On Ferguson

American University Students for Justice in Palestine expresses solidarity with the family of Michael Brown and the countless other families who have lost their loved ones to police brutality. We want to also express our support for protesters worldwide decrying the lack of retribution officer Wilson will receive for his actions and demanding that the world pay attention to police brutality and to our country's broken justice system.

From Ferguson to Palestine, the same systems of oppression maintain racially disparate power structures that we work to take down. We hope that everyone who's disturbed by this denial of justice joins activists everywhere calling for change. You can find a list of actions here: fergusonresponse.tumblr.com.

In cases like this, it is so important that we do not look the other way. We need to speak out against injustice everywhere. Black lives matter. Palestinian lives matter.


Image source

Why We Walked Out

If you were at the Bipartisan Discussion on the US Israel Relationship event, you might have noticed a group of people walking out around 15 minutes in.

We were there so you'd pay attention to an issue that consistently gets pushed aside by our country and by our university.

It seems as though a lot of attention is put on Israel for its technical advancements, false democracy, and mask of progressiveness. This event, highlighting Israeli achievements and the Israeli struggle, failed to mention the numerous struggles Israel causes.

What about the occupation? What about segregated roads and schools, military brutality, administrative detention, and the rising death toll?

You cannot have a productive conversation about the US Israel relationship if you fail to mention Palestine and talk about it in an honest way. Mentioning Palestinians as if they're demographic threats doesn't count.  

Let's a talk a little bit about Palestine, a land under colonization and oppression.

A major part of the Palestinian economy is agriculture. Last year, Israeli settlers uprooted 11 thousand olive trees from Palestinian land. 12.3 million dollars in profit yearly is lost in the olive harvest because of these aggressions, which go unpunished by Israeli forces.

Every year, 500 to 700 Palestinian children, some as young as 12, are detained and prosecuted in the Israeli military court system. The most common charge is stone throwing. 

Water access to Palestinians is restricted, rationed, and unequally accessible. 

Why should you care? If the fact that this is a humanitarian issue isn't enough, it's worth noting that as Americans, 3.1 billion of our tax dollars annually are sent to Israel for its military alone. That's 8.5 million dollars every day.

It's up to us to speak out because we directly fund this ongoing injustice.

If we got your attention last night and if you find these facts upsetting, we encourage you to learn more. Question what you know and strive to learn more. Visualizing Palestine, Humanize Palestine, If Americans Knew, and Electronic Intifada are some great resources to start with.

As Students for Justice in Palestine, we aim to spread information about the Palestinian narrative that is largely missing from conversations about the issue. 

Please contact us if you want to know more about how you can help.

Signed,

American University Students for Justice in Palestine

facebook.com/AmericanSJP

twitter.com/americansjp

To those Planning on Attending Israel Gala

            If you walk by SIS Founders room sometime tonight, you’ll probably see Israel Gala going on. AU Students for Israel, Ameripac and J Street U are hosting the event where students can learn about the pro-Israel clubs on campus and eat “Israeli” food.

            But what is there to celebrate?

            This summer, over two thousand Palestinians were killed by Israeli forces in Operation Protective Edge. Two thousand mothers, daughters, sons, fathers, brothers, sisters, and friends.

            Palestinians live under occupation and apartheid. There have been over 27 thousand settlements on Palestinian land. These settlements are illegal under international law and force families out of their homes and into refuge. They cannot return. Palestinians are not allowed to live and work in the majority of the land that used to be theirs. They are put under constant scrutiny and brutality by the military that protects Israelis. While we go to school and stress over midterms, Palestinian students sit by empty chairs that used to seat their fallen friends. One Palestinian child has been killed by an Israeli soldier every three days, and that’s before this past summer. The United States gives billions of dollars a year to Israel and this is how Palestinians live.

So forgive us, for not embracing Israel, or its culture. While students celebrate Israel at an event they will probably tell you is apolitical, we mourn. We mourn for Palestinians and their families who have to simultaneously get over their lost loved ones rebuild their lives that were destroyed. We mourn for those living in Palestine and Israel who are traumatized by the violence this summer, before this summer, and ongoing.

