Saying Goodbye to a University System that Supports Genocide

Let me cut to the chase: In the US, our universities and government have crossed so many of my red lines, I’ve lost count: We as a country (and university) are proudly joined at the hip with Israel, a lawless state that is committing genocide in Gaza and ethnic cleansing in the West Bank, and clamping down on anti-war dissent at universities on US soil. The lessons of the Holocaust and WWII should be clear enough to our leaders: Appeasing, much less championing, genocidal leaders is a red line, genocide denial is a red line, clamping down on checks-and-balances (ie free speech) is a red line, and I could go on. — “Never again” should mean never again for any group, no exceptions.

 

I’m horrified by the attempts to move heaven and earth on our campuses to shield Israel from accountability for war crimes: In Gaza, the death toll has exceeded 52,000, a disproportionate number of them children, and tens of thousands of them who survive must do so without one or both parents and many others have no surviving family. In the US legacy news media, we have been shielded from the reality of WCNSF. And since many bodies are still under the rubble or died of untreated diseases, the hidden and indirect death toll is likely 200,0000. The number of children shot in the head and torso by IDF soldiers shocks the senses. Regardless of strategic justification, or bad-apple/bad-barrel sophistry, that type of harm is a war crime. To deny this genocide represents a betrayal of the lessons of the Holocaust and, as an immigrant, I see it as a breakdown of society, the university, and the broader system, at a time when the targets are doing us the favor of documenting the facts of death. Then, to profit from it …..and defend or minimize genocide … for what? … for 7% endowment returns? The University of Michigan is perfectly able to divest from cigarettes but not genocide? In effect, as intellectual centers of the country, universities have been weaponized to white wash war crimes and shield Israel from accountability. Personally, I can’t be a party to that system. I understand this approach is not for everyone, but it’s a decision that’s right for me.

 

The US-Israeli genocide is even escalating, but it’s not the End of the World, despite the wishes of 20-50 million American Zionists, like Christians United for Israel, who pray for the apocalyptic prophecies of the Book of Revelations to usher in Armageddon. That is the problem: As with previous genocides, we and future generations will have to live with the consequences of our society’s mass derangement 10 or 100 years from now. While the short and medium term may be chaotic, I am actually hopeful that despite this period of creative destruction, long term our society and the world will rebuild as it did after major periods of realignment in the past. In short, I think the work of the 1960s is unfinished and it’s up to the current generations of living (and half living) to work toward the promise of that era for all.

 

Part of that work, for me now, involves recommitting to the 2005 call for Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) of Israel, which is banned in 38 states in America and has been condemned by University of Michigan officials and labeled antisemitic. I know expertise doesn’t matter to many officials, but the Boycott, Divestment and Sanction movement has been endorsed by the membership of the Middle East Studies Association, and American Studies Association, as well as the American Anthropological Association. (One could argue that the government and higher ed wouldn’t be having this meltdown if the tide hadn’t begun to change.) For me, years of study, discussion, and teaching on nonviolent action have led to the conclusion that BDS is the last best hope of ending the cycles of the violence. This is not a distant issue for me. I have been to and met people in Rafah, Khan Yunis, Ramallah, Nablus, Jenin, Jerusalem, Hebron, Akka, Haifa, Jericho, Kiryat Shmona, Ein Gedi, and beautiful Tiberias on the Galilee, where Mahmoud Khalil’s family originates. The lives of Jews and Palestinians are real to me, at the front of my mind, and matter equally. To elevate one racialized monolith over another, as President Ono and other univ-presidents have, takes a page from the tired playbook of white supremacy. In America, we elevate one “model minority” (read: Asians) over others (read: Indigenous, Black or Hispanic), pitting one group against another, to the benefit of no group long term. The tactic relies on the same racial replacement logic that made land theft possible in the US, Canada, Australia, Rhodesia, South Africa, and in 1948 belatedly Israel. Moreover, I have family in Egypt, some of them Palestinian refugees displaced by Israeli violence in 1948 and 1967. This is not distant to me. 

 

I spent my childhood and many years of study in the Middle East and continue to visit. Beyond Israel/Palestine, the US and Israel with their military might have made it right to displace and kill millions in Iraq, Lebanon, Libya, Yemen, Somalia, Sudan, Syria, Gaza, the West Bank, bankrupting themselves in the process. Now Netanyahu wants Trump to wage a war on Iran. BDS is the last best hope for preventing the “necropolitics” of a lawless joint venture from transforming the Middle East into a “deathworld” (Achille Mbembe’s terms). And who can stop this train? I really don’t know for sure. But we’re running out of viable protest options thanks to clamp downs. BDS follows in the Gandhian tradition of successful nonviolence, which brought lawless systems — the British Empire, Jim Crow, Red Lining, and Apartheid — to heel.

 

Don’t take my word for it. BDS is too important to trust anyone. Give the subject 10 hours of serious study, and see for yourself what you come up with. 38 US states have banned boycotts specifically of Israel and a federal anti-BDS bill is in the works, yet most Americans don’t know what BDS is.

 

The University of Michigan Academic Freedom Network was established in 2018 in the context of a clamp down at the University of Michigan against BDS. University of Michigan officials at the time, from the interim dean to the president, heaped unconscionable penalties and slander on a colleague who like me thought that BDS could work. He, like me, thought that this bloodless measure might one day actually end  the cycles of violence destroying countless lives, and plunging a region into endless chaos led by two unchecked nuclear-powers. That listserv will continue to support academic freedom broadly, as I have every confidence that the University of Michigan and other universities are not done punishing violations of speech taboos that shield Israel from accountability.