It has been more than 200 days since Oct. 7. Since then, at least 34,000 Palestinians have been killed at the hands of the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF), more than half of whom are women and children.
Most residential buildings, commercial facilities and school buildings are ruined. Nowhere in Gaza is safe, including United Nations buildings, hospitals, refugee camps and previously designated “safe spaces.” The United Nations says, “The scale and speed of death and destruction in Gaza are unparalleled. Some 1.7 million people are displaced, communities obliterated, homes demolished, entire families and generations wiped out.”
The International Court of Justice agrees genocide is present in the Gaza Strip. Why won’t the University of New Haven acknowledge this fact?
In 2022, former University President Steven Kaplan swiftly condemned the Russian invasion of Ukraine, describing it as “an attack on democracy.” In response to the escalation, the University of New Haven held a rally, enrolled a Ukrainian student whose education was impacted by the conflict and promised to stand with the people of Ukraine.
Where is this level of support for Palestinians? Instead, our university hides behind the façade of “neutrality” and chooses to stay silent and refuses to acknowledge the systemic erasure of Palestinians.
Our university must take inventory of how it wishes to be remembered. This university is not neutral. It is entirely complicit in the genocide of Palestinians. In the early 1990s, our university had plans to build a campus branch in the occupied West Bank to serve primarily commuter Israelis, which failed to respect the territorial rights of Palestine.
It has continued this legacy of complicity through contracts with Sodexo, Pepsi, Sabra and Starbucks, all known to own and operate businesses in Israel. On our Board of Governors, some belong to companies such as Albemarle which has close ties with the ICL Group, an Israeli organization known for creating white phosphorus that has been used against Palestinians, or Sikorsky, which sells military-grade aircraft to the IDF.
Our university’s idleness in issuing vocal support for Palestine is unconscionable and the enabling of Israeli apartheid through profitable economic deals with involved parties is abhorrent.
We demand three things: 1) that the University of New Haven acknowledges the genocide and scholasticide in Gaza and publicly supports and stands with Palestinians as it did with Ukrainians; 2) that the university cuts all ties with companies that profit from or otherwise support Israeli apartheid; and 3) that the university discloses a flat list of its domestic and foreign investments from its endowment. These steps are the least this university can do to support our Palestinian siblings as they suffer endlessly and needlessly.
A Free Palestine In Our Lifetime!
