SftP Canada in solidarity with campus encampments
Science for the People (SftP) Canada stands with student-led encampments for Gaza that have arisen across Turtle Island (North America) and around the world. We condemn the militarization of campuses and the accompanying police violence against protesters, the defamation of student organizers by university administrators and politicians, and the violent attacks on students by Zionist vigilante groups.
Students with a passion for science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) are refusing to work in the service of occupation, apartheid, and genocide. Futures of AI are experimentally tested in occupied Palestine; legacies of racial science live on in eugenicist anti-Palestinian slurs; technological research assumes the inevitability of capitalist domination of the globe. But a generation of students dreams of an anti-imperialist science. We owe them the work of dismantling the histories that link militarism, scientific progress, racial science, and settler colonialism. We must reimagine STEM for liberation.
Our universities all express their commitment to “reconciliation” with the Indigenous peoples of Turtle Island. Yet, these same universities not only suppress their role in the genocide of the Indigenous inhabitants of the lands upon which they are built, but, through their financial and academic support of the Zionist occupation, are also actively complicit in the ethnic cleansing of the Indigenous Palestinian people. The struggle for Palestine is entwined with the struggle for the liberation of the Indigenous nations of Turtle Island.
Universities in North America have a responsibility to stand in solidarity with their peers in Gaza and cut their ties to illegal occupation, apartheid, and genocide. Since 2004, a coalition of Palestinian civil society groups and unions, including the Palestinian Federation of Unions of University Professors and Employees, has been calling for a cultural and academic boycott of Israel, and it is long past time for higher education institutions in North America to heed that call.
We unite in support of students’ demands on universities:
- to disclose investments in Israel’s ongoing violations of international law
- to divest from companies and institutions complicit in the occupation, apartheid, and genocide of Palestinians
- to remove police from university campuses
- to call for an immediate and permanent ceasefire and an end to the occupation and genocide in Palestine
- to endorse academic boycotts of Israeli universities, including study abroad programs, fellowships, seminars, and research collaborations.
Most importantly, SftP Canada unites with the call for an immediate and permanent ceasefire and an end to the occupation and genocide in Palestine.
UCSC Physicists Reject UC Complicity with Genocide of Palestine
In the past 75 years, the colonization and occupation of Palestine has claimed the lives of tens of thousands of Palestinians. Before October 7th, 217 Palestinians had already been killed in the year 2023 alone.[1] Additionally, Gaza has been under a complete blockade -by land, sea and air- for the past 16 years by the Israeli military.[2] This violence has reached a new level of depravity in the last five months. There have been well over 30,000 Palestinian deaths since October 7th; 92% of these deaths are civilians, with nearly half of these civilians being children.[3] Over 50% of all buildings in the Gaza Strip have been destroyed, including hospitals, schools, mosques, churches and essential infrastructure for human existence, such as electricity and water.[4,5] In the West Bank, outside of Gaza, an additional 413 people have been killed since October 7th, 107 of whom were children. Countless more have been injured or detained indefinitely, often without charge.[6] Furthermore, 853 West Bank citizens have been made homeless by demolitions. As we were writing this document, Israel approved 3476 more houses for illegal Israeli settlements in the West Bank.[7] As this unspeakable violence continues to claim more Palestinian life every hour, the Palestinian General Federation of Trade Unions has called “on [their] counterparts internationally and all people of conscience to end all forms of complicity with Israel’s crimes – most urgently halting the arms trade with Israel, as well as all funding and military research,” further emphasizing that “this urgent, genocidal situation can only be prevented by a mass increase of global solidarity with the people of Palestine and that can restrain the Israeli war machine.”[8]
We, the academic workers of the UC Santa Cruz Physics Department, commit to honoring this request of solidarity by:
- Withholding academic labor benefiting militarism.
- Refusing research collaboration with federal military institutions as well as private arms and defense companies.
- Calling upon faculty and PIs in our department to disclose funding sources, resist suppression of political speech, and support their students in divesting their labor in the pursuit of ethical research.
