Wesleyan Students for Justice in Palestine unequivocally affirms that the State of Israel’s oppression of the Palestinian People is the root of the violence in Palestine perpetrated by Hamas and the State of Israel since the morning of October 7th. We are horrified by the murder and harm of Israeli and Palestinian civilians. Wesleyan SJP maintains uncompromising empathy to all in our community and beyond who are coping with human realities of horrific violence, and we yearn for a future in which no more lives are robbed by Israeli settler colonialism, apartheid, oppression, and US-funded military imperialism. 

The sole path towards a peaceful future is the deconstruction of the State of Israel’s apartheid system, occupation of Palestinian lands, and settler colonial project. We know this future will only be created through anti-colonial resistance in Palestine and around the world. We urge people to notice that when Palestinians and Allies have resisted Israel’s oppression through peaceful means, they have been both ignored and vilified. Calling for peace while demonizing resistance to oppression ensures the continuation of brutal violence that Palestinian people experience every day. 

We mourn all pain, suffering, and loss of life and call for an end to the reproduction of violence through the timely dissolution of the State of Israel’s systems of colonial violence. 

Context Matters

We contextualize this weekend’s violence within 75 years of anti-Palestinian catastrophe beginning when Zionist terrorists slaughtered 15,000 indigenous Palestinians in 70 massacres, ethnically cleansed 750,000 Palestinians from their lands, and depopulated over 531 Palestinian towns (Shabaneh 2007, 1). Israel’s 16 year blockade of Gaza has cruelly deprived Palestinians of their human rights, shackling 2 million people in a densely populated, unlivable, open-air prison (Amnesty International 2023, 1-3). In response to all of these injustices, Palestinians have organized multiple liberation movements, none of which have liberated them.

We recognize that the State of Israel was conceived as a colonial project to rid European nations of their Jewish residents and its brutal establishment was a response to Jewish experiences of anti-Semitic violence during and preceding the Holocaust. 

We condemn the United States government’s promises to provide additional military assistance to Israel on top of $150+ billion dollars of cumulative military aid the US has provided (Sharp 2023, ii). Instead of using tax dollars to save American lives, the US government weaponizes its resources against Palestinians ensuring the perpetuation of violence and increased militarization. 

We affirm the importance of contextualizing the Palestinian struggle in both global and local freedom struggles against racist, colonial regimes – which are often strategically quelled through myths about “violence.” The demonization of Indigenous and Black self-defense in response to genocide is a centuries-old pattern. Oppressive actors always make survivors out as barbaric monsters, and legitimize themselves by fabricating lies that they represent peace. These are narratives that solidified the foundation of racial capitalist modernity, and that colonial states & institutions are weaponizing today before our eyes. We condemn Roth’s blatant disregard, placation, and abstracting of atrocities in his statement about “peacemakers.” It must be situated in this institution’s branding of itself as a progressive peacemaker while continuing to actively harm and oppress Black, Indigenous, and POC students, academics, and Middletown communities alike.

We condemn the siege and the blockade of Gaza, and call on the University to decry this inhumane, genocidal crime against humanity. The Israeli military is enacting collective punishment on more than 2 million people who live in Gaza, almost half of whom are children (Russell 2023, 5). Israel’s Defense Minister, Yoav Gallant, has ordered “a complete siege on the Gaza Strip,” including food, water, electricity, and fuel calling the people of Gaza “human animals” (Fabian 2023, 1-3). The Israeli government is currently escalating their blatantly genocidal and horrifyingly racist treatment of the Palestinian people. We cannot be silent as this siege goes on, and we urge the international community to stop the war crimes that are going on in Gaza as we speak. Now is the time to express solidarity with the Palestinian community. 

Response to President Roth’s Statement on October 7th

We condemn University President Michael Roth’s statement for actively and harmfully erasing the context of the violence on October 7th. His statement that “The war that Hamas unleashed this morning will be devastating,” grossly misleads the Wesleyan community. Since 1948, the State of Israel has waged war against the Palestinian population, ethnically cleansing and brutalizing generations of indigenous Palestinians. Violent responses to peaceful forms of Palestinian resistance, the international community’s approval of Israel’s brutality, and daily violence and oppression of the Palestinian people preempted Hamas’ and Israel’s attacks on October 7th and since. 

In a 2019 Wesleyan Student Assembly meeting documented by the Wesleyan Argus, President Roth violently conflated the entire Palestinian population with Hamas (Maeyama 2019, 5). In reference to the 2019 Wesleyan divestment campaign, a student asked “Why do you value your own projections on how change can be made for the lives of Palestinians over the Palestinians who are calling for divestment?” President Roth responded, “Palestinians, I’m not sure who you mean exactly, but if you mean, let’s say, Hamas—” before the student interjected and Roth rephrased his statement (5). Portraying Hamas as the sole aggressor after 75 years of colonialism and conflating the entire Palestinian population with a group currently being condemned as a terrorist organization by the United States reproduces dehumanizing anti-Palestinian racism.

Given that President Roth occupied former Wesleyan President Colin Cambell’s office in 1978 in support of divestment from South Africa, it is hypocritical that he continuously sides with the Israeli apartheid regime. However, this does not come as a surprise. We know Israel and the United States are part of a global machine of policing and colonial violence, and that Wesleyan upholds these systems. We encourage all to join in public pressure to overturn all violence that remains incorporated into the status quo of this institution. Wesleyan’s actively touting a public image of progressivism and diversity, while actively upholding colonial & anti-black structures, is unacceptable and deadly.

Conclusion

We mourn every life the State of Israel’s settler colonial violences has taken, from Deir Yassin to this day. We empathize with all members of the Wesleyan community in proximity to death, loss, fear, and violence. We imagine a world free of all forms of violent oppression, created through anti-colonial resistance. 

With loud, sure voices we shout “Free Palestine,” for the only pathway to peace is liberation. 

References

Fabian, Emanuel. “Defense Minister Announces ‘Complete Siege’ of Gaza: No Power, Food or Fuel.” The Times of Israel, October 9, 2023. https://www.timesofisrael.com/liveblog_entry/defense-minister-announces-complete-siege-of-gaza-no-power-food-or-fuel/. 

“Israel Must Lift Illegal and Inhumane Blockade on Gaza.” Amnesty International, November 8, 2023. https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2023/10/israel-opt-israel-must-lift-illegal-and-inhumane-blockade-on-gaza-as-power-plant-runs-out-of-fuel/. 

Maeyama, Jocelyn. “Roth Joins WSA for Open Q&A Forum.” The Wesleyan Argus, November 22, 2019. http://wesleyanargus.com/2019/11/22/roth-joins-wsa-for-open-qa-forum/. 

Russell, Catherine. “Gaza and Israel: The Cost of War Will Be Counted in Children’s Lives.” UNICEF, October 26, 2023. https://www.unicef.org/gaza-israel-cost-of-war-counted-children-lives#:~:text=Gaza%20is%20one%20of%20the,a%20wide%2Dscale%20military%20operation. 

Shabaneh, Luay. “PCBS president: Despite tragic circumstances, Palestinians have ...” May 15, 2008. https://www.pcbs.gov.ps/Portals/_pcbs/PressRelease/nakba%2060.pdf. 

Sharp , Jeremy M. “U.S. Foreign Aid to Israel - Federation of American Scientists.” Congressional Research Service , March 1, 2023. https://sgp.fas.org/crs/mideast/RL33222.pdf.