On this October 7th, we are enraged by the last 365 days and 76 years of Israel's horrific continuous and expanding violence and impunity. We are enraged that this massive destruction of life is being committed in our name and with our money, enraged that our institutions remain silent and complicit. The nature of our rage is not violent, but rather anti-violent. It is not directed at any of our fellow students, but rather at the institutions that aid and abet Israel's violence. In response to genocide, rage is natural, rational, and human. We will not be held to the dehumanizing stereotype of the perfect victim, expected to only mourn, quiet and polite. No – we are outraged.
On this October 7th, we refuse to submit to the narrative that weaponizes October 7th 2023 to "justify" Israel's ongoing slaughter. To mourn for October 7th in isolation only perpetuates Israel's image as a victim of terrorism, erases Israel's substantial role in creating the circumstances for October 7th to occur, and is a profoundly selective expression of empathy. We are appalled by the lack of similar outrage about and mourning for the murder of 41,900 Palestinians in the past 365 days. Even if ceased immediately, that violence is still projected to end the lives of more than 200,000 Palestinians. We reject the monolith of blame placed on October 7th and on the Palestinian people for this genocidal siege, and we reject the ahistorical narrative that there was peace before October 7th – even before October, 2023 was already the deadliest year for West Bank Palestinians (450 murdered) since OCHA began keeping track in 2005. And even before 2023, Israel indiscriminately bombed Gaza in 2022, 2021, 2014, 2012, and 2008...
Presently, the Israeli occupation commits massacres without pause. Just this Saturday, Israel bombed a mosque which was housing displaced people in Deir al-Balah, killing refugees, men, women, and children. Simultaneously, Israel was carpet bombing Beit Hanoon, Beit Lahiya, and Jabalia in northern Gaza. And now bombs rain in Lebanon, Yemen, and Syria too. In the words of a man who self-immolated on Saturday in protest of Israel's genocide: "A 139 square-mile strip of people has been leveled and yet children still rise from the ashes of a home they once knew and vow to get vengeance against their loved ones' murderers." Palestinians will not be held to the perfect victim stereotype either; we do not condemn a Palestinian's response to Israel destroying their home and vaporizing their loved ones. Rather, we hold that the only way to mourn for and honor the life of those systematically killed before, on, and after October 7th is to fight against the system that perpetuates that systematic violence: American-backed Israeli colonization and apartheid. This is the only rational way toward true material peace and collective survival. Anyone who calls for peace without condemning and protesting Israel's actions isn't calling for peace but rather for Palestinians to quietly submit to deadly systematic intergenerational violence. So: with rage that is focused and precise, we mourn for the past 365 days of genocide and demand that Hamilton discloses its investments and divests from Israel.
Finally, on this October 7th, we reject all claims that SJP is anti-semitic in any capacity. These claims could not be further from the truth: we are anti-genocide and we stand for liberation. Moreover, there is Judaism in our leadership, and we find being anti-genocide to be a fundamentally Jewish stance, especially considering the persecution and genocide that many of our ancestors experienced at the hands of violent regimes. We find that it is only those who have never engaged with our actions who warp our words and baselessly claim that we are anti-Jewish. More broadly, we find that it is always Israel who equates Zionism with Judaism and anti-Zionism with anti-semitism.
Furthermore, we find that it is actually our own members getting verbally harassed and threatened, our own public installations getting torn apart, our own Instagram posts with comments calling us antisemitic Nazis, our own names and faces published online alongside false accusations of anti-semitism, our own existence getting repressed by our institutions. More broadly, we find that it is always people protesting for Palestine who actually get brutalized by the police or by Zionist counter protestors, and it is always the Palestinians actually getting genocided by Israel. We refuse to allow the Zionist narrative to prioritize (misplaced) feelings over Palestinian life and safety; the only real threat to our collective safety is Israel's and America's violent impunity.
To state it explicitly: our sole target is Hamilton's financial mass which we access through the Board of Trustees. Our ultimate goal is a free Palestine, and we do our part by demanding that the Board of Trustees disclose their investments and divest from Israel, thereby rescinding their support for Israeli human rights violations, war crimes, and crimes against humanity. To achieve this goal, we need broad collective support.
يا جبل ما يهزك ريح !
Disclose and divest,
Students for Justice in Palestine
Comments