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.

The Wall is an Accurate Reflection of the Ugly Reality

-Hank Pin

The wall display on the Quad during Israeli Apartheid Week (IAW) seems to have generated quite a lot of discussion. From Mr. Deuc’s piece Apartheid Wall Tells 1,000 Lies to Ms. Addato’s Israel is Not an Apartheid State, people seem to have a real issue with using the word “apartheid” to describe the situation faced by the “only liberal democracy in the Middle East.” As someone who respectfully disagrees with their positions, I would like to briefly discuss the reasons why people do consider the apartheid analogy to be apt.

Let’s first, then, discuss what exactly is apartheid. Rome Statue of the International Court defines apartheid as “inhumane acts…committed in the context of an institutionalized regime of systematic oppression and domination by one racial group over any other racial group or groups and committed with the intention of maintaining that regime.” Without a doubt, in the Occupied Territories, the systematic oppression of the Palestinian people is the daily reality, from house demolitions, raids, to unjust arrests of children. The question then, is whether or not this form of systematic oppression can be called “apartheid.” Following the Oslo Accords in 1992, Palestinian areas in the West Bank have practically become islands in an area crisscrossed with settler-only roads and exclusively Jewish settlements that Palestinians cannot live in.

Area A, or areas that are supposedly under the control of the Palestinian Authority (which seems to act as a subcontractor of the Occupation more and more each day), composes only 18% of the West Bank and, for all intents and purposes. Gaza, supposedly no longer occupied after the unilateral disengagement of 2005, lacks meaningful autonomy, with Israel still maintaining control over its borders, power, territorial waters, and electricity. Despite the veneer of sovereignty provided by Oslo, Palestinian areas are nothing more than isolated Bantustans, with no real sovereignty and surrounded by Israeli settlements, infrastructures, and military.

For the Israeli settlers, the situation is quite different. As Israeli citizens, they, unlike the Palestinians of the West Bank, are not subject to military rule. Instead of being tried in the military court system, they have access to the Israeli civilian court, with their rights and privileges protected. They do not have to endure the humiliation that Palestinians have to go through at the checkpoint, or have their children dragged off in the middle of the night for detention. While the nearby Palestinians have to struggle with water, settlers in nearby settlements can enjoy swimming in a pool. Even when it comes to settler violence, the army, more often than not, turned a blind-eye while imposing numerous restrictions on the Palestinians who endured the attacks. The reality on the ground is there are two separate and unequal systems operating in the Territories: a preferential one for Israelis, and a discriminatory one for the Palestinians.

Now, many are probably objecting to what I am writing on the basis that the Occupation is supposed to be “temporary,” with a final status agreement just ahead, along with the creation of a Palestinian state. However, has the State of Israel treat the Palestinian territories as area ruled under a temporary occupation? Contrary to international law, there are now more than 500,000 Israeli settlers living in the Occupied Territories. Furthermore, these Israeli settlements continue to expand, with the government doubling the amount of settlement housing construction in 2013. Prime Minister Netanyahu even go as far as claiming that Ariel, a settlement with a population of 18,000 deep within the West Bank, is an integral part of Israel and “capital of Samaria.” These settlements, permanent in nature, clearly show the blatant disregard towards the status of the Palestinian Territories as “occupied.” Let’s not kid ourselves for one moment: no Israeli government is going to uproot the 500,000 settlers living in the Palestinian Territories; no Israeli government will evacuate Ariel, Ma’ale Adumim, or Gush Etzion. Creating a viable Palestinian state, with territorial continuity and sovereignty, is no longer possible.

With every year, the IAW has generated more debates and discussions on the problem of Palestine. Only a few years ago, the discussion on this campus was still on whether or not the Occupation exists. Now, we are discussing whether or not the word “apartheid” can be used to describe Israel’s system of oppression in the Palestinian Territories. Mr. Deuc expresses his hardship trying to pass the wall that was placed on the quad. However, the real hardship is that endured by the Palestinians who are separated from their land and their community by the wall, who find themselves suffering from institutional oppression despite being natives of the land. It is about time that we talk about the ugly reality on the ground: the separate and unequal treatment of two populations living in the same land.

