Faculty Support Student-Workers of UAW 2865 in Solidarity with Palestinian Students and Workers

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Nov 25, 2014 Palestine-Israel
Faculty Support Student-Workers of UAW 2865 in Solidarity with Palestinian Students and Workers

Faculty Support Student-Workers of UAW 2865 in Solidarity with Palestinian Students and Workers

By : Jadaliyya Reports

[The following open letter was published by the below signatories on 14 November 2014.]

We are faculty in support of the UAW 2865’s efforts to stand in solidarity with Palestinian workers and students. On December 4, 2014, the UAW 2865 – the union representing teaching assistants, graders, readers, and tutors across the University of California system – will hold a membership-wide vote on a historic resolution to join the Boycott Divestment and Sanctions (“BDS”) movement seeking to pressure Israel to end its occupation of Palestinian lands, end its settler-colonial policies, and comply with international and human rights law. As faculty members both at the University of California and beyond, we support the efforts of the UAW 2865 and support its members in voting YES on the resolution.

This summer during Israel’s devastating attacks on Gaza, the union’s elected leadership (the Joint Council) published an open letter in solidarity with Palestinian labor unions’ call for joining the global BDS movement as an act of solidarity and in protest of Israeli occupation and warfare. The goal of the movement is to restore the rights of Palestinians who are under siege and military occupation in Gaza and the West Bank and of Palestinian citizens of Israel who are racially discriminated against on the basis of over 50 laws, in everything from property ownership to family reunification rights, as well as Palestinian refugees who are barred by Israel from returning to their lands.

The UAW 2865 resolution calls on the University of California and UAW international to divest their investments, including pension from Israeli state institutions and international companies complicit in severe and ongoing human rights violations, and on the US government to end military aid to Israel. The UAW is also asking for its members to make an individual commitment, a pledge, to participate in the academic boycott of Israeli institutions.

As faculty members both at the University of California and beyond, we support the efforts of the UAW 2865 and its members in voting “Yes” on the current resolution, which is long overdue. To date, faculty across the country have taken a position on the right side of history by supporting Palestinian self-determination and supporting BDS as a vehicle to challenge Israel’s violations of human rights. Academic associations including the American Studies Association, the Asian American Studies Association, the Native American and Indigenous Studies Association, and the Critical Ethnic Studies Association have already overwhelmingly voted to endorse a boycott of Israeli academic institutions. Over 1,200 U.S. academics have already joined the U.S. Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel in response to the call from Palestinian scholars, students, and trade unions, including the General Union of Palestinian Teachers, the Federation of Unions of Palestinian Universities’ Professors and Employees, and the General Federation of Trade Unions.

As faculty, it is now our turn to support our student-workers, teaching assistants, and advisees as they take this bold and courageous step to call on their employer—the University of California —and the UAW International to divest from companies profiting from the illegal military occupation of Palestine, as well as committing themselves to the academic boycott.

Israeli universities are complicit with the occupation and the state’s human rights violations in a number of ways. Many are built on occupied Palestinian lands or on illegal settlements (for example, Ariel University and parts of Hebrew University in Jerusalem) while universities such as Technion further develop the technological capacities and military doctrines that make the occupation possible. The occupation and siege of the West Bank and Gaza prevent Palestinian academics and students from accessing outside institutions of higher learning and professional conferences. Israeli policies, including West Bank checkpoints and the blockade of Gaza, impede students from getting to school, and travel abroad to study can be extremely difficult. Meanwhile, Palestinian universities are regularly targeted by the Israeli state with violence and repression. There is a long record of Israeli universities arresting, harassing, and repressing Palestinian student protests and political activities. Similar racism in apartheid South Africa led to students and professors in the U.S. engaging in boycott and divestment; increasingly, they are doing the same to challenge bigoted Israeli policies and laws that are upheld by unconditional U.S. support.

While many other unions around the world have already supported BDS, we are inspired that a “YES” vote on the UAW 2965 resolution would mean that the UAW 2865 will become the first labor union in the United States to join the BDS movement!

We, the undersigned faculty, support the UAW 2865 members who vote YES on the upcoming BDS resolution.

In solidarity,

The Undersigned

(To sign the statement, please go to http://goo.gl/4Enxn4 or send name and institutional affiliation to palestine.faculty@gmail.com)

