Hundreds of thousands of Palestinians are fleeing Rafah, Gaza’s southernmost city, as Israel steps up its bombardment and threatens an imminent, even more massive invasion.

Meanwhile, opposition to Israel’s genocidal war continues to grow. It includes encampments and other protests by students on campuses across the United States. Many of these student actions have been violently suppressed by the police at the request of university authorities. Faculty members and others across the country have spoken out condemning this crackdown and defending the students’ right to free speech.

The Academic Advisory Council of Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP), for example, has issued “An Open Call to Fellow Jewish Academics,” dated May 9, that World-Outlook is sharing below. It begins:

As Jewish academics, researchers, and higher education professionals, we are appalled by, and refuse to accept, the deliberate mis-characterization, and weaponization of persisting fears about Jewish safety and well-being on campuses across the United States as the singular excuse for a series of misguided and dangerous policies by university administrators.

The statement continues:

Rather than being challenged by University administrators based on the realities on our campuses, demonstrably false claims about threats to Jewish safety and well-being, propagated by so-called pro-Israel organizations and spread by mainstream media, have been uncritically accepted and then turned against students, faculty and community members alike as justification for violently dismantling encampments, arresting demonstrators, and implementing other punitive measures.

As Jewish academics, researchers, and higher education professionals, we strongly condemn this violent, punitive, and increasingly militarized approach to resolving conflicts on our campuses. While this wave of repression pales in comparison to the destruction by the Israeli military of Palestinian universities and its massive killing of scholars and students in Gaza, it nonetheless demands a strong response from those concerned with equity, education, and justice.

We unequivocally reject the cynical and mendacious claim that the violent suppression of student activism serves the cause of Jewish safety.

A May 3 JVP statement condemned the April 30 assault on the UCLA student encampment that opposed Israel’s war on Gaza and expressed solidarity with the Palestinian people. That attack — the most violent incident to date connected to the student protests across the country — was carried out by rightist, pro-Israel vigilantes. The New York Times, the Washington Post, and other media documented the hours-long inaction by campus and city police who allowed this brutal assault to take place.

Despite warnings of violence at UCLA, police didn’t step in for over 3 hours read the May 11 Post headline. The paper said its report was “based on evidence including more than 200 videos, emergency radio transmissions, text messages and interviews with more than a dozen witnesses.”

The Post found that while the cops did nothing “in the hours before they took action, at least 16 people were visibly injured, the majority of them pro-Palestinian, including two protesters who could be seen with blood streaking across their faces and soaking into their clothes, videos and images show. The counterprotesters ignited at least six fireworks; struck protesters at least 20 times with wooden planks, metal poles and other objects; and punched or kicked at least eight protesters.”

The police inaction in response to pro-Israel vigilantes at UCLA stands in sharp contrast to cop repression of pro-Palestinian student protests. In fact, on May 2, cops — who stood by while the rightists marauded — shut down the UCLA encampment that had come under attack.

“The violent and repressive response to the Palestine solidarity movement around the country must stop,” declares the JVP in its May 9 statement, referring to the police assault at UCLA and the many instances of cop attacks on student protests at campuses across the country.

The JVP statement also answers the charges that protests against Israel’s aggression are antisemitic:

We acknowledge that there have been some relatively rare instances of antisemitism within the Palestine and Gaza demonstrations and solidarity encampments that have been established on more than 150 college and university campuses. These do not define the protests, nor campus life.

We also recognize that such unfortunate moments have been far fewer in number than those of Islamophobic, anti-Palestinian, and anti-Arab attacks against the demonstrators, funded by Zionist organizations, including physical attacks perpetrated by pro-Israel agitators.

More importantly, these rare cases of antisemitism have been overwhelmed by the solidarity, good will, and unity of purpose that have brought Palestinian and Jewish students and faculty together with so many others in order to demand peace and a changed role for the United States in the Middle East.

The statement concludes with a series of bullet points pledging support for the student protests and their demands. The final one is particularly noteworthy:

●  Working with students and others to develop open and democratic organizational structures and promote non-violent mass actions from their campuses to their state and national capitals.

This poses the challenge to broaden the student protests beyond university campuses. That would allow for increased outreach to other working people and youth and the prospect of building a larger, broader movement to end the war on Gaza and to defend the democratic and human rights of the Palestinian people.

A number of recent articles have pointed to such possibilities.

Among them is a May 10 Teen Vogue article, High School Students Lead Pro-Palestine Protests, Show Support for Campus Encampments. “As pro-Palestine protests on college campuses continue to sweep the nation,” it reports, “high school students have joined the movement to demand an end to US military aid to Israel and the ongoing war in Gaza. Amid finals, classes, and college decision celebrations, high schoolers have organized sit-ins and marches to nearby university campuses, echoing the frustrations of their college peers.”

At San Francisco State, a Democratic Movement for Palestine is the title of a May 9 Jacobin article. It details how democratic decision-making methods strengthened the protest at San Francisco State University. It includes this essential point: “Organizers were blunt that escalations by small groups, especially with vague demands, would risk retaliation against everyone else. At open assemblies, a critical mass had outvoted breakaway escalation ideas and stayed committed to moving together in the hundreds. Strength in numbers takes democracy first.”

Norman Filkenstein: Build a Majority for Palestine is another noteworthy piece. Published in the May 8 Jacobin, it consists of the remarks of “Holocaust scholar and prominent pro-Palestine activist” Norman Finkelstein who addressed the Columbia student encampment on April 21. This speech too raises important ideas that merit further discussion among those committed to this struggle.

I would also say, in my opinion, the slogans have to be as clear as possible, leaving no room for ambiguity or misinterpretation, which can be exploited to discredit a movement.

