinstein (Parent)
82. Armando Chenyek (Parent)
83. Ellen Gradman (Alum)
84. John Drier (Community)
85. Simon Hyde (Community)
86. Garrett Field (Community)
87. Fatiha Makloufi (Community)
88. Joanne Rappaport, PhD (Alum)
89. Jennifer Brier (Faculty)
90. Stephen Sherman (Student)
91. Peter Simon (Alumni)
92. Lisa Frohmann (Faculty)
93. Robert Markley (Faculty)
94. Jessica Greenberg (Faculty)
95. Linda Turner (Alum, 1963)
96. Micah Heumann (Alum, Faculty)
97. Nancy S. Bishop (UIC alum)
98. Mark "Shades" Hartstein (Community)
99. Robert Jacobs (Alum)
100. Rodney Clough (Alum)

[Any Jewish person interested in signing the letter should click here.]

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Jadaliyya Reports By :
Jadaliyya Reports

Past is Present: Settler Colonialism Matters!

On 5-6 March 2011, the Palestine Society at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) in London will hold its seventh annual conference, "Past is Present: Settler Colonialism in Palestine." This year`s conference aims to understand Zionism as a settler colonial project which has, for more than a century, subjected Palestine and Palestinians to a structural and violent form of destruction, dispossession, land appropriation and erasure in the pursuit of a new Jewish Israeli society. By organizing this conference, we hope to reclaim and revive the settler colonial paradigm and to outline its potential to inform and guide political strategy and mobilization.

The Israeli-Palestinian conflict is often described as unique and exceptional with little resemblance to other historical or ongoing colonial conflicts. Yet, for Zionism, like other settler colonial projects such as the British colonization of Ireland or European settlement of North America, South Africa or Australia, the imperative is to control the land and its resources -- and to displace the original inhabitants. Indeed, as conference keynote speaker Patrick Wolfe, one of the foremost scholars on settler colonialism and professor at La Trobe University in Victoria, Australia, argues, "the logic of this project, a sustained institutional tendency to eliminate the Indigenous population, informs a range of historical practices that might otherwise appear distinct--invasion is a structure not an event."[i]

Therefore, the classification of the Zionist movement as a settler colonial project, and the Israeli state as its manifestation, is not merely intended as a statement on the historical origins of Israel, nor as a rhetorical or polemical device. Rather, the aim is to highlight Zionism`s structural continuities and the ideology which informs Israeli policies and practices in Palestine and toward Palestinians everywhere. Thus, the Nakba -- whether viewed as a spontaneous, violent episode in war, or the implementation of a preconceived master plan -- should be understood as both the precondition for the creation of Israel and the logical outcome of Zionist settlement in Palestine.

Moreover, it is this same logic that sustains the continuation of the Nakba today. As remarked by Benny Morris, “had he [David Ben Gurion] carried out full expulsion--rather than partial--he would have stabilised the State of Israel for generations.”[ii] Yet, plagued by an “instability”--defined by the very existence of the Palestinian nation--Israel continues its daily state practices in its quest to fulfill Zionism’s logic to maximize the amount of land under its control with the minimum number of Palestinians on it. These practices take a painful array of manifestations: aerial and maritime bombardment, massacre and invasion, house demolitions, land theft, identity card confiscation, racist laws and loyalty tests, the wall, the siege on Gaza, cultural appropriation, and the dependence on willing (or unwilling) native collaboration and security arrangements, all with the continued support and backing of imperial power. 

Despite these enduring practices however, the settler colonial paradigm has largely fallen into disuse. As a paradigm, it once served as a primary ideological and political framework for all Palestinian political factions and trends, and informed the intellectual work of committed academics and revolutionary scholars, both Palestinians and Jews.

The conference thus asks where and why the settler colonial paradigm was lost, both in scholarship on Palestine and in politics; how do current analyses and theoretical trends that have arisen in its place address present and historical realities? While acknowledging the creativity of these new interpretations, we must nonetheless ask: when exactly did Palestinian natives find themselves in a "post-colonial" condition? When did the ongoing struggle over land become a "post-conflict" situation? When did Israel become a "post-Zionist" society? And when did the fortification of Palestinian ghettos and reservations become "state-building"?

In outlining settler colonialism as a central paradigm from which to understand Palestine, this conference re-invigorates it as a tool by which to analyze the present situation. In doing so, it contests solutions which accommodate Zionism, and more significantly, builds settler colonialism as a political analysis that can embolden and inform a strategy of active, mutual, and principled Palestinian alignment with the Arab struggle for self-determination, and indigenous struggles in the US, Latin America, Oceania, and elsewhere.

Such an alignment would expand the tools available to Palestinians and their solidarity movement, and reconnect the struggle to its own history of anti-colonial internationalism. At its core, this internationalism asserts that the Palestinian struggle against Zionist settler colonialism can only be won when it is embedded within, and empowered by, the broader Arab movement for emancipation and the indigenous, anti-racist and anti-colonial movement--from Arizona to Auckland.

SOAS Palestine Society invites everyone to join us at what promises to be a significant intervention in Palestine activism and scholarship.

For over 30 years, SOAS Palestine Society has heightened awareness and understanding of the Palestinian people, their rights, culture, and struggle for self-determination, amongst students, faculty, staff, and the broader public. SOAS Palestine society aims to continuously push the frontiers of discourse in an effort to make provocative arguments and to stimulate debate and organizing for justice in Palestine through relevant conferences, and events ranging from the intellectual and political impact of Edward Said`s life and work (2004), international law and the Palestine question (2005), the economy of Palestine and its occupation (2006), the one state (2007), 60 Years of Nakba, 60 Years of Resistance (2009), and most recently, the Left in Palestine (2010).

For more information on the SOAS Palestine Society 7th annual conference, Past is Present: Settler Colonialism in Palestine: www.soaspalsoc.org

SOAS Palestine Society Organizing Collective is a group of committed students that has undertaken to organize annual academic conferences on Palestine since 2003.

 

[i] Patrick Wolfe, Settler Colonialism and the Transformation of Anthropology: The Politics and Poetics of an Ethnographic Event, Cassell, London, p. 163

[ii] Interview with Benny Morris, Survival of the Fittest, Haaretz, 9. January 2004, http://cosmos.ucc.ie/cs1064/jabowen/IPSC/php/art.php?aid=5412