We call on our peers in the community to stand firmly on the side of the Palestinian liberation struggle, as part of the struggles of the people of the world against imperialism.
We must ask: Why is the persecution of the Palestinians and the colonial violence of the Zionists not a greater concern at The New School, a nominally “progressive” and “anti-racist” institution? Is there any reason why students should not be mobilized in broad numbers for the Palestinian struggle as they were in the past to oppose the Vietnam war and apartheid South Africa?
Do students know that Israeli forces and settlers killed 150 Palestinians in the West Bank and East Jerusalem in 2022, making it the deadliest year since 2004? That in this year alone they have killed over 20 Palestinian children, and counting?
More and more people in the US recognize that Israel is on the wrong side of history. The time has long since come for US students to learn about the role that Israel has played for more than half a century as a strategic outpost of US imperialism in the region and to add ourselves to the voices of refusal.
As Israeli forces continue to commit their crimes and provocations against Palestinians in the latest conflagration, Zionist groups in the sphere of education continue to spread an ideological smokescreen for their state project. They equate Israel’s description as an apartheid state with a “smear,” and they label criticism of the brutal Zionist regime as “anti-Semitic.”
This smokescreen is laughable today, given Israel’s open addition of itself to the illustrious club of theocratic regimes with the 2018 “Jewish nation-state bill” and Netanyahu’s return to power in late December 2022 with a racist far-right coalition. Against the Zionist demagoguery—stirred up by arch-reactionaries such as the leading supporter of Trump and DeSantis on the New York City Council—we are decisively resolved that anti-Zionism has absolutely nothing to do with anti-Semitism. A consistent stance for internationalism and democratic rights must be in accord with this basic truth.
We stand in solidarity with the Palestinian people in their resistance against Israeli crimes. We support the call to liberate the Palestinians’ land. We also stand in solidarity with the struggle of anti-Zionist Jewish students.
In a little more than a decade, struggles of the oppressed classes and nations have shaken all of the established powers of the region. In these struggles, which include the Palestinian liberation struggle and the new phase it entered in 2021, one can begin to make out the outlines of a liberated Palestine and much more.
We call upon the students, faculty, alumni, and staff of The New School to inform themselves on the struggle of the Palestinian people against Zionism, and the Palestinians’ right to self-determination.
We invite those in The New School community who agree with this message to join us in standing for Palestine.
May Day Student Organization 