The United States is Israel’s foremost benefactor. It has provided a cumulative $158 billion (non-inflation adjusted) in bilateral aid to Israel, 86% of which finances a sixth of the Israeli military budget, providing the military infrastructure used to carry out this genocide.[9] The University of California received $295 million in funding from the Department of Defense in 2022 alone, with UCSC receiving $10.5 million dollars to support research to make violence on this scale possible and efficient for the perpetrators.[10,11]
Additionally, demilitarization is a climate crisis necessity. The United States military produces more emissions than entire industrialized countries.[12] There is no teaching or learning on an uninhabitable planet.
For these reasons, demilitarizing our department and school is an ethical priority for graduate researchers and the faculty alike. Beyond our own department and in solidarity with the Palestinian General Federation of Trade Unions, we call on University of California graduate researchers and faculty to:
- At minimum, disclose all sources of funding that support your research and students. Support students who wish to divest their intellectual labor in pursuit of “ethical science.”
- Fight to withhold your research and patents from military applications. Campaign your institutions to reclaim ownership of your intellectual property and its applications.
- Disclose and critically consider collaborations with any Israeli companies, NGOs and academic institutions that have shown themselves to be complicit in the genocide. Support of the military action, economic strangling, and colonization of Palestine, even without active contribution, are some examples of such complicity.
- Make your anti-genocide position clear to Israeli collaborators, share information on the actions of the military and human rights violations, and open discourse on what can be done from within an Israeli university to take action. Academic institutions have long been bastions of free speech and revolutionary thought, and so have acted as natural homes for the fight against oppression and tyranny. Encourage the condemnation of the Palestinian genocide by Israeli citizens, especially respected public figures like professors.
- Critically evaluate the appeal of your work to military applications. For example, plenty of astrophysics of star formation and evolution, as well as fusion energy research informs nuclear weapons testing and development.[13] Lasers are integral to guided munitions as well as plenty of other military purposes. As the ones performing this research we have a unique responsibility in understanding the possible consequences of our work and advocating for our work to not be used to these ends.
- Spread these actions beyond our department and into your own.
In solidarity,
As faculty in the physics department we commit to supporting our graduate students and postdocs in their goals as outlined above:
UCSC Astronomers Reject Researchers’ Complicity with the Genocide of Palestine
This letter is written 100 days and 75 years since the beginning of the Israeli state’s genocide and ethnic cleansing of occupied Palestine. After 57 years of colonization of Palestinian land in the West bank; after 16 years of siege on the Gaza strip; after Palestinians have been subjugated under a dehumanizing apartheid state on their own ancestral lands,[1] we now watch with horror as the Israeli government (hereafter referred to as “Israel”) accelerates its project of genocide under an international spotlight. Since renewed Israeli aggression on October 7 2023, at least 31,497 Palestinians have been killed – 92% of whom are civilians, and nearly half of whom are children.[2] This is a staggering number – compare this to the infamously deadly Syrian Civil War, with a 25-38% civilian casualty rate.[3]
As internationally banned white phosphorus bombs rained down on Gaza,4 a call to action came from the Palestinian General Federation of Trade Unions to end our complicity with the slaughter:
“Palestinian trade unions call on our counterparts internationally and all people of conscience to end all forms of complicity with Israel’s crimes – most urgently halting the arms trade with Israel, as well as all funding and military research. […] This urgent, genocidal situation can only be prevented by a mass increase of global solidarity with the people of Palestine and that can restrain the Israeli war machine.” [5]
As people of conscience who love life and wish to see it protected, as astrophysicists who keenly understand just how precious and lonely life is in the vast universe, and as researchers who are made complicit in Israel’s war crimes by our university’s investments and research products, we can no longer in good faith engage in academic research that enables the murder and subjugation of our siblings around the globe.
We, academic workers of the UC Santa Cruz Department of Astronomy and Astrophysics, commit to demilitarizing our research by:
(1) withholding academic labor benefiting militarism;
(2) refusing research collaboration with federal military institutions as well as private arms and defense companies;
(3) calling upon faculty and PIs within our department to disclose funding sources, resist suppression of political speech, and support their students in divesting their labor in the pursuit of ethical research.