1. Sunaina Maira, University of California, Davis

2. David Palumbo-Liu, Stanford University

3. Dylan Rodriguez, Corona, California

4. Curtis Marez, University of California San Diego

5. Noha Radwan, University of California, Davis

6. Aamir Qureshi, San Jose, California

7. Alex Lubin, University of New Mexico

8. Beatrice Pita, University of California, San Diego

9. Margaret Ferguson, University of California Davis

10. Adam Miyashiro, Stockton College, New Jersey

11. Elaine H. Kim, University of California, Berkeley

12. Hatem Bazian, University of California, Berkeley

13. Sarah Haley, University of California Los Angeles

14. Flagg Miller, University of California, Davis

15. Richard Walker, University of California Berkeley

16. Todd Snyder San Francisco, California

17. Aamir R. Mufti, University of California Los Angeles

18. Robin. D. G. Kelley, University of California Los Angeles

19. Suad Joseph, University of California, Davis

20. Bill Mullen, Purdue University

21. Natalia Deeb Sossa, University of California, Davis

22. Manzar Foroohar, California Polytechnic State University

23. Sondra Hale, University of California, Los Angeles

24. Neda Atanasoski, University of California, Santa Cruz

25. Hsuan L. Hsu, University of California, Davis

26. Hassan Fouda, Berkeley, California

27. Nada Pretnar Triste, Italy

28. David Shorter, University of California Los Angeles

29. Judith Butler, University of California, Berkeley

30. Lisa Rofel, University of California, Santa Cruz

31. Shrene Seikaly, University of California, Santa Barbara

32. Ilan Pappé, University of Exeter

33. Michael Burawoy, University of California Berkeley

34. Donald L. Donham, University of California, Davis

35. Gina Bloom, University of California, Davis

37. Michael Ziser, University of California, Davis

38. Cynthia Frankin, University of Hawaii, Manoa

39. Dennis Kortheuer, California State University, Long Beach

40. Susette Min, University of California, Davis

41. Vida Samiian, California State University, Fresno

42. Benjamin Balthaser, Indiana University, South Bend

43. Terry Ginsberg, American University in Cairo, Egypt.

44. Nick Mitchell, University of California, Riverside

45. Elizabeth Freeman, University of California, Davis

46. Dennis R. Childs, University of California, San Diego

47. Vicente Miguel Diaz, University of Illnois, Urbana-Champaign

48. Ross Frank, University of California, San Diego

49. Chris Vials, University of Connecticut

50. Kavita Philip, University of California, Irvine

51. Rabab Abdulhadi, San Francisco State University

52. Adrienne Pine, American University, Washington, D.C

53. Suat Yan Lai, University of Malaya

54.  Catherine Wagner, Miami University, Ohio

55. Zillah Eisenstein, Ithaca College

56. Stellan Vinthagen, University of Massachusetts, Amherst

57. Sarah Schulman, City University of New York, College of Staten Island

58. Saadia Toor, City University of New York, College of Staten Island

59. Aneil Rallin, Soka University

60. Ammeil Alcalay, City University of New York, Queens College

61. Neferti X. M. Tadiar, Barnard College

62. Ricardo Dominguez, University of California, San Diego

63. Arif Dirlik, University of Oregon

64. Steven Marsh, University of Illnois at Chicago

65. Sang Hea Kil, San Hosé State University

66. Kate McCullough, Cornell University

67. Amy L. Brandzel, University of New Mexico

68. Anthony Alessandrini, Kingsborough Community College

69. Allen Christensen, John Cabot University

70. Huma Ibrahim, Qatar University

71. Ian Barnard, Chapman University

72. Rosalyn Baxandall, State University of New York, Old Westbury

73. Khaled Abou El Fadl, University of California, Los Angeles

74. Christopher Stone, Hunter College (CUNY)

75.  Barry Trachtenberg, University at Albany, State University Of New York

76. Janice Peck, University of Colorado, Boulder

77. Nora Murad, Bentley College

78. Malini Johar Schueller, University of Florida

79. Robyn Rodriguez, University of California, Davis

80. Caren Kaplan, University of California, Davis

81. Howard Winant, University of California, Santa Barbara

82. Walda Katz-Fishman, Howard University

83. Emmanuel Farjoun, Hebrew University

84. Kai-Lit Phua Subang, Monash University

85. Benedict DeDominicis, Catholic University of Korea

86. Les Field, University of New Mexico

87. Kamala Visweswaran, University of Texas at Austin

88. Gaye Chan, University of Hawaii

89. Junaid Rana, University of Illnois

90. Abby Lippman, McGill University

91. Richard Burt, University of Florida

92. Susan Shepler, American University, Washington, D.C

93. Laurence Kirby, City University of New York, Baruch College

94. Anand Pillay, University of Notre Dame

95. W. Patrick McCray, University of California, Santa Barbara

96. Steve Breyman, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute

97. Chandan Reddy, University of Washington

98. Steve Roddy, University of San Francisco

99. Roopali Mukherjee, City University of New York, Queens College

100.  Garry Potter, Wilfrid Laurier University

101. Adam Sabra, University of California, Santa Barbara

102. Yong Soon Min, University of California, Irvine

103. Nicholas Heer, University of Washington

104. Rosalind Petchesky, City University of New York, Hunter College

105. Andrew Paul Gutierrez, University of California at Berkeley

106. Marta Cariello, Seconda Università degli Studi di Napoli

107. Sang Hea Kil, San José State University

108. Adam Hefty, Prince Mohammad Bin Fahd University

109. Paola Bacchetta, University of California, Berkeley

110. George Ciccariello-Maher, Drexel University

111. Silvia Posocco, University of London

112. Sandeep Bakshi, University of Le Havre, France
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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