University of Delaware students have coordinated a walkout, die-in and more in the name of solidarity with Palestinian people in Gaza this week, as the Israel-Hamas War wages on.
Daily Archives: 27. April 2024
“We Are Not Afraid of You”: Voices from Inside the Growing Anti-War Movement Sweeping US Campuses
On this special episode of the It’s Going Down podcast, we speak with folks across the country that are taking part in the exploding movement of anti-war encampments and occupations sweeping across US campuses in solidarity with Palestine.
APRIL 22 Letter from Jewish Faculty Against the Weaponization of Antisemitism
Dear President Mills and Provost Dopico,
We write this public letter as Jewish faculty at NYU requesting that the university administration discontinue its practice of relying on specious charges of antisemitism when adjudicating matters of student conduct and faculty discipline concerning pro-Palestinian speech and protest. This matter has particular urgency as just this morning a coalition of NYU students has established an encampment in solidarity with Gaza, and already NYU has taken steps to limit and constrain their speech and mobility.
We reject outright the administration’s insistence that criticism of Israeli state policy is inherently antisemitic and so constitutes discrimination. There is nothing Jewish about supporting Israel’s destruction of Gaza or about the US bombs that have killed more than 10,000 children there, nor is it antisemitic to denounce Israeli state violence or to protest American imperialism. Moreover, by adopting a cheapened idea of “antisemitic” hate speech defined by the very same right wing political figures who have given energy and legitimacy to neo-fascist groups across the US and to the McCarthyite anti-intellectual assault on higher education unfolding today, the university degrades the discourse of antisemitism itself. With this in mind, we request that the university reverse all punitive Office of Equal Opportunity decisions in disciplinary proceedings that have depended upon the erroneous equation of anti-Israel speech with antisemitism.
Who is Noelle McAfee? All About Emory University Philosophy Professor, Arrested at Campus
Noelle McAfee (age 63, born November 25, 1960) is a prominent political theorist and feminist. Currently, she holds the position of chair in the philosophy department at Emory University, a role she’s held since 2010.
Alongside being a Professor of Philosophy, she’s also a Professor of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at Emory.
Police arrested Noelle McAfee, Chair of the Philosophy Department at Emory University.
(25.04.2024)
Violent Arrest of Emory Professor Spotlights Brutality of Police Crackdown on Campus Protests
(25.04.2024)
„To sustain this level of blind support for Israel, the U.S. must erode its own democracy,“ said one foreign policy expert. „And that is what we see happening on U.S. campuses now.“
See police detain members of crowd at Emory University during pro-Palestinian protest
(25.04.2024)
A CNN crew witnessed at least two professors detained by Atlanta police, including Emory University economics professor Caroline Fohlin and Noëlle McAfee, chair of the philosophy department.
Netanyahu Calls for Crackdown on Pro-Palestine Protesters in the US
(24.04.2024)
Israeli Opposition leader and former Prime Minister Yair Lapid also called for a crackdown on the protests. “What’s happening on American college campuses is unforgivable,” he wrote on X. “It is antisemitism, it is support for terrorism, it is support for Hamas which murders LGBT people and oppresses women. The administration cannot stand by, it has to intervene.”
The Ghost of the 1968 Antiwar Movement Has Returned
Those young demonstrators had come of age seeing continual — and effective — protests during the civil rights movement and national mourning after the assassinations of President John F. Kennedy, Senator Robert F. Kennedy and the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. A year earlier King staked out his opposition to the war, saying that while he wasn’t attempting “to make North Vietnam or the National Liberation Front paragons of virtue,” he wanted to underscore his belief “that America would never invest the necessary funds or energies in rehabilitation of its poor so long as adventures like Vietnam continued to draw men and skills and money, like some demonic, destructive suction tube.” He said he was “compelled to see the war as an enemy of the poor and attack it as such.”
Day 202: 34,356 killed, 77,368 injured in Gaza
(26.04.2024)
The Palestinian Ministry of Health in Gaza announced on Friday that the number of Palestinians killed in the ongoing Israeli genocide in the Strip since October 7 has now reached 34,356, with 77,368 injured as the war reaches its 203rd day.
Additionally, the ministry stated that the Israeli occupation committed in the past 24 hours five massacres against families in the Strip, which resulted in the martyrdom of 51 people and the injury of 75.
Biden campaign refuses invitation to address US Muslim voter advocacy groups
In addition to Biden‘s campaign, the coalition said that the campaign for former US President Donald Trump also refused the invitation.
Another US official resigns over Gaza policy amid growing protests
United States State Department’s spokesperson for the Middle East and North Africa, Hala Rharrit, has resigned in protest of America’s policy on Gaza — at least the third high-profile resignation from the department, as pro-Palestinian demonstrations at university campuses across the country grow.