The United States military is Israel’s greatest supporter. Without the U.S., Israel’s military infrastructure, which is actively being used for the mass slaughter of civilians in the West Bank, Gaza, and targets outside occupied Palestine, would crumble. To date, the U.S. has sent $158 billion (non-inflation adjusted) in bilateral aid, 86% of which flows into the Israeli military – the U.S. is single-handedly bankrolling one sixth of Israel’s military budget.[6]
Our University of California holds an ugly place in this ecosystem of blood money. UC has received $295 million in research funding from the Department of Defense in FY 2022 alone.[7]** UC Santa Cruz alone received $10.5 million in FY 2022.[8] In return, the products of our research lubricate the churning gears of the war machine.
Technology that astronomers have developed for science is being misused to surveil and target people both within and outside the U.S. While astronomers prefer to look up, airborne and satellite military surveillance look down, using many of the same optics, image processing techniques, and controls used by astronomical satellites and developed by astronomers. Hyperspectral imagers (known as integral field spectrographs to us) were first developed by astronomers[9] and have been workhorses for our field since – but they are also used for identifying and surveilling targets[10] (and proposed for use in facial recognition[11]). Adaptive optics, independently invented by military and civilian astronomers, can de-blur images taken through the Earth’s atmosphere, allowing ever more precise surveillance[12] – which curtails the freedom of everyone, from civilian protesters[13] to occupied Palestinians.[14]
Beyond astronomy, the UCSC Applied Mathematics department received a 5-year $170,000 grant for “Mathematical Analysis Of Human Response To Millimeter Wave Heating.” The nightmarish weapon using this heating effect already exists and is in use by the U.S. Military – the Active Denial System (ADS) is a millimeter wave ranged weapon that causes heating and intolerable pain in its target, and has been proposed for use in both active combat and controlling protesters.[15]
UC’s continuing unwillingness to divest from Israel[16] as it commits genocide under an international spotlight demonstrates that, unlike us, they are not bothered by the suffering that our research actively propagates.
Demilitarizing education is an ethical priority: our research enables the surveillance and slaughter of our Palestinian, Iraqi, Afghani, and Syrian siblings with ever-greater efficiency. Further, demilitarizing education is a climate crisis priority: the U.S. military’s emissions are greater than those of entire industrialized countries,[17] and there is no teaching and learning on a dead planet. Universities must put their monetary and intellectual resources towards building a world where war is not necessary, not stoking the flames of rabid militarism.
We call on the University of California to divest its money from apartheid, genocide, and militarism. Cut the flow of money and intellectual property from UC’s coffers into those of the US military, defense companies, and the apartheid state of Israel.
We call on UC faculty to divest their research from apartheid, genocide, and militarism.
- At minimum, disclose all sources of funding that support your research and students. Support students who wish to divest their intellectual labor in pursuit of ethical science.
- Fight to withhold your research and patents from military applications. Campaign your institutions to reclaim ownership of your intellectual property and its applications – it’s your research, you deserve to control its use.
- Disclose and critically consider your collaborations with Israeli universities. Isolating individual researchers is unacceptable punishment that conflates an individual with their institution; however, universities are institutions that launder money, intellectual property, and prestige for the countries in which they are based. Academic collaboration is tacit approval of these institutions’ complicity, theft, and violence.
We call on all academic workers everywhere – graduate students, postdocs, lecturers, faculty – to divest their labor from apartheid, genocide, and militarism.
- Think critically about why the fruits of your labor are enticing to military funders, and work to prevent your beautiful science from being used for inhumane purposes.
- Spread these actions beyond our own department and into yours. Here is our Action Packet to help you get started!
Solidarity forever. Within our lifetimes, Palestine will be free.
