Executive Council of the American Educational Studies Association,
AESA’s statement sends a clear message to Palestinians, namely that Palestinian life is worthless whereby Israelis are justified in murdering them with impunity in a so-called “conflict” that assumes two equal forces. The statement does not address or concede that Israel is a settler colonial project, whose explicit goal is the systematic killing and ethnic cleansing of Palestinians. It assigns no responsibility or blame to a nuclear power that has outrightly acknowledged its aim is Palestinian genocide as civilian casualties are assigned the euphemism 'collateral damage.' The statement thus presents the “loss of life” as a result of an apparent conflict that began on October 7th, 2023. This ahistorical account decontextualizes violence and places full responsibility on Palestinians, as well as flattens the differences between various resistance groups. It ignores the bombing of all universities in Gaza and omits the bombing of schools, hospitals, mosques, and refugee camps, as well as the deliberate targeting of medical and UN staff. It omits the racial, colonial, and dehumanizing discourses and rhetoric justifying genocide and ethnic cleansing (e.g., “children of darkness” and “human animals”).
Although the statement does not specify the Islamophobic trope of human shields, the language alludes to it by pointing to the (passive) loss of life of Palestinians who find themselves in the “crossfire.” This erases the fact that Israel dropped tens of thousands of bombs (as in 25, 000 tons of explosives-the equivalent of two nuclear bombs) before the possibility of the crossfire to which the statement refers. It paints the picture of helpless Palestinians who are held hostage by Hamas. It ignores the substantial evidence shown by Amnesty International (2009) that Israel has previously used Palestinians as human shields[1], let alone that Palestinians live under military occupation and conditions worse than Apartheid (B’Tselem, 2021).
The vagueness in the proceeding sentences ignores the right to resistance (though supported by international law), suggesting that Palestinians do not have the right to resist settler colonial dispossession, displacement, ethnic cleansing, and genocide. The statement’s authors refer to war crimes and genocide but fail to mention genocide scholars, human rights lawyers, and UN officials[2] who have collectively agreed that Israel's military campaign in Gaza constitutes documented war crimes that precisely meet the 1948 Genocide Convention's definition of genocide. They fail to mention Israel’s responsibility altogether, leaving it open to interpretation. Consider the following sentence: “Political conflicts, even when they involve grave denials of human rights, can never justify nor be resolved through attacks on innocent civilians, especially the loss of children.” Israel is not simply denying human rights. It is engaged in a genocidal campaign, which has only intensified since October 7th, but this does not mean that thousands have not been displaced, arrested, tortured, purposefully maimed, and killed previously, including thousands of imprisoned children. Important to note is how the statement disregards Jerusalem and the West Bank, where Hamas does not play a role, yet hundreds of Palestinians have been killed, arrested, and displaced since October 7th by ongoing settler violence. Over 2,470 arrestspost Oct.7 have taken place for merely posting (or even liking a tweet) on social media that highlights the plight of Palestine.
While genocide and ethnic cleansing is taking place, this statement is not only apologetic, but it also consumes and colludes in the blatant reproduction of Zionist propaganda. This statement reflects everything Edward Said (1994) warned us about concerning academia and its complicit academics/intellectuals, “Nothing in my view is more reprehensible than those habits of mind in the intellectual that induce avoidance, that characteristic turning away from a difficult and principled position, which you know to be the right one, but which you decide not to take. Personally I have encountered them in one of the toughest of all contemporary issues, Palestine, where fear of speaking out about one of the greatest injustices in modern history has hobbled, blinkered, and muzzled many who know the truth and are in a position to serve it. For despite the abuse and vilification that any outspoken supporter of Palestinian rights and self-determination earns for him or herself, the truth deserves to be spoken, represented by an unafraid and compassionate intellectual” (p. 100).
Instead of consulting Palestinian scholars, including students, the council wrote a statement that is not only historically inaccurate but is very much skewed toward Israel’s direction. As genocide and ethnic cleansing unfold where nearly 80% of Palestinians have been violently displaced, this statement manifests the worst kind of “solidarity” that should not be exhibited by those who have any kind of human conscience left. AESA’s statement speaks volumes by what it overtly omits and what it artificially hollows out in meaning and language via poorly defined vague terms. On rare occasions, it is best to keep silent, but this is a clear example that superficial forms of solidarity do more harm, as they justify the ongoing massacre of Palestinians by painting an image of them as unworthy of liberation and undeserving of an end to their settler colonial occupation that has lasted over a 100 years.
Millions of people across the world have made it quite clear: What’s happening in Palestine cannot be understood as a “conflict.” It is an ongoing Nakba, a continuing genocide, ethnic cleansing, and occupation, which underlies a history worse than apartheid that did not begin on October 7th. Rather, the settler colonial project in Palestine can be traced back to the 1880s with the emergence of the Zionist movement, and over 100 years of settler colonial domination and expansion in Palestine–including the 1917 Balfour Declaration, 1947 Partition Plan, violent establishment of Israel and start of the Nakba, the 1967 Naksa and occupation, and ceaseless expansion of settlements. As academics we ask for a retraction of this statement and the issuance of a new one befitting of the historical, material, and symbolic gravity if we are to honor our responsibility and role as truth-seekers, knowledge-keepers, and committed intellectuals.