            This is a challenge to students here. When you see the gala, or if you decide to go it, take some time to think about what you’re celebrating. You may think you’re simply enjoying some falafel and meeting new friends, but going to events like “Israel Gala” means you’re turning the other direction to the violence and injustice we try so hard to eliminate.

Signed,

American University Students for Justice in Palestine

Sources:

Globalresearch.org

VisualizingPalestine.org

ICAHD.org

In Solidarity with Steven Salaita

Our statement regarding the firing of Professor Steven Salaita:

American University Students for Justice in Palestine expresses solidarity with the students and faculty of University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign and the larger network of activists in their struggle against the university administration’s termination of the newly hired American Indian Studies professor Steven Salaita. We express support for the 11 UIUC departments in their votes of no-confidence against Chancellor Wise, the cancellation of events on UIUC campus and the boycott decision by over 5 thousand scholars.

The Board of Trustees decision to terminate Professor Salaita’s employment after he signed a contract with the department and the college in which he would be working is an attack on the freedom of speech and shared governance of faculty on university campuses. Professor Salaita’s tweets, which were the sole reason he was declared as ‘unfit’ for UIUC, express in as civil language as possible our thoughts and feelings during Israel’s most recent massacre, Operation Protective Edge, during which over 2 thousand Palestinian civilians were killed (more than a quarter of them children) over 10 thousand Palestinians wounded, over 17 thousand homes destroyed including entire neighborhoods like Beit Hanoun and Shuja’iyya and 500 thousand Palestinians in Gaza displaced (again). When read in the context of his larger discussion on social media, Professor Salaita’s comments are consistent and expressive of righteous outrage over the repetition of massacres in Gaza, continued violence against Palestinians and the occupation of their land in the West Bank and Israel. We condemn Israel for these actions and demand accountability. And we support Steven Salaita for speaking out against them so profoundly and with courage.

We are writing as concerned students who believe our say is important when it comes to decisions made about our schools. The outcry following Steven Salaita's firing should come as a warning to all university administrations. Your indiscretion in firing Professor Salaita will not silence his voice as an activist, it will not silence our voices as students, and it will not silence the voices of the Palestinians begging to be heard.

Whether you agree with Professor Salaita's comments or not, it is inarguable that his termination is a violation of free speech and it should be treated as such. No matter what his beliefs are, university administrations do not have the right to end their contracts with professors as a way to punish them for using self-expression. We hope to see Steven Salaita reinstated to his tenured position in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences at UIUC. To refuse his reinstatement would be an attack on academic freedom and a blow to student activists everywhere.

American University Students for Justice in Palestine

An Open Letter to the Participants of the Mosaic District 5/18/14 Israel Street Festival

What is an Israel festival? What is to be celebrated at one of these events? Several of you might already think you have the answers to these questions. Others might have come to have them answered. But for Palestinians, the answers to these questions are no cause for celebration. Israel's apartheid system, ethnic cleansing and illegal occupation is the cause of an ache we have carried in our hearts and on our backs for the last 66 years. Where you see a day of festivities, we see 66 years of human catastrophe, our Nakba. We see the catastrophe that is the homes our families were forced to run screaming from and the slaughter of those who did not make it out. We see the catastrophe that is the olive trees our ancestors used to harvest and the fields they used to tend before they were destroyed by illegal settlers or hidden behind apartheid walls. We see the catastrophe that is the thousands of standing home demolition orders on Palestinian residence to make room for more illegal settlements and the violent settler attacks on Palestinian civilians. We see the catastrophe that is the military law inflicted on Palestinians that denies their most basic human rights. We see the catastrophe that is the humiliation endured by Palestinians of all ages who are at the mercy of teenage soldiers as they pass through cage-like checkpoints. We see the catastrophe that is the hundreds of Palestinian children kidnapped from their homes in the middle of the night by fully-armed IDF soldiers and placed in indefinite detention where they are abused and humiliated. We see the catastrophe that is the teargasing and shooting of Palestinians at weekly non violent protests in their own villages, in their own homes. We see the catastrophe that is the systematic discrimination against Palestinian residents in Israel proper, forced to a life as second class citizens. We see the catastrophe that is the blockade of the Gaza Strip preventing even the most basic humanitarian supplies from reaching its 1.7 million residents. We see the catastrophe of the improvised refugee camps where many of us are forced to live, denied our internationally guaranteed right to return. 