Isabel Kain, graduate student worker, UAW 2865
Malik Bossett, graduate student worker, UAW 2865
Douglas dos Santos Grion Filho, graduate student worker, UAW 2865
Tenley Hutchinson-Smith, graduate student worker, UAW 2865
Anonymous Graduate Student, UAW 2865
Anonymous Graduate Student, UAW 2865
Kyle Davis, Graduate Student Worker, UAW 2865
Nicholas Scarsdale, graduate student worker, UAW 2865
Alexandra Mannings, graduate student worker, UAW 2865
Deno Stelter, Assistant Project Scientist, UAW 5810
Tyler Gordon, Postdoctoral Fellow, UAW 5810
Madelyn Broome, graduate student worker, UAW 2865
Anonymous Graduate Student Worker, UAW 2865
Sierra Dodd, graduate student worker, UAW 2865
Anonymous Graduate Student Worker, UAW 2865
Mikayla Wilson, Graduate Student Worker
Kendall Sullivan, Postdoctoral Scholar, UAW 5810
Maissa Salama, Postdoctoral Scholar, UAW 5810
Anonymous Graduate Student, UAW 2865
Anonymous Postdoctoral Scholar, UAW 5810
Anonymous Graduate Student, UAW 2865
Diego Garza, Graduate Student Worker, UAW 2865
Sven Heydenreich, Postdoctoral Scholar, UAW 5810
Anne Dattilo, graduate student worker, UAW 2865
Pedro Jesus Quiñonez, graduate student worker, UAW 2865
Prasiddha Arunachalam
Jules Fowler, graduate student worker, UAW 2865
Anonymous Graduate Student, UAW 2865
Anonymous Faculty Member
Anonymous Faculty Member
Anonymous Staff Member
Anonymous Postdoctoral Scholar, UAW 5810
**Corrigendum:
• In the original letter, we stated: “UC has received $25.86 billion in research funding from the Department of Defense in FY 2023 alone.[7]” This has now been corrected to “$295 million in research funding from the Department of Defense in FY 2022 alone” and the link to reference [7] updated.
Notes from Palestine organizing 11.22
Just wanted to send a quick update before the Thanksgiving holiday (in the US), which, of course, is a twisted concept under the framework of settler-colonization. On this note:
Events:
- Nov 25 (Saturday 1pm ET): “Science under Occupation” hybrid teach-in/forum hosted by SftP Montreal, joined by Palestinian medical trainees in Cuba.
- Nov 27: No Tech for Apartheid’s online panel.
- Nov 29–Dec 5 is “Read Palestine Week.” SftP magazine has joined with >300 publications on a solidarity statement. Please see the list of all articles on Palestine we published in the past. We encourage everyone to read, discuss among you, and help advertise them (hashtags #ReadPalestine, #LirelaPalestine and #اقرأ_فلسطين)
Info:
- We are collecting and updating testimonials from scientists in occupied Palestine, and working toward providing material support.
- We are building a coalition with Just Mathematics Collective and Particle for Palestine (please sign-on their respective statements) to expand our current organizing activities.
- More letters to sign from the “Responsible AI Community”
- A survey of cultural institutions and their political stance. *We are trying to expand on this by focusing on academic institutions and labor unions* Please sign up to join our organizing teams.
For those who get some time off from work, it’s a great opportunity to bring your whole family to your local protests!
Palestinian Scientists Speak
Thank you very much for reaching out. The situation is horrid. Birzeit went online right away but it is limping along and the students are refusing to attend online classes. I wish they would attend online classes. It is not safe for them to travel to campus due to the safety on the roads leading to campus. We are unsure if the universities will be able to pay salaries in coming months.
My research on biodiversity is greatly restricted, yet I continue to make collections and conduct research on native plant propagation and restoration.
At this current stage my field research and collection work is too vulnerable to interference to be made public, but I do appreciate your assistance.
Perhaps we could discuss ways in providing research support to faculty at Palestinian universities who are attempting to carry out research, with small grants, research assistance, server/cloud donations, software, equipment, etc.
Thank you,
—O (Birzeit University)
—
Thank you for giving me an opportunity to say what is happening to us right now. In fact [the atrocity] started years ago when we were occupied and forcibly removed from our homes and land in Palestine. From that time till now we are suffering all horrible ethnic cleansing and mistreatment.
I don’t know if the world forgets that we are under occupation and blindly took all the Israeli media that “we are terrorists and want to kill them,” or that they know that we are so oppressed. Either way, I don’t know why they never move to help us.
We just want to live in peace and have our freedom like any other people in the world.
Here, we don’t have rights to move freely. Any moment they will stop you and tell you to “go back.” Where? I don’t know. “Just go back.” That’s all. Here, the soldiers have full rights to kill any Palestinian and at the end they will tell you that we threaten them. Settlers with the help of the army are terrorising Palestinian civilians and killed many poor civilian Palestinians. Israelis have full access to roads built in Palestine area A,B, or C. But we don’t.