Column: The crackdown on student protesters shows exactly why we need them
After all, the division over the war in Gaza is by no means confined to students. As has happened with so many rifts in our country’s history, students have simply used their activism to become a prism reflecting the wider world. Which is why they need to be taken seriously, for all of our sakes.
If they do nothing else, the growing demonstrations are forcing us to confront who we are, what we believe and why.
What is happening in Gaza is not a war “over there.” It’s right here, right now, among our own children. And we all need to figure out where we stand.
Campus Protests: Beautiful Moments Vs. Trampling Of Speech
Going over some of the news, good and bad, coming out of the campus protests. Including what happened to Emory University‘s professor of economics Caroline Fohlin, but also a beautiful speech given by an 88-year-old activist.
#campusprotests
(search results)
A look at the protests about the war in Gaza that have emerged on US college campuses
Protests on many campuses have been orchestrated by coalitions of student groups. The groups largely act independently, though students say they’re inspired by peers at other universities.
A look at protests on campuses in recent days:
Columbia University Apartheid Divest (CUAD)
Columbia University Apartheid Divest is a coalition of student organizations that see Palestine as the vanguard for our collective liberation. We are a continuation of the Vietnam anti-war movement and the movement to divest from apartheid South Africa. We support freedom and justice for the Palestinian people, and for all people. We know that true collective safety will arise when everyone has access to clean air, clean water, food, housing, education, healthcare, freedom of movement, and dignity.
Secret meetings, social chatter: How Columbia students sparked a nationwide revolt
“We talked about what it was like to recruit people and join, and what it meant to stand in solidarity together, and what it would look like if these camps started popping up everywhere,” said Soph Askanase, 21-year-old junior at Barnard College who was arrested at Columbia.
What followed was the start of what historians now call one of the most consequential student uprisings the nation has seen in recent times.
Northwestern University students join wave of nationwide campus protests for Palestine
EVANSTON, Ill. (CN) — Students and staff at Northwestern University launched a campus protest in solidarity with Palestine on Thursday, joining a nationwide student movement that began last week at New York City‘s Columbia University.
As at Columbia and numerous other universities, the Northwestern protestors opposed the United States‘ ongoing material and political support of Israel despite mounting accusations that Israeli forces in Gaza have committed war crimes.
Why young Jewish Americans are turning on Israel
(April 26, 2024)
With college campuses all over the US gripped by intense battles around free speech, antisemitism, and Palestinian rights – the voices of young Jewish Americans have led the way.
One of the boldest and most prominent voices is that of Simone Zimmerman.
Israelism Is a Powerful Indictment of Pro-Apartheid Indoctrination
(June 22, 2023)
After the movie was over, Simone Zimmerman and director Eric Axelman sat on the edge of the stage and took questions from the audience. One of the questions was from a Palestinian-American man who asked about how to respond to people who took offense when phrases like “apartheid” and “ethnic cleansing” were used to describe the treatment of Palestinians.
In his response, Axelman pointed out that recent polling shows that more than a third of American Jews under the age of forty agree with the statement, “Israel is an apartheid state.” The message is starting to get through. It’s about time.
In the News: „Israelism“ at UCLA
(Jun 15, 2023)
Following last week‘s UCLA screening of „Israelism,“ Abe Foxman, former ADL Head, and Natalie Masachi, President of UCLA SSI, share their perspectives on the new documentary that rails against the pro-Israel „indoctrination“ of young Jews. With Shahar Azani.
Israelism
Two young American Jews – Simone Zimmerman and Eitan – are raised to defend the state of Israel at all costs. Eitan joins the Israeli military. Simone supports Israel on ‘the other battlefield:’ America’s college campuses. When they witness Israel‘s mistreatment of the Palestinian people with their own eyes, they are horrified and heartbroken.
They join the movement of young American Jews battling the old guard over Israel’s centrality in American Judaism, and demanding freedom for the Palestinian people. Their stories reveal a generational divide in the American Jewish community as more young Jews question the narratives their synagogues and Hebrew school teachers fed them as children.
Were young American Jews lied to about Israel? A new documentary says yes
(February 24, 2023)
From directors Eric Axelman and Sam Eilertsen, Israelism follows two millennial Jews — Simone Zimmerman, co-founder of IfNotNow and Eitan, an American former IDF soldier who didn’t want to use his last name in the documentary — as they talk about becoming disenchanted with the Israel they were taught to defend and believe in growing up within the American Jewish system. (Filmmakers Axelman and Eilertsen are also millennial Jews, and in a director’s statement, Axelman wrote about their own, similar arc with Israel.)