Letter of Solidarity with Northeastern SJP

To our comrades at Northeastern University,

We here at American University have heard about the unfortunate news regarding Northeastern University’s unprecedented attack on academic freedom and student activism. It is with great sadness that we’ve learned that Northeastern University has taken the draconian step of suspending Students for Justice in Palestine at Northeastern, showing their complete disregard to basic rights of free speech and assembly.

As fellow activists for the cause against imperialism and oppression, we very much admire the work that SJP at Northeastern University has done, highlighting the plight of the oppressed in an environment that has become increasingly hostile. Nevertheless, we fully believe that our triumph is inevitable. Much like how colonialism, imperialism, and apartheid are now rightfully condemned, the inhumane policies conducted by the State of Israel will likewise be swept into the dustbin of history.

At this critical juncture of the struggle, we are glad that the students at Northeastern University are taking a stand against institutional intimidation. We fully believe that in time, SJP will be vindicated for their courage to fight for the equality and justice in Palestine.

With best wishes,

American University Students for Justice in Palestine

Statement of Support for American Studies Association

To the members of the American Studies Association (ASA)

We here at the American University chapter of Students for Justice in Palestine would like to extend our thanks to all members of the ASA for supporting the academic boycott against Israel. We know that it was not one that was undertaken lightly and that both the ASA and its individuals members have been met with severe backlash for their actions.

The humiliation and the suffering of the Palestinian people continues on a daily basis. Less than a week ago, an 85-year-old Palestinian man died after a tear gas canister was shot into his home, the first Palestinian death of the new year and the latest in a long line of civilian casualties as a result of the actions of Israeli forces, stretching all the way back to the Deir Yassin Massacre. Since 1948, the Palestinian people have been stripped of their land, homes, dignity, and self-determination. The Occupation, which has been ongoing in West Bank since 1967, only serves to make the daily life of the Palestinians more difficult.

Historically, such crimes have been whitewashed by the State of Israel with the help of Israeli academic institutions. However, the American Studies Association recently made the brave decision to boycott Israeli academic institutions that have long been complicit in maintaining the Israeli occupation and denial of basic Palestinian rights. This is a tremendous step forward not only for academic freedom but for justice and peace, the ideals of which have evaded citizens of Israel and Palestine for far too long.

It is curious that supporters of Israel decry the decision by the ASA as a step backward for academic freedom when those same people have time and time again attempted to stifle the voices of those who dared to speak out again the actions of the state of Israel, oftentimes with the help of Israeli academic institutions. Contrary to their actions, the decision by the ASA is not meant to stifle the voices of those who would oppose it. Rather, it is meant to allow for the possibility of nuanced debate regarding Israel and Palestine by granting a voice to the Palestinian cause that has long been denied.

However, what those who criticize the ASA on the grounds that it is stifling academic freedom are truly missing is the one basic truth that ultimately, this decision is not about academic freedom at all but about restoring human rights to those in Israel and Palestine to whom they have long been denied. It is a widely accepted fact that those living in Israel and Palestine are not granted equal rights and that this is unacceptable.

As Alex Lubin, associate professor of American Studies at the American University of Beirut, puts it “Academic freedom means very little when it takes place in a context of segregation and apartheid”. The decision by the ASA shines a much needed light on the ugly apartheid system that has become a part and parcel of Israeli society, a system that must be corrected.

In the 1960s, a group of brave academics began the academic boycott of South Africa as a means to pressure the South African government to abandon its apartheid system. Back then, these scholars faced the same criticisms that the ASA is facing today, from charges that such boycotts damage academic freedom, or that the educational institutions are the wrong targets. However, the actions of these academics are validated today, with the collapse of the South African Apartheid. We encourage all supporters of the academic boycott to stand strong and not give in to pressure, enormous at it may be. There is no doubt that in the future, the actions taken by the ASA will, too, be vindicated.

-Students for Justice in Palestine, American University