Statement by the Faculty in Ethnicity, Race, and Migration on Palestine

May 17, 2021

As scholars in the Program in Ethnicity, Race, and Migration, we recognize the Palestinian struggle as an indigenous liberation movement confronting a settler colonial state illegally expropriating their land for over seventy years. We condemn Israeli state-sponsored attacks against Palestinian life, land, and property. In recent weeks, Israeli settlers–with support from Israeli police and military–have expanded the land grabs and removal of Palestinian residents from their ancestral and legally-owned homes in the neighborhood of Sheikh Jarrah, actions which are categorically illegal according to international law and which have sparked world-wide protests. As the Israeli military forcibly removes Palestinians from their homes in East Jerusalem and the West Bank, and conducts airstrikes in Gaza, civilian deaths continue to rise. These assaults occur alongside increased citizen and police terror against Palestinians throughout Israel and the illegally occupied territories. The continuing support of Israel by the United States is tantamount to collaboration with the Israeli government’s military occupation and recent actions.

It is crucial that the current violence be brought to an end immediately.  It is equally crucial that we recognize that even in “peace,” the current living conditions of the Palestinians and the infrastructure of cruelty and domination that shapes them are unlivable, untenable, and unsustainable.

The U.S. must reverse course and support the U.N. Security Council’s call for a ceasefire, and U.S. officials must act to safeguard the human rights of Palestinians. We express solidarity with the Palestinian people as they resist the many forms of Israeli state violence and fight for their freedom. We will amplify the voices of Palestinian scholars and center the anticolonial struggle in our academic and public practice.