The last two weeks have made it seem like higher education in the United States is beyond reform. How does one even respond to something like this?
This was published at Tufts Daily:
Op-ed: Looking toward Palestinian liberation and the death of imperialismAn open letter to The Tufts Daily, the Tufts Board of Trustees, President Sunil Kumar and the Tufts community:We must first commend the statements of both Tufts Students for Justice in Palestine and the coalition of anonymous South Asian students and alumni in their willingness to stand in solidarity with the people of Palestine in the face of backlash from a unified coalition of universities — including our own — the media and government perpetrators of genocide. These students have rightfully indicted Israel’s war of eradication on Palestine as well as the campaign being waged both locally and around the world, to silence those who stand against it.We condemn in the strongest way possible Kumar’s disgraceful “personal note,” which he sent in an email to the Tufts community on Oct. 11. As already denounced by our peers, in this note Kumar uses abhorrent and racist “War on Terror” rhetoric that functions to dehumanize any attempt at Palestinian defense of their homeland as “pure barbarism” and justifies Israel’s ongoing slaughter of Palestinians. Kumar’s statement recalls Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant’s description of the Palestinian people as “human animals” and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s since-deleted tweet, in which he presents Israel’s genocidal war on Palestine as one against the “children of darkness” furthering “the law of the jungle.”Kumar’s response has arrived in the wake of ongoing university campaigns condemning those students calling for an end to the Israeli apartheid regime. In the last week, a truck on Harvard’s campus began displaying the names and faces of pro-Palestinian students, who have since faced death threats. Meanwhile, several U.S. CEOs and business leaders called for the public release of the names of Harvard students who had signed onto a statement made by the university’s undergraduate Palestine Solidarity Committee, intending to bar future employment opportunities. This statement rightfully holds responsible the illegitimate Israeli state for all unfolding violence. A recent New York Times article has exposed the numerous Wall Street financiers and university donors who are pressuring elite universities like Harvard to denounce student criticism of Israel. This coordinated attack on free speech is even worse in Europe, where France and Germany have outright banned Palestinian solidarity protests…Broad historical ignorance and the outright lies that are fed to us by dominant Western media about Palestine and the present conditions on its ground facilitate the repression of pro-Palestine voices here in the U.S. and beyond. For this reason, we must stand against these ahistorical narratives and critically examine the press.
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