Statement on Palestine from North Carolina Academics

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May 20, 2021 Palestine
Beit Hanoun region of Gaza after Israeli bombardments (August 2014). Photo by btselem via Wikimedia Commons. Beit Hanoun region of Gaza after Israeli bombardments (August 2014). Photo by btselem via Wikimedia Commons.

Statement on Palestine from North Carolina Academics

By : Jadaliyya Reports

[The following statement was issued by faculty from North Carolina, and the list of signatures currently includes over 350 NC faculty from both public and private institutions of higher education, including research universities, liberal arts colleges, HBCU’s, community colleges, and Christian institutions. The statement is available for additional signatures from NC faculty via this form for a few more days.]

Statement on Palestine from North Carolina Academics

#AcademicsNC4Palestine

19 May 2021


We, faculty from 19 colleges and universities across North Carolina, are writing to strongly condemn Israeli attacks on historic Palestine, from the bombing of the Gaza Strip to the forced evictions in East Jerusalem, and to express our solidarity with the Palestinian people in their just struggle for liberation.  We condemn all violence against civilians and mourn all loss of life, but reject the prevalent “two-sides” narrative that ignores differences between one of the most heavily militarized states in the world and a stateless population resisting oppression. 

As academics based in the United States, we acknowledge our complicity in Israel’s oppression of the Palestinians, made possible through the unconditional political and material support of the U.S., continuing with the current administration.  We view the Palestinian struggle for liberation as closely entwined with many struggles for racial and Indigenous justice in America, from Ferguson to Standing Rock.  In joining our voices to those of the people of Palestine, we reaffirm our commitment to combating racism in all its forms, including anti-Blackness, antisemitism, Islamophobia, and anti-Asian racism.

Signatures:

Nadia Yaqub, UNC Chapel Hill
Rebecca L Stein, Duke University
Anne Allison, Duke University
Elyse Crystall, UNC Chapel Hill
Frances S. Hasso, Duke University
Nancy Kalow, Duke University
Ralph Litzinger, Duke University
Sarah Shields, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill
Danielle Spurlock, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Sean Singh Matharoo, UNC-Chapel Hill
Erika Weinthal, Duke University
Anne-Maria Makhulu, Duke University
Tonia Poteat, UNC Chapel Hill
Michaelle Browers, Wake Forest University
Emily Burrill, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
J. Lorand Matory, Duke University
Catherine Admay, Duke
Deborah Stroman, UNC Chapel Hill
Joseph Winters, Duke University
Shai Ginsburg, Duke University
Abdeslam Maghraoui, Duke University
David Pier, UNC Chapel Hill
Sherryl Kleinman, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill
Patricia Sawin, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill
Jay M. Smith, UNC-Chapel Hill
Ji-Yeon Jo, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Trude Bennett, UNC Chapel Hill
Robin Visser, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Emil’ Keme, UNC-Chapel Hill
Charles Wilkins, Wake Forest University
Michaeline Crichlow, Duke University
Nathan Kalman-Lamb, Duke University
Catherine Zimmer, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Beth Moracco, UNC Chapel Hill
Tanya L Shields, UNC Chapel Hill
Sara Smith, UNC Chapel Hill
Liliana Paredes, Duke University
Yaron Shemer, UNC Chapel Hill
Omid Safi, Duke University
Sharon L. James, UNC Chapel Hill
Akram Khater, North Carolina State University
Mustafa Tuna, Duke University
Cemil Aydin, UNC Chapel Hill
Mark Anthony Neal, Duke University
Michael Canute Lambert, UNC Chapel Hill
Michael Palm, UNC-Chapel Hill
Mohsen Kadivar, Duke University
Darlene R. May, Wake Forest University
Karen Booth, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Charles Piot, Duke University
Fredric Jameson, Duke
Deepanjan Mukhopadhyay, UNC Chapel Hill
Mark Katz, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Walter Mignolo, Duke
Mark Driscoll, UNC Chapel Hill
Priscilla Wald, Duke University
Gabriela Valdivia, UNC Chapel Hill
Ana Vinea, UNC Chapel Hill
Tsitsi Jaji, Duke University
Diane Nelson, Duke University
Karla FC Holloway, Duke University
Wesley C Hogan, Duke University
Allison De Marco, UNC Chapel Hill
Arturo Escobar, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill
Andrea Pitts, University of North Carolina, Charlotte
Misha Becker, UNC Chapel Hill
Christopher T. Nelson, UNC Chapel Hill
Morgan Pitelka, UNC Chapel Hill
Lisa Lindsay, UNC Chapel Hill
Barry Trachtenberg, Wake Forest University
Margaret Wiener, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Leo Ching, Duke University
Brian Billman, UNC Chapel Hill
Banu Gokariksel, UNC Chapel HIll
Ariana Vigil, UNC Chapel Hill
Marion Quirici, Duke University
Carole Crumley, UNC Chapel Hill
Dwayne Dixon, UNC Chapel Hill
Don Nonini, UNC Chapel Hill
Omaar Hena, Wake Forest University
John Cox, UNC Charlotte
David Mora-Marín, UNC Chapel Hill
Diya Abdo, Guilford College
Emek Ergun, UNC Charlotte
Steve Folmar, Wake Forest University
Jessica Namakkal, Duke University
Mark Rifkin, UNC Greensboro
Glenn Hinson, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill
Youssef J Carter, UNC-Chapel Hill
Daniel B. Coleman, UNC Greensboro
Kristen Alff, North Carolina State University
Tabitha Wood, University of North Carolina Charlotte
Nicole D Peterson, UNC Charlotte
Nancy MacLean, Duke University
Sarah Jane Cervenak, UNC Greensboro
Juliane Hammer, UNC Chapel Hill
Huma Ibrahim, UNC Charlotte
Silvia Serrano, Duke University
Mark Justad, Guilford College
Pedro Lasch, Duke University
Jocelyn Olcott, Duke University
George Dimock, UNC Greensboro
Adam Rosenblatt, Duke University
Raquel Salvatella de Prada, Duke University
Shambhavi Kaul, Duke University
Neil DeVotta, Wake Forest University
Kathryn Mathers, Duke University
David Auerbach, North Carolina State University
Lisa Levenstein, UNC Greensboro
Tad Skotnicki, UNC Greensboro
David Ambaras, North Carolina State University
Christina V Carter, Appalachian State University
Ella Fratantuono, UNC Charlotte
Saskia Cornes, Duke University
Kristine Stiles, Duke University
Sandy Marshall, Elon University
Altha Cravey, UNC Chapel Hill
Claudia Koonz, Duke
Barbara Sostaita, UNC Chapel Hill
Annabel Wharton, Duke University
Marame Gueye, East Carolina University
Hassan Melehy, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Dana Logan, UNC Greensboro
Gary Comstock, NC State
Michal Osterweil, UNC Chapel Hill
Antonia Randolph, University of North Carolina- Chapel Hill
Lynda Stone, UNC Chapel Hill
Corey D. B. Walker, Wake Forest University
Denise Soufi, UNC Chapel Hill
Maria Carla Sanchez, UNC Greensboro
Sahan Karatasli, UNC Greensboro
Daniele Armaleo, Duke University
Michael Schwalbe, North Carolina State University
Esther O. Ohito, UNC-Chapel Hill
Todd Madigan, University of North Carolina at Greensboro
Cynthia Torres, University of North Carolina at Greensboro
Danielle Bouchard, UNC Greensboro
Levi McLaughlin, North Carolina State University
Asa Eger, UNC Greensboro
Tom Reinert, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill

... and others.

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Feb 16, 2011 Lebanon
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