Signed
Jairo I. Fúnez-Flores, Texas Tech University
Ana Carolina Díaz Beltrán, University of Texas Rio Grande Valley
Mohamed Abdou, Columbia University
Samer Abdelnour, University of Edinburgh
Sandeep Bakshi, Université Paris Cité
Johnny E. Williams, Trinity College
Karishma Desai, Rutgers University- Graduate School of Education
Lorgia García Peña, Princeton University.
Sean D. Hernández Adkins, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Brieanna Watters, University of Minnesota
Dr. David G. Embrick, University of Connecticut
Freyca Calderon Berumen, Pennsylvania State University, Altoona
Xavier Livermon, UC Santa Cruz
Lisa Rofel, University of California, Santa Cruz
Daniela Faggiani Dias, University of California San Diego
Freya Zinovieff, Simon Fraser University
Camille Chargois, Texas Southern University
Steven W. Thrasher, Northwestern University
Giselle Pérez-Aguilar, University of California, San Francisco
Holly Olivarez, University of Colorado Boulder
Linda Mokdad, St. Olaf College
Rowan Gabriel S. Daligdig, Baguio City National High School
Marisel Moreno, University of Notre Dame
David Polanski, Independent Scholar
Ulises Garcia Figueroa, Memorial University of Newfoundland
Rosalba Icaza, Erasmus University Rotterdam
Kevin Donley, Georgetown University
Tazreena Sajjad
Nashid Habeeb
Naziya Aisha, Aligarh Muslim University, Aligarh, India
Amira Abdelhamid, University of Portsmouth, UK
Aritra, Delhi University
Piya Chatterjee, Scripps College
Mandy Penney
Tara Alami, McGill University
Laleh Khalili, University of Exeter
Antonio Alcazar III, South/South Movement/Central European University
Joshua Makalintal, University of Innsbruck
Paula Gilligan, IADT
Seerat Fatima, University of Manchester
Pavithra Sarma, University of Edinburgh
Abeer Khshiboon
Sarah Bracke, University of Amsterdam
Kerry Sinanan, Univeristy of Winnipeg
Rajorshi Das, University of Iowa
Syed Muhammad Omar, University of Kansas
Trevor Lies, University of Kansas
Jülide Sezer, Utrecht University
Ohoud Kamal, American University of Madaba
David Klein, California State University Northridge
Colin Dayan, Vanderbilt University
Tania Saeed, Lahore University of Management Sciences (LUMS)
Dr Claire M Massey
Daniel Perez
Zainab Naqvi, Manchester Metropolitan University
Gulzar R. Charania, University of Ottawa
Sirena Davidson
Huseyin Disli, The University of Kent
Tom Pettinger, University of Warwick
Diego Ballestero, Bonn University (Germany)
Sofia Zanforlin, Federal university of Pernambuco , Brazil
Isaura Castelao-Huerta, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México
Ben Vining
Thashika Pillay, Queen’s University
David Martínez-Prieto, University of Texas Río Grande Valley
Fahima Mohideen, Rutgers University
Melissa Weiner, College of the Holy Cross
Fahmo Rage, K-12 Education Alberta Canada
Karlie Noon, Australian National University
Alana Lentin, Western Sydney University
Kristina Cockle, Instituto de Biología Subtropical-UNaM-CONICET
Muhannad Ayyash, Professor of Sociology, Mount Royal University
Ankita Shrestha, University of Oslo
Kamile Batur
Thomas Delahunty, Maynooth University, Ireland
Savo Heleta, Durban University of Technology
Shirin Assa, University of Bayreuth
Stephen Hewer, Ghent University
Shehla Khan
Evangela Q Oates, University of Minnesota Twin Cities
Dr Shaida Nabi
Claudia Rankine
Jessie Daniels, Professor, Hunter College and The Graduate Center, CUNY
Umaya Suliman, American University
Salman Sayyid, University of Leeds
Jeff Doctor
John Pringle, Independent Researcher
Rachel Lockart, Michigan State University
Alex Allweiss, Michigan State University
Raquel Sáenz Ortiz, Southwestern University
Adam Miyashiro, Professor of Literature, Stockton University
Rachael Hill, Cal Poly Pomona
Jasmin Zine, Wilfrid Laurier University
Rebeca Gamez
Ana Luisa Muñoz, Associated Professor, Chile
Mariam Al-Attar, American University of Sharjah
Stephanie Zubriski, Dalhousie University
[1] Even before the existence of Israel, British soldiers (100,000) taught Zionists the technologies of colonial violence mastered in Ireland, India, and Africa. For instance, Zionists have used human shields by tying Palestinians to military vehicles to avoid being ambushed during the Great Revolt (1936-1939). The use of the phrase “caught in the crossfire” misleads readers into thinking that the thousands of Palestinians killed could have been by Hamas. Israelis were deliberately “killed” yet Palestinians lose their lives.
[2] As the director of the New York office of the UN high commissioner, Craig Mokhiber, stated after his resignation: “The current wholesale slaughter of the Palestinian people, rooted in an ethno-nationalist colonial settler ideology, in continuation of decades of their systematic persecution and purging, based entirely upon their status as Arabs … leaves no room for doubt….This is text book case of genocide” that violates the Geneva Conventions.
Thank you for this. Adding my name to this list og academics in solidarity.
Stephanie Zubriski, PhD(c), Dalhousie University
Great work