My own view is that some of the slogans of the current movement don’t work. The future belongs to you guys and not to me, and I’m a strong believer in democracy. You have to decide for yourselves. But in my view, you have to pick the slogans which are not ambiguous, leaving no wiggle room for misinterpretation, and which have the biggest likelihood at a given political moment of reaching the largest number of people. That’s my political experience.

I believe the “Cease-fire now” slogan is most important. On a college campus, that slogan should be twinned with the slogan of “Free speech.” If I were in your situation, I would say “Free Gaza, free speech” — that should be the slogan. Because I think, on a college campus, people have a real problem defending the repression of speech.

In recent years, because of the emergence of the identity-politics, cancel-culture ambiance on college campuses, the whole issue of free speech and academic freedom has become severely clouded. I have opposed any restrictions on free speech, and I oppose the identity-politics cancel culture on the grounds of preserving free speech.

I’m going to be candid with you, and I don’t make any claim to infallibility — I’m simply stating based on my own experience in politics: I don’t agree with the slogan “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free.” It’s very easy to amend and just say, “From the river to the sea, Palestinians will be free.” That simple, little amendment drastically reduces the possibility of your being manipulatively misunderstood.

World-Outlook is publishing the JVP statement that follows, and highlighting the material referenced above, as a contribution to the discussion about building the most effective movement to end the war on Gaza, defend the democratic and human rights of the Palestinian people, and oppose U.S. complicity with Israeli aggression. We encourage readers to share their own views or other articles that may be of interest in the comments section below.

— World-Outlook editors

*

May 9, 2024

AN OPEN CALL TO FELLOW JEWISH ACADEMICS FROM JEWISH VOICE FOR PEACE ACADEMIC ADVISORY COUNCIL

As Jewish academics, researchers, and higher education professionals, we are appalled by, and refuse to accept, the deliberate mis-characterization, and weaponization of persisting fears about Jewish safety and well-being on campuses across the United States as the singular excuse for a series of misguided and dangerous policies by university administrators. These include attempts to destroy one of the largest and most significant student and social movements of the last half century, efforts to crush academic freedom and freedom of expression, encouragement for brutal invasions of peaceful student-led encampments, attacks and arrests by police forces, and facilitating the wholesale takeover of universities by the most illiberal and revanchist forces in the United States today.

We emphatically declare, “Not in our name!” We refuse to allow our Judaism, Jewish heritage and well-being to be deployed as the singular excuse for contributing to the most serious threat in our lifetimes not only to higher education but to the very possibility of a vibrant public sphere in this country.

Rather than being challenged by University administrators based on the realities on our campuses, demonstrably false claims about threats to Jewish safety and well-being, propagated by so-called pro-Israel organizations and spread by mainstream media, have been uncritically accepted and then turned against students, faculty and community members alike as justification for violently dismantling encampments, arresting demonstrators, and implementing other punitive measures.

As Jewish academics, researchers, and higher education professionals, we strongly condemn this violent, punitive, and increasingly militarized approach to resolving conflicts on our campuses. While this wave of repression pales in comparison to the destruction by the Israeli military of Palestinian universities and its massive killing of scholars and students in Gaza, it nonetheless demands a strong response from those concerned with equity, education, and justice.

We unequivocally reject the cynical and mendacious claim that the violent suppression of student activism serves the cause of Jewish safety.

We acknowledge that there have been some relatively rare instances of antisemitism within the Palestine and Gaza demonstrations and solidarity encampments that have been established on more than 150 college and university campuses. These do not define the protests, nor campus life.

We also recognize that such unfortunate moments have been far fewer in number than those of Islamophobic, anti-Palestinian, and anti-Arab attacks against the demonstrators, funded by Zionist organizations, including physical attacks perpetrated pro-Israel agitators.

More importantly, these rare cases of antisemitism have been overwhelmed by the solidarity, good will, and unity of purpose that have brought Palestinian and Jewish students and faculty together with so many others in order to demand peace and a changed role for the United States in the Middle East.

The violent and repressive response to the Palestine solidarity movement around the country must stop.

We call on our fellow Jewish academics and the Jewish community at large to recognize that this remarkable movement to stop a genocide being committed in our name has emerged not from some dangerous alien source but from our own children, siblings, parents, and friends. This movement – our movement – represents a living recommitment to social and international justice by our community and many others.

We pledge to support this movement most effectively by:

●  Fully supporting the student mobilization and its unified demands for institutional divestment from companies that contribute to and/or profit from the Israeli occupation of Palestinian land; and from US military aid to Israel;

●  Supporting academic freedom, free speech, and freedom of assembly. Our goal should be to expand discussion and debate, not limit it and shut it down;

●  Continuing our education work about the meanings of antisemitism and their distinction from anti-Zionism;

●  Improving the curriculum at colleges and universities to ensure the conveyance of more fully accurate information and perspectives on the history of Palestine, racism, Islamophobia, antisemitism, academic freedom, and other complicated but crucial topics;

●  Working with students and others to develop open and democratic organizational structures and promote non-violent mass actions from their campuses to their state and national capitals.

We further declare to fellow Jewish academics and community members that there is no more staying above the fray or remaining confusedly neutral in this conflict. This is an historic pivot point in Palestinian history, U.S. history, and Jewish history. If we are not actively engaged in stopping the violence and repression both in Palestine and in the United States, we are complicit in them.

We invite people of all faiths and heritages to join the Palestine solidarity movement in the full commitment for freedom and equality for everyone between the river and the sea — and indeed, between every river and every sea as the world enters an ever more perilous era.

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