Jew World Order

Battle Over BDS at University of Chicago

The attack on Gaza has ignited student battles across dozens of schools in this country. The University of Chicago is an interesting case. On May 21 the incoming Undergraduate Student Government (USG) put out a statement in solidarity with Palestinians. It was cosigned by the school’s Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) chapter.

“We..ask that administration and professors have humanity and be willing to make accommodations for Palestinian students and faculty members who are affected by this violence,” it reads. “Furthermore, we support the demand that the University and its students divest from Israel, in order to stop the University from funding the murder of Palestinians.”

The statement also called for “a Palestine that is free … from the river to the sea,” a popular political slogan purposely misrepresented by defenders of Israeli apartheid.

This caused some problems. First school President Robert Zimmer and Provost Ka Yee Lee sent students an email explaining that the “the University of Chicago does not have an institutional position on international conflicts.”

Ain’t that the truth. Back in 1967 a University of Chicago committee put out something called The Kalven Report that declared, “To perform its mission in the society, a university must sustain an extraordinary environment of freedom of inquiry and maintain an independence from political fashions, passions, and pressures.” One assumes that, say, Chileans might have some thoughts about the University of Chicago maintaining independence from political passions, but I digress. The Kalven Report was used to justify the school’s refusal to divest from South Africa, so why should another apartheid state be different?

But what about the students? Immediately after the USG statement was released College Council member Julia Brestovitskiy drafted a resolution calling for it to be retracted, but that wasn’t all. Brestovitskiy said the student government should apologize to the school’s Jewish community for standing with Palestine. The resolution was supported by a number of pro-Israel campus groups, including UChicago JStreet

This kind of thing used to be a slam dunk for Zionists, but not anymore. The apology part of the resolution was eventually retracted in an effort to get the measure passed, but it was voted down anyway. University of Chicago SJP put out a powerful statement before the vote, calling for the statement to remain. Here’s part of it:

We do not believe in engaging with narrative-shifting or red herrings. While experiences of ethnic cleansing, segregation, and forced displacement are obvious to the international community and intimately felt by our families, we also, unfortunately, recognize that we cannot take for granted that such a baseline understanding of Israeli Apartheid exists on a campus quite literally invested in it. So, we would like to take a moment to briefly address a few red herrings here, such as the discourse on the chant “from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free”; the phrase refers to the body of land between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea, and expresses the simple demand that Palestinians within the borders of historic Palestine should be free from occupation. It is a statement explicitly in support of Palestinian liberation and the abolition of a violent political state. If other communities feel oppressed by the simple idea that Palestinians should live with freedom, those “fears” should be interrogated, not our demands for freedom. Interpretation of this phrase as antisemitic is an illegitimate weaponization of antisemitism that distracts from the fight for liberation and the right of return for Palestinians to historic Palestine. 

From its origins, the Zionist ideology attempts to position this struggle as a religious conflict, equating the Jewish community with the settler-colonial state of Israel. This is a calculated effort to conflate a free Palestine with an attack against the Jewish people. As Palestinians are being imprisoned, forcibly displaced, and massacred on a daily basis, the conflation of anti-Zionism with antisemitism is designed to distract from the violent occupation of the Palestinian people and weaken the movement for Palestinian liberation. As the Palestinian community is Muslim, Christian, Jewish, non-religious, Black, Arab, queer, trans, and more, SJP unequivocally condemns antisemitism, Islamophobia, homophobia, and all racism in all forms. Our Palestinian liberation movement has not only clearly articulated that we stand against all forms of oppression and racism numerous times, but we also recognize that, as a diverse community with many identities, the liberation of the Palestinian people is wholly dependent upon the freedom of all people. As Palestinian writer Mohammed El-Kurd says, “We chant for our freedom while they chant for our death, that should tell you all you need to know about the settler state.”

Odds & Ends

📊 Vox and Data for Progress have released new polling on U.S. attitudes towards Israel/Palestine. No surprise that Democrats are divided on the issue. 32 % of Dems want Biden to condemn Israel, 39% think the administration has taken the right approach, and 11% want him to be more supportive of the country. Respondents were also asked about military aid to Israel. 45% of Democrats, 35% of Independents, and 25% of Republicans think it should be decreased.

🇦🇫 The C.I.A. is looking for ways to maintain their presence in Afghanistan after troops are withdrawn, according to the New York Times:

One focus has been Pakistan. The C.I.A. used a base there for years to launch drone strikes against militants in the country’s western mountains, but was kicked out of the facility in 2011, when U.S. relations with Pakistan unraveled.

Any deal now would have to work around the uncomfortable reality that Pakistan’s government has long supported the Taliban. In discussions between American and Pakistani officials, the Pakistanis have demanded a variety of restrictions in exchange for the use of a base in the country, and they have effectively required that they sign off on any targets that either the C.I.A. or the military would want to hit inside Afghanistan, according to three Americans familiar with the discussions.

Diplomats are also exploring the option of regaining access to bases in former Soviet republics that were used for the Afghanistan war, although they expect that President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia would fiercely oppose this.

🇮🇱 Over 100 organizations sent a letter to President Biden asking him to halt weapons sales to Israel. “Blocking this weapons sale will not change the reality of daily life for Palestinians living under Israeli occupation,” it reads. “Those living in Gaza will continue to suffer from severe shortages of life-saving medicines, food, electricity, and clean water, because of Israel’s illegal military blockade, which makes life unsafe and unbearable. But halting delivery of the weapons would send a clear message that your administration is unwilling to fuel further attacks on civilians in Gaza.”

🇮🇱 Former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo told the Israeli press that selling the UAE F-35s and assassinating Soleimani were important parts of the Abraham Accords. People sometimes refer to this thing as a “peace agreement.”

🌉 I talked to AROC executive director Lara Kiswani about how Bay Area activists successfully blocked an Israeli cargo ship from docking in Oakland:

“At the very end of the afternoon, around 6:00 pm, we got to actually watch the ship leave, which was pretty dramatic. I think it was a great moment for all of us to see the economic and political power of labor and community organizing.”

🇵🇸 I was proud to sign this letter calling for coverage of Palestine to change. Please check it out.

Stay safe out there,

Michael

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