We see the Palestinian catastrophe because we live it, and we have lived it for the past 66 years. The reality of our Palestinian existence cannot be absent from your celebration which is built upon our catastrophe. Your Israel street festival is not a simple celebration of Israel. It is a celebration of the fruits of our continued suffering and the shameful normalization of our oppression.

Sincerely,
-Your displaced Palestinian neighbor

Students for Justice in Palestine American University 
Students for Justice in Palestine Georgetown University 
Students for Justice in Palestine George Washington University 
Student for Justice in Palestine University of Maryland 
Students Against Israeli Apartheid George Mason University

The Forgotten Catastrophe

Today, there is a Yom Ha'atzmaut celebration at American University. Complete with "Israeli delicacies" such as hummus and falafel, the event sought to celebrate the creation of the State of Israel and what she stands for.

Unfortunately, as with previous Yom Ha'atzmaut celebrations at American University, an important element regarding Israel's creation will not be mentioned: the Palestinian refugees of 1948.

There will be no discussion of the force expulsion of 50,000 to 70,000 Palestinians from Ramle and Lydda, or the massacre of Deir Yassin. There will be no mention of the acts of terrorism conducted by Zionist militias such as Lehi and Irgun, whom the State of Israel has since glorified as "freedom fighters." No one will talk about the inconvenient fact that with the creation of Israel, 400 Palestinian villages were demolished, and the 700,000 Palestinian refugees that were expelled and unable to return. While any members of the Jewish diaspora can obtain Israeli citizenship under the Law of Return, these Palestinian refugees and their descendants found themselves longing for a homeland that is no longer theirs.

That is what the creation of Israel means for the Palestinians: the creation of a settler-colonialist society that privileges the Jewish settlers over the native Palestinians, the creation of a state that, to this day, still sought to maximize Jewish land-ownership while continuing to deprive resources for Palestinians. The Palestinian Catastrophe isn't a one-time event that happened in the past in 1948; it is ongoing, showing its ugly face in every Palestinian homes demolished, or in the checkpoint designed to keep the Palestinians into bantustans.

No, settler-colonialism should not be celebrated, nor ethnic cleansing glorified. Celebrating the creation of a settler-colonialist entity without acknowledging and rectifying the past is akin to putting salt on this historical wound. One can choose to ignore these "inconveniences" and Palestinian suffering, but for the Palestinians and their descendants, the occasion will always be Yom An-Nakba.

One Struggle: Connecting Culture and Social Justice

Please join us for AUSJP's last event this semester!

Food and drinks will be served, along with performance of music! Come by and celebrate the end of the semester with us!
One Struggle: Connecting Culture and Social Justice4/24, 7PM, MGC 200https://www.facebook.com/events/279081735594204/

A chance for cultural and social justice clubs to share their identities and learn how our struggles are all connected. This event serves as a space for each group to explore and express a social justice related issue through the lens of their culture and identity.

Too often we disconnect our culture from the struggles we face, when in reality the two frequently overlap and impact one another.

Fuad Foty, a Palestinian-American musician, will be coming in to perform and discuss his upcoming kickstarter campaign, "Return to Ramallah."

If you would like to donate to his project, the kickstarter link is right here:https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1566349432/i-remember-my-last-day-in-palestine-like-it-was-ye

Example of Fuad's music can be found here at his fan page:https://www.facebook.com/pages/The-Music-of-Fuad-Foty/504281516254932

We ask that each group perform a poem that represents their culture and addresses a related social justice issue. Alternatively, a group should feel free to come up with a different form of presentation to express themselves. This could be in the form of a testimony, a song, a piece of art, a work of literature, a dish of food, etc. Creativity is welcome and encouraged:]
SJP will provide food and drinks, but groups should also bring and share their cultural food! The event will begin at 7pm in the MGC 200.