Statement on Palestine from DC, MD, and VA Academics

Nakba day rally in DC on 15 May 2021 via WUSA9 Nakba day rally in DC on 15 May 2021 via WUSA9

Statement on Palestine from DC, MD, and VA Academics

By : Jadaliyya Reports

[The below statement was issued by a group of academic based in the Washington DC, Maryland, and Virginia area on 21 May 2021. See below for a full list of signatories and how to add your name if you are an academic working that area.]

We, faculty at 16 colleges and universities across the District of Columbia, Maryland, and Virginia, are writing to strongly condemn Israel's ongoing attacks on historic Palestine, 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 we 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. The recent ceasefire between Israel and Hamas does not change the fundamental facts on the ground: the deadly siege of the Gaza Strip; the forced expulsions in East Jerusalem; the military occupation and settler colonization of the West Bank; and the systemic legal discrimination that renders the Palestinians living in Israel since 1948 second-class citizens. According to reports by the United NationsHuman Rights Watch, and all the major human rights organizations in Israel/Palestine, Israel’s governance of all the Palestinians under its control meet the international legal definition of apartheid.

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

If you are an academic in the DMV area, click here to sign on to this statement.

Signatories 


Abigail Francesca Buffington, College of William & Mary

Ahsan Butt, George Mason University

Andi Zimmerman, George Washington University

Andrew Israel Ross, Loyola University Maryland

Anne K. Rasmussen, College of William & Mary

Ashraf S Harahsheh, GWU School of Medicine & Health Sciences

Ayfer Karakaya-Stump, College of William & Mary

Bassam Haddad, George Mason University

Benjamin Gatling George Mason University

Bernadette M Roche, Loyola University Maryland

Billy Friebele, Loyola University Maryland

Carsten Vala, Loyola University Maryland

Catriona Hanley, Loyola University Maryland

Char Roone Miller, George Mason University

Christina Hanhardt, University of Maryland

Daniel Moshenberg, George Washington University

Dara Orenstein, George Washington University

Deborah Lee-Ferrand, College of William & Mary

Elisabeth Anker, George Washington University

Elliott Colla, Georgetown University

Emily Mendenhall, Georgetown University

Erin D. Chapman, George Washington University

Faedah M. Totah, Virginia Commonwealth University

Faraz Sheikh, College of William & Mary

Fawcett Dunstan, Community College of Baltimore County

Fida Adely, Georgetown University

Francis Tanglao Aguas, College of William & Mary

Gayle Wald, George Washington University

Giulia Pacini, College of William & Mary

Giuseppina Iacono Lobo, Loyola University Maryland

Graham Auman Pitts, George Washington University

Gregory Afinogenov, Georgetown University

Gul Ozyegin, College of William & Mary

Heather Harris, Community College of Baltimore County

Heba Shazli, George Mason University

Huseyin Yilmaz, George Mason University

Ilana Feldman, George Washington University

Ingrid Sabio-McLaughlin, Community College of Baltimore County

Jadi Omowale, Community College of Baltimore County

Janet Maher, Professor Emeritus, Loyola University Maryland

Jason Osder, George Washington University

Jennifer Potter, Towson University

Jessica Locke, Loyola University Maryland

Johanna Bockman, George Mason University

John L. Esposito, Georgetown University

Joy Adams, Community College of Baltimore County

Judith E. Tucker, Georgetown University

Julie Lewis, Community College of Baltimore County

Kai Bosworth, Virginia Commonwealth University

Kate Withy, Georgetown University

Kelly Robert DeVries, Loyola University Maryland

Kim Jensen, Community College of Baltimore County

Kimberly Katz, Towson University

Lara Sheehi, George Washington University

Laurie King, Georgetown University

Lena Caesar, Loyola University Maryland

Maria Dakake, George Mason University

Mark Lance, Georgetown University

Marwa Daoudy, Georgetown University

Mary Kambic, Community College of Baltimore County

Matthew Scherer, George Mason University

Maurice Jackson, Georgetown University

Mauro J. Caraccioli, Virginia Tech

Melani McAlister, George Washington University

Melis Hafez, Virginia Commonwealth University

Mohammad Alahmad, Georgetown University

Mona Atia, George Washington University

Mubina Hassanali Kirmani, Towson University

Mustafa Aksakal, Georgetown University

Nada Harik, GWU School of Medicine and Health Sciences

Nancy Murray, Community College of Baltimore County

Natasha Cole-Leonard, Community College of Baltimore County

Nathan Snaza, English, University of Richmond

Nguyen K. Nguyen, Loyola University Maryland

Nidal Abdel-Rahman, George Washington University

Noureddine Jebnoun, Georgetown University

Oludamini Ogunnaike, University of Virginia

P.J. Brendese, Johns Hopkins University

R. B. Ferrão, College of William & Mary

Rachele Lawton, Community College of Baltimore County

Rana Hamdy, GWU School of Medicine and Health Sciences

Rani Mullen, College of William & Mary

Richard Boothby, Loyola University Maryland

Rob Leventhal, College of William & Mary

Robert McRuer, George Washington University

Roberto Jamora, College of William & Mary and Virginia Commonwealth University

Robin Ellis, College of William & Mary

Robinson Woodward-Burns, Howard University

Rochelle Davis, Georgetown University

Sara Scalenghe, Loyola University Maryland

Shah Mahmoud Hanifi, James Madison University

Shira Robinson, George Washington University

Sibel Zandi-Sayek, College of William & Mary

Stephen Sheehi, College of William & Mary

Sumaiya Hamdani, George Mason University

Sylvia Chong, University of Virginia

Tavia La Follette, Towson University

Theresa P. T. Nguyen, Loyola University Maryland

Thomas A. Guglielmo, George Washington University

Todd Shepard, Johns Hopkins University

William Youmans, George Washington University

Yousef Munayyer, George Mason University 

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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