2nd Annual International Day of Action for Palestine on College Campuses
In recent years, students on college campuses all over the world have been engaged in pressing their peers, teachers and administrators on critical political issues. The campus issues include movement calling for prison abolition and police brutality, fossil fuels, sweatshops and corporate/big bank greed, which have all been hotly debated on campuses worldwide and particularly in the U.S. One of the most crucial issues of importance discussed and organized around on campus is the Israeli settler-colonial project in Palestine that is connected to the above and constitutes a focal point for the global-local struggles for social justice. The longest lasting military occupation and settler colonial project in modern history has propelled students worldwide to engage in actions, boycotts, campaigns and more to shine a much needed light in an effort to bring an end to Israel’s violation of Palestinian human rights and dignity.
University leaders and administrators worldwide have become complicit in Israel’s violation of Palestinian human rights. By attending paid trips to Israel, having back-door meetings with Israeli officials, advancing academic cooperation with Israeli universities aiding and benefiting from the occupation, engaging in study abroad programs, sending campus police to train in Israel, cooperating with Hasbara organizations on campus, targeting faculty for speaking out on Israeli crimes, investing in companies that are complicit in the occupation, and allowing Zionist organizations to run free intimidating and attacking student organizers, universities have essentially taken the role of Israel’s great defender. On October 14th, we say no! On October 14th, 2015, students all over the world will launch campaigns, projects, actions, boycotts, and more to end their universities’ complicity in Israel’s war crimes!
This year, as we commemorate the 62ndanniversary of the 1953 Qibya Massacre, in which Israeli troops under the command of Ariel Sharon massacred 69 people (most of whom were women & children), we are reminded that the violent oppression of the Palestinian people continues today.
More critically, the month of October witnessed the beginning of the dispossession of native people in the Americas, a process that has not stopped and continues to unfold in small and large ways. In commemorating the anniversary of Qibya, we are reminded of the existing epistemic linkage present across time and space between Palestinians and native Americans on the one hand and struggles for justice, freedom and dignity for communities of color that have been marginalized.
October 14th, we come out to affirm the calls to end racism in all its forms and embrace our African American brothers and sisters in their struggle for freedom and the struggles across Africa to end economic, political and the corporate exploitation that dehumanize the lives of so many on a daily basis. October 14th, we come out on college campuses to affirm that no human is illegal and immigrants and refugees are our brothers and sisters that are to be embraced and welcomed while collectively calling for tearing down walls of indifference, racism and xenophobia. The immigration and refugee crisis is a result of accumulative and persistent patterns of exploitations that destroyed countries, economies and communities for short sighted profits and distorted foreign policy agendas.
October 14th, 2015 will also be the day torture and rape survivor and beloved Palestinian leader and activist, Rasmea Odeh, will face sentencing in Ohio. In what many regard to be a political trial filled with inconsistencies, fallacies and improper prosecution, Rasmea may face deportation or jail time even though she has never committed a crime in the U.S. and remains a lawful citizen.
Let us stand together and courageously speak out for justice! Let us assert the Palestine narrative and end the Zionist influence on our university campuses! Join us!