Statement by Harvard Faculty and Staff for Justice in Palestine

The unfolding genocide in Gaza cannot be disconnected from over 75 years of violent dispossession of the Palestinian people. The US government, media, and other institutions of knowledge production have long provided financial, military, moral, and political cover for the Israeli occupation and its colonial, racial violence. Our universities play an integral role in these structures of violence. In addition to investing in companies that maintain the occupation, many—including Harvard—methodically censor, surveil, and discipline students, faculty, and staff for teaching and speech that is critical of the state of Israel. In the last two months alone, Harvard students were subjected to a concerted and escalating campaign of harassment, intimidation, and racist hate speech because of their advocacy for Palestinian rights. They have been denounced and demonized by three-hundred and fifty of their own teachers. They have been targeted by some of the University’s wealthiest and most powerful donors and politicians. They have been accused of being “enemies,” “below animals,” “monsters,” and “terrorists,” by other university affiliates. And they have been accused of supporting genocide for organizing peaceful campus protests, vigils, and art installations that denounced the actual genocidal war taking place in Gaza. The Harvard administration has consistently failed to defend targeted students, take meaningful action to protect them, or address dozens of complaints of on-campus discrimination or bullying they have submitted through official channels. The administration is also enforcing unusual disciplinary measures against student protesters advocating for Palestinian rights, is considering resurrecting draconian Vietnam-era policies that restrict future student protests, and has invited the Cambridge police and the Federal Bureau of Investigation to investigate campus protests.

In light of the aforementioned systematic discrimination, we pledge to support, defend, and protect our students, faculty, staff, and all Harvard affiliates organizing for Palestinian human rights, justice, and peace in Palestine/Israel. In the wake of the shooting of three Palestinian students in Vermont and the murder of 6-year-old Wadea Al-Fayoume in his Chicago home, a failure to protect those who advocate for Palestinian human rights leaves the door open for more racialized violence. We aim to build upon ongoing student efforts to speak up against occupation, apartheid, and displacement in Palestine/Israel. 

We wholeheartedly reject accusations that critique of the Israeli state is antisemitic. We call for the emancipation of all peoples, with liberated futures for both Palestinians and Israelis. Since systems of oppression are deeply interconnected, we further pledge to combat all forms of discrimination and racism at Harvard and outside its walls, including anti-Palestinian racism, anti-Muslim racism, anti-Indigenous racism, anti-Blackness, white supremacy, and antisemitism.

As a group, we advocate for the right to freely teach and discuss the interlocking systems of oppression underpinned by militarism, settler colonialism, and racial capitalism. Our university campus and classrooms must be an open and welcoming space for teaching and learning about issues relating to the history and the contemporary reality of Palestine/Israel and the Middle East more broadly. Students and faculty should be able to freely discuss questions and topics related to Palestine in classrooms and scholarship without fear. Therefore, as educational workers, we call on Harvard to reject funding from donors attempting to control or censor on-campus speech or course curricula, or call for punitive actions of any kind such as banning from employment or other opportunities. Accepting donations conditioned upon the suppression of ideas and expression on our campus  is antithetical to the mission of the university.

We recognize the national movements that support the plight of the Palestinian people and endorse the 2005 call issued by Palestinian civil society for Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions. We call on the university to withdraw investments from the State of Israel and all companies that sustain Israeli apartheid, settler colonialism, and systematic human rights abuses against Palestinians. As educational workers, we are focused on boycotts of Israeli academic institutions that support apartheid and colonial occupation.

As the world watches Israel’s genocidal war and ethnic cleansing in Gaza live on their screens, other parts of Palestine are not spared. Israeli settler violence, further boosted by US-made rifles, is on the rise in the West Bank. Arbitrary detention has only intensified across Gaza, the West Bank, and Israel. With the silencing of Palestinians and advocates for justice across Palestine and globally, it is more important than ever for those of us who can speak out for justice and peace in Palestine to do so and to protect others who do the same. Now as ever we recognize that the path to justice requires us to reflect critically on human rights violations, past and present, in order to correct course and truly fulfill a greater mission, the advancement of knowledge for a more equitable society. 

We aim for Harvard Faculty and Staff for Justice in Palestine to be an inclusive organization for voices across Harvard schools to stand united with the Palestinian people and speak out for justice, together. 

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