We are living in concentrated camps waiting to be killed. Here you have gates at every village. They will close it whenever they want. In some villages they close the gate after 6 pm and open it for a specific period of time. Like a jail. It is a military occupation running for 75 years.
Every day when I go to work I kiss my kids because I don’t know if I would come back. Just why?
The problem is that the majority of Israeli were taught that we are animals and should be killed. They don’t want to give us our basic needs of life. They want to suffocate us and force us to leave. They do it slowly and systematically so the world can’t see. They build settlements in all hilltops and for us we are not allowed to build at all in area C. Where to go? It is my home here; I was born here; I will die here.
For doing research, we don’t have access to many chemicals and equipments. Yes, many chemicals are being refused, me personally, 2,4-D, a plant hormone is refused.
Gaza is a concentration camp, controlled by sea , land and air. There are 2.2 million peoples in 360 square km.
No clean water, no jobs , no hopes. What to do? Fight back. That’s what they did. They know that this will cost them a lot. But in any case, they are being killed solely in this open prison. What the Israelis are doing is killing children and women, terrorising Gazans so they will leave. Here, their plan is being carried out: kick them out to Sinai. This is not self defense.
No sir. They want Gaza because it has a huge gas revenue and the proposed route (alternative route) to transfer good from East to West that is to pass through Gaza. Americans know this; European know this; that’s why they are silent about the horrific killing of kids and women.
We are living under a brutal regime.
Regards,
—N (Tulkarm, West Bank)
—
Thank you for your kind solidarity and for being fully aware about what is happening here in Palestine.
I am a professor located in Nablus, West Bank. Despite being quite away of war in Gaza, we are in direct touch an effect of this war. Currently we are facing a full closure in the West Bank which made us living in total isolated cities. Moreover we are experiencing daily military invasions from the Israeli army which made us unable to pursue the academic semester and convert to virtual teaching. In addition to these challenging circumstances we are experiencing the following issues:
1. There is a massive anger towards the Western governments as we now believe that human rights are just private tools for the benefit of white people. The students as well as professors are not being able to exercise their daily routine because of the horrifying news coming from Gaza as well as the current conflict in the West Bank. We simply believe that we are the next target. We believe that is war is not against armed resistance, but also against any civilized existence of Palestinians including hospitals, economy, universities and history.
2. We start believing that the racism in the West turns from individual behavior to a national policy, especially when we see the official promotion of the fake posts and stories about what is happening in Gaza.
3. We feel, especially in the UK, that there is a “Black masking” of racism by putting all Black officials in the front.
4. We simply believe that the West’s colonization of the East is still existing, but instead of being directed by Western governments, they outsourced to Arab governments who are doing that.
5. In simple words, all Palestinians now are supporting war-based solutions as we now believe that the Israeli and the Western governments will only appreciate peace when they only feel war.
Please stay in solidarity and let the people know that all what we need is be treated as humans.
Kind regards,
—T (Nablus, West Bank)
Notes from Palestine Organizing 11.14
It’s been 38 days of genocide, with no end in sight. Millions of people marching, agitating, and calling for a ceasefire are signs for hope, but class war is a protracted war, and there is much more to be done.
- Join our organizing teams by filling out this form: https://forms.gle/
2NcMzQ6K38AjcVxH6 - All SftPers should follow PACBI and join the academic and cultural boycott of Israel both as individuals and as members of your institution (see USACBI) or unions (see Labor 4 Palestine). Please get in touch with us if you’re unsure how to push your institution/union to take a firm stance against genocide.
- SftP Montreal–Canada will be hosting a forum on November 25 (and see flyer attached) to discuss science and healthcare in Palestine and Cuba. We will be joined by Palestinian medical students from Cuba’s Latin American School of Medicine (ELAM). Please attend and show solidarity.
- SftP magazine will be soliciting articles and onboarding editors for a new Science & Palestine issue. Please read our statement and pitch your article ideas.
Here are other sign-on letters, campaigns, and organizing events from our coalition partners:
- American Medical Association (AMA), a well-known reactionary political entity, unsurprisingly voted against a ceasefire. If you work in healthcare—espeically in light of Israel Occupation Forces attacking hospitals as its military objective—please sign see this open letter.
- UAW Region 9A’s call for ceasefire.
- Just Mathematics Collective (JMC) has joined USACBI. If you work in mathematics, consider joining JMC’s campaign.
- Breakthrough Science Society India is circulating a sign-on letter. They are also organizing an “International Convention Against War and Destructive Use of Science” of which SftP will play a part. Please reach out if you’d like to help with this.
Other resources:
- Free artwork pack courtesy of Artists Against Apartheid
Notes from Palestine Organizing 11.3
It’s been 27 days since the slow genocide perpetrated by Zionists accelerated into a full-on massacre. The contradictions inherent to this unjust system in which we live are brought to the fore for many to see. The responses to the atrocities of those in power vis-a-vis those of ordinary people in the streets are but only one salient example. SftP has not only made a clear stance but also begun mobilizing. While we’re still in the early phase of coordinating, below we’d like to share a few resources, calls to action, and related events in the coming days:
- Most important, if you’d like to help out with Palestine solidarity action, please use this form to join: https://forms.gle/
2NcMzQ6K38AjcVxH6 - SftP fully endorses academic and cultural boycott of Israel, and encourages all subgroups and members to follow PACBI
- Many East coast SftPers will attend the Nov 4 March in DC. If you are there, feel free to reach out and get connected.
Here are also some other items initiated by our partner orgs. Please consider responding/attending in solidarity:
- Heathcare Workers for Palestine petition and event. For more on healthcare in Palestine, it’s also worth checking out the health blog from Jewish Voice for Peace
- People’s Coalition on Food Sovereignty sign-on in solidarity with Gaza
- No Tech for Apartheid and Tech Workers Coalition’s joint media campaign
- Rank-and-file UAW members sign-on letter to UAW International to issue a statement in support of Palestine. This is of our particular interest for STEM labor agitation.
- Letter to HHMI (parent company of the journal eLife) regarding its recent Zionist-enabled firing of its chief editor
- A teach-in about the complicity of science in genocide organized by a few planetary scientists in our network
- Comprehensive analysis of current events from Palestinian perspectives (by the publication Electronic Intifada).
Elsewhere in SftP:
- Climate change teach-in on Nov 11 in NYC+live stream
- “Science under Occupation” teach-in on November 25 in Montreal+live stream (detail and link TBD)
Lastly, please consult this calendar, be in the streets, be with the mass, and protest.
La lucha palestina es nuestra lucha: Declaración de SftP
Mientras lamentamos las vidas perdidas debido al recrudecimiento de la violencia contra Palestina y sus gentes nos preguntamos en profundidad, ¿por qué está pasando lo que está pasando en Gaza?
El Ministro de Seguridad Nacional de Israel, un ultranacionalista instigador de la violencia condenado ocho veces, incluso por cargos de disturbios y apoyo a una organización terrorista, a quien en su día se prohibió servir en el ejército israelí, está al mando de su aparato de seguridad.
El Ministro de Finanzas de Israel declaró su intención de “ser cruel”, habló de los palestinos como “animales humanos” y estableció el plan para privar a Gaza de alimentos, combustible y agua.
Gaza, hogar de dos millones de personas, la mitad de ellas niñas y niños, y que desde 2007 es una prisión al aire libre sitiada por el Estado israelí de extrema derecha, está ahora mismo bajo bombardeos aéreos incesantes que exponen a la gente y al medio ambiente a sustancias químicas tóxicas como el fósforo blanco.
El Primer Ministro de Israel dejó claro el objetivo de su gobierno de evacuar a 1,1 millones de palestinos en el norte de Gaza, lo que, según él, es “sólo el comienzo”. Se trata de una masacre y limpieza étnica premeditadas.
Los gobiernos de Estados Unidos, Reino Unido, Francia, Italia y Alemania rápidamente prometieron su “apoyo firme y unido” a Israel, cuyos líderes ahora están ayudando y apoyando este genocidio.
Esta injusticia histórica no ha ocurrido de forma aislada. Es la culminación de un proyecto sionista de un siglo de duración facilitado por la clase capitalista en todo el Norte Global a través de la máquina de guerra militar-industrial que se beneficia de la desposesión y destrucción de la tierra palestina. A través de los principales medios de comunicación que se alimentan de la deshumanización del pueblo palestino, borrando su historia y convirtiendo los sentimientos de humanidad en pretextos para la barbarie. A través del desarrollo tecnocientífico (del que todo el aparato científico-tecnológico es cómplice y nosotros y nosotras como trabajadores del mismo, también), financiado y canalizado para reforzar el aparato de apartheid de Israel. Y a través de la hipocresía del mundo académico occidental, que, a pesar de todos sus valores profesados de “antirracismo” y “descolonización”, continúa aceptando y legitimando la colonización.
Por lo tanto, es nuestro deber como miembros de Ciencia para el Pueblo –una organización nacida de la lucha contra las atrocidades estadounidenses en Vietnam, con predecesores que lucharon contra el apartheid en Sudáfrica, contra los regímenes fascistas en toda América Latina y, sobre todo, contra el imperialismo estadounidense– tomar medidas concretas en este terrible momento y plantar las semillas del cambio revolucionario.
1) Como científicos y científicas, debemos educarnos con análisis profundos y exhaustivos de la historia, las circunstancias y las estructuras. La lucha contra la colonización siempre ha sido librada por personas de todas las etnias y religiones, y al sionismo históricamente se han opuesto líderes, científicos y activistas judíos de izquierda. Nos solidarizamos inequívocamente con el pueblo palestino y condenamos los más de setenta y cinco años de crímenes sionistas que han desembocado en este genocidio.
2) Como trabajadores y trabajadoras dentro del complejo académico-industrial, los productos de nuestro trabajo son subsumidos por fuerzas sistémicas y utilizados para la guerra, lo que nos impulsa a reflexionar sobre nosotros mismos y las instituciones para las que trabajamos. ¿Cuánta financiación ha recibido nuestra institución de fundaciones con objetivos explícitamente sionistas? ¿Se relaciona esto con la insensibilidad hacia estudiantes palestinos que recientemente se han manifestado en sus instituciones universitarias sobre los acontecimientos que se desarrollan en Gaza? ¿Qué técnicas, ideología o ambas simultáneamente (como en el intento de biologización de la raza judía) se han desarrollado en cualquier campo de estudio, bajo las limitaciones impuestas por nuestro propio sistema colonial, para mantener el status quo? ¿Cómo han sostenido el Estado israelí y sus aliados occidentales la noción de “progreso” en nombre de la ciencia para enmascarar el retroceso de su colonialidad? Este momento revela la urgente necesidad y oportunidad de lograr un mayor nivel de conciencia política entre científicas y científicos. Debemos acelerar este proceso.
3) Como activistas y promotores de actividades sociales, la reflexión sobre nuestra complicidad apenas alcanza el mínimo requerido. ¿Qué podemos hacer como organización para apoyar materialmente la causa palestina? ¿Qué podemos aportar a los y las compañeras en primera línea que están resistiendo los abusos racistas y orientalistas? ¿Cómo podemos resistir la apropiación de la ciencia y la tecnología por parte de los colonizadores? Dentro del mundo académico, somos testigos de cómo se ahogan las voces pro Palestina y de que aquellas personas que se atreven a hablar contra el genocidio son procesadas, despedidas o silenciadas en beneficio de los intereses políticos y económicos del Estado de apartheid israelí y de las corporaciones transnacionales que se benefician de la ocupación. ¿Cómo conectamos nuestra propia lucha de clases contra el complejo académico-industrial con la defensa local de los derechos palestinos y los movimientos de liberación global? Existe una necesidad urgente y una oportunidad de educar, movilizar, organizar y proteger a quienes dicen la verdad, de luchar contra el sionismo y de desarrollar la militancia sindical e internacionalista entre las clases oprimidas.
La lucha palestina es nuestra lucha. La ciencia insurgente exige de sus practicantes claridad de pensamiento y coraje para actuar. SftP hace un llamamiento a todos los miembros y simpatizantes a buscar colectivamente estrategias concretas hacia la liberación de Palestina.
Palestine is Our Struggle: SftP Statement
En Español | يمكنك قرائة هذا البيان بالعربية هنا
As all of us mourn the lives lost to the latest upsurge of violence, how do we appropriately understand what has been happening in the past few days in Gaza?
Israel’s National Security Minister, an ultra-nationalist instigator of violence convicted eight times including on charges of rioting and supporting a terrorist organization, once prohibited from serving in the Israeli military, is now in command of its security apparatus.
Israel’s Finance Minister declared the intent “to be cruel,” spoke of Palestinians as “human animals,” and enunciated the plan to deprive Gaza of food, fuel, and water.
Gaza, an open-air prison under siege by the extreme-right Israeli state since 2007, home to two million people, half of them children, is now under nonstop aerial bombardment that exposes the people and environment to toxic chemicals like white phosphorus.
Israel’s Prime Minister made clear its government’s aim of emptying out 1.1 million Palestinians in northern Gaza, which he claims is “only the beginning.”
This is a premeditated massacre and cleansing of an Indigenous population.
The governments of the United States, United Kingdom, France, Italy, and Germany all quickly pledged their “steadfast and united support” of Israel, whose leaders are now stepping up their implementation of genocide.
Such historic injustice has not occurred in isolation. It is the culmination of a century-long Zionist project facilitated by the capitalist class across the Global North: through the military-industrial war machine that profits from dispossession and destruction of Palestinian land; through the mainstream media that feed off dehumanizing the Palestinian people, erasing their history, and turning sentiments of humanity into pretexts for barbarity; through technoscientific development—which we as scientists and engineers are complicit in—funded by and funneled into bolstering the apartheid apparatus of Israel; as well as through the hypocrisy of Western academia, which, for all its professed values of “anti-racism” and “decolonization,” continues to acquiesce to settler-colonialism.
It is therefore our duty as members of Science for the People—an organization born out of the struggle against US atrocities in Vietnam, with predecessors who fought against apartheid South Africa, fascist regimes across Latin America, and above all, US imperialism—to take concrete steps in this dark moment and plant the seeds of revolutionary change.
1) As scientists, we must inform our politics through deep and thorough analyses of history, circumstances, and structures. The struggle against colonization has always been fought by people of all ethnicities and religions, and Zionism has historically been opposed by left-wing Jewish leaders, scientists, and activists. We stand unequivocally in solidarity with the Palestinian people and condemn the seventy-five plus years of Zionist crimes that led to this genocide.
2) As workers within the academic-industrial complex, the products of our labor are subsumed by systemic forces and co-opted for war, which prompts us to reflect on ourselves and the institutions we work for. How much funding has an institution received from foundations with explicitly Zionist aims, and does this correlate with the callousness toward Palestinian students in recent university statements on the events unfolding in Gaza? What techniques, ideology, or both concurrently (as in the attempted biologization of the Jewish race) have been developed in any given field of study, under constraints set by our own settler-colonial system, to uphold the status quo? How has the notion of “progress” in the name of science been propped up by the Israeli state and its Western allies to mask the retrogression of their coloniality? This moment reveals the urgent need and opportunity to achieve a higher level of political consciousness among scientists. We must accelerate this process.
3) As activists and organizers, reflection on our complicity barely reaches the minimum of what’s required. What can we do as an organization to materially support the Palestinian cause? What can we contribute to our coalition partners at the frontline that are weathering racist and Orientalist abuses? How to resist the appropriation of science and technology by the colonizers? Within academia, we witness pro-Palestine voices being drowned out and those that dare speak out against genocide being prosecuted, fired, or silenced at the behest of political and economic interests of the Israeli apartheid state and transnational corporations that profit from the Occupation. How do we connect our own class struggle against the academic-industrial complex with local advocacy for Palestinian rights and the global liberation movements? There is an urgent need and opportunity to educate, agitate, organize, protect those who speak the truth, push back against Zionism, build labor militancy and internationalism among oppressed classes.
The Palestinian struggle is our struggle. Radical science demands of its practitioners clarity of thought and courage for action. SftP calls on all members and supporters to collectively pursue concrete strategies toward the liberation